/lit/ - Literature

srsly, is no one capable of making a thread except me? it's not rocket science. you clowns would be lost without me.

>>23413507
barbarian women are based and SHOULD be in all fantastical novels, poems, epics, etc. Without them the world would stop spinning and we would all be flung into the void.

>>23410056
>>23410069
Also consider "The Damage Done: Twelve Years Of Hell In A Bangkok Prison" by Warren Fellows. Utterly brutal.

>>23413512
Best to let the best man do it. Congrats on you, King.

I’m finalizing my novella (about 32k words). If I post it here for feedback will any of you read it? I can’t show it my family I think they will freak out.

>>23413507
How does one go about getting an AO3 account without waiting a week? Are any of you fine studs giving out invites?

>>23413560
Just wait in the queue it's not that long

>>23413568
6 days
Jeopardy theme

>>23413558
Congrats. I'm working on one too. I just hit 28k words but am trying to add a few more chapters. I have no idea how people bust out 100k+ and act like it's so easy. Curious how long it took you. I've been working on mine about 3 months.

>>23413587
It’s funny you say that because I’ve actually written to ~150,000 word novels, by using a strict 7,000 word/week writing target. They were both okay, but the first one especially is not something I would ever try to get published. It was a good learning experience though. I’m doing a novella this time because I feel like that’s the length which suits the story best.

I’ve been working on mine since the end of April, IIRC.

>reread paragraph.
>then
>then
>at some point
>upon
>after
>then
>but not before
AHHHHHH

>>23413587
I just put out a 100k word shitty fantasy rough draft in about a week. Most of it was my brain in autopilot. I'm no author, but I believe it's salvageable.
I did 3000 word chapters about every four hours for 16 hours the other day. Some days it's good, other days I didn't have any faith in my wordplay.

>>23413595
>>23413606
Kinda jealous. I stress out over every word and have to make sure each one is perfect before going on. I'll spend 4 hours just re-reading a 1500 word chapter and trying to fix the bits and pieces.
>did she smother the spaghetti in sauce, or drown it in sauce?
>30 minutes later
>still can't decide

>>23413611
Do you read your work aloud, or have an AI reader read it you? I think that helps a lot with word choice and sentence structure. Hearing your work flow at an organic pace can help round off the edges of a lot of your word choice autism (which is sympathize with).

>>23413614
I read parts aloud. Is there a free AI I can cut and paste it into that will read it for me? I never messed with one.

Third and final time posting this before hunkering down and reworking everything this weekend. Just wanted some last final critiques.

“Immeasurable. Absolute. Fortified. Yet maintains a saccharine and vibrant atmosphere?“ the Magnoid ponders.
“Would you consider this plausible?“ the windbreaker clad gentlemen asks.
“IM” snorts the magnoid.
“Your so called bachelor pad is 2.5 Kilometers along all axes, kept afloat by the strongest modern propulsors. Where would we land this to even begin our work? Is the size not enough of a deterrent for any would be criminals? There are too many variables to consider here, Vox.“
“Mighlin, Did you not receive a 45 million Vellat payment BEFORE THE MEETING? Do I seem like I enjoy lightening my accounts by one one thousandth out of pleasure? Do the job, doesn't matter how long it takes, solve those variables, and you'll receive the other 55 Million Vellai upon completion.“
“The attitude is unnecessary, place yourself in abeyance and I may consider contemplating where to begin.“
“Thats all I wanted to hear. One moment while I set up the gateway.“

Snapping his left middle finger and thumb, a swirl of ultramarine nothingness appears in front of him. Placing his right palm in the center of the swirl, a door seemingly made of frosted glass opens itself. Within it lies a seaside room, he takes one step in.
“Yo Migh, rough estimate?“
“Assuming I start any time soon, about 55 years.“

Vox pulls a small blue and white marblesque orb and tosses it towards Mighlin. A Chromium palm shoots towards the orb, catching it gently.
“Vox, just because you produce these things doesn't mean you should be reckless.“
“I appreciate your concern, Migh. Fortunately they do not shatter unless meant to. Now… shatter that one once you're done.“

Placing his other foot inside the doorway, the doors frame vibrates into an ultramarine swirl, returning to nothingness.

To A Crow

You look like a black angel on the carcass of a sundown world
The fingers of the pine reach down
The leaves alight in lunar curls
A scrutinizing streetlamp is the place you chose to perch and brood
The Maker sent me company; he knows we're in a somber mood

>>23413611
When you're on a flow, let the words flow. Come back later and fix it.

I woke up feeling the most refreshed. As if I had slept twelve hours but without the lethargy. A full night’s rest on a luxurious hotel room bed, and a fresh cup of coffee in the morning.
But there had been no coffee, and the bed is hard as a sack of buckwheat. I sat up, taking in the fresh morning air.
“The fog hasn’t moved on from the day previous.” The Abbot Garner said, standing in the corner of the room; looking out at the courtyard below.

This is the most recent sample of my autism. I'm writing a novel that is high fantasy, but slow burn.

>>23413619
Eleven Labs is the gold standard.

>write fanfic
>15k words in one week
>move to original novel that is literally the same genre and style
>1 paragraph a week
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

>Finally overcome writer's block
>It took me 13 months

I hate this

Does anyone have any tips for overcoming it faster next time?

>>23413624
oh god not you again

>>23413644
This is pretty sexy. It's already catching errors I overlooked, like typos and forgotten words. What's the most realistic voice? Preferably male. So far I like Bill's.

>>23413769
I said it was my last time posting this. Why are you annoyed?

>>23413766
Do stuff that interests you. Obsess over your story while you’re doing other things. You’ll come up with a few ideas at the grocery store. Maybe that’s just me.

>>23413775
Because I don't believe you.

>>23413804
I'll be posting again once I've taken the advice given to me and I have atleast 5 chapters. Dont know how long that will take though, as I overthink my writing only for it to still come out like shit.

went into a mental health crises for the 7 months. All the progress I had made gone. I can't even remember what I was planning to write. Can't remember the last time I read a book. I used to be on /lit/ like everyday for the last 7 or 8 years but after my mental health episode I stopped for a while. Now I'm back and trying to write it seems that the medication I'm taking is giving me writers block. Any fixes for this besides going off the meds

>>23413772
Fuck I'm already out of time. They only give you 10 minutes per month? How am I going to have it recite my entire book with that? I guess I'll just keep to the 500 character snippets. It's still pretty cool.

>>23413766
Right now I have around 5 potential stories in my head. 2 I've been iterating on for around 6 years now, 1 a few years, another I'm probably going to drop, another I just thought of the other week. When I get blocked on one I jump to another

>>23413826
Sorry to hear that, Frank.
I don't see how a mental heath crisis would destroy your progress, unless you violently destroyed your computer, or something. Reread your work in progress to get back on track, then prolly ditch the meds.

If I put my friends real name into my story as a cameo do I need his permission and can he sue me later over it? It'll just be a one off line for some throw away character mentioned on the news.

>>23413611
>>did she smother the spaghetti in sauce, or drown it in sauce?
Why use a 2nd hand adjective? Loads of people have used drowned or smothered about food stuff. You're second guessing yourself because you know you could do better.

>She put a bowl of tomato soup in front of me. I saw a noodle poke its head out gasping for breath. There may have been others.

>The brown sauce in the spaghetti used to be tomato. Now burnt. But there was plenty.

>I didn't need the fork for my spaghetti. The spoon was enough.

>>23413614
>or have an AI reader read it you
Try different accents. I've read a few books that lost their flow as the author would have pronounced a word vastly different to how I would. Neither of us is mlre correct, but it could help you eliminate words due to vague pronunciation.

>>23413844
Names aren't copyrighted and if there isn't clear, outrageous slander and breach of privacy that can be connected to the real person, you have nothing to worry about.

>>23413852
It's a TV news story playing in the background about two trucks crashing on the freeway.

>"Police say the driver of the first truck pulled to the shoulder when he noticed smoke coming from the hood. A Peterbilt, driven by Joe Blow of Los Angeles, was in the right hand lane and made contact with the parked truck. He then lost control, flipping over and coming to rest across all three southbound lanes."

The only "slander" I guess could be implying he's a bad driver. I would like to slip it in as a surprise for when he reads it, but wasn't sure if I needed his approval first.

>>23413845
How do you write stuff like that? Everything I write is too literal. I suck at coming up with comparisons.

>>23413857
You don't need his approval and there's no risk of anything, if the character can't be certainly identified as him. Then again, if you go around telling everyone that's him, then that kind of serves as proof. And if he feels his driving skills have been excessively insulted, he could theoretically take you to court, though his odds of winning the case are close to nil. But if only you can keep it as a vague insider joke, it's fine. You have the higher ground if it's a work of fiction and not a memoir where real events are misreported.

>>23413873
What are you talking about? Anon's lines are quite literal and there aren't comparisons there.

>>23413516
imagine the smell though?

>>23413879
No, he compared the spaghetti to a tomato soup instead.

>get to dialogue
>"oh yeah I'm on hte spectrum and nobody wants to hear this shite"
>exit out

https://pastebin.com/vdxkAdwM

Flash fiction aping the style of early settler accounts of the frontier.

>>23413888
If the sauce is watery enough, as it seems to be, calling it soup only represents reality, no? Similes are cheap writing, but this is the most appropriate way to employ the possibilities of language.

>>23413904
Why are similes cheap?

At what point does good become tryhard?

>>23413920
When it's better than something I could do.

"Winter is like a fleeting comet, elegant and sparkling, leaving a trail of cold beauty in its wake."

Pottery.

>>23413917
Comparing one thing to another is the easiest, simplest way to describe it, while letting you dodge actually describing the thing at all. For its inherent laziness, it's seen as low-level literature.

Do you have a writing playlist for the projects you work on to set the mood?
I just made a playlist with 94 songs for a book idea i had.

>>23413917
Not him but they're usually very basic and superficial. Getting into it with deeply thematic comparisons is one thing but most similes you actually see in popular writing are just the same facile shit you could have come up with when you were 8 and learned what a simile is.

>>23413963
My problem is I can't think of anything good to compare something to, especially more abstractly. Like in anon's example, I wouldn't think to link winters to comets.

>>23413963
Isn't a metaphor the same? Just comparing things in a slightly different way.

>>23413975
Yes. And reliance on metaphors was frowned on already hundreds of years ago.

>>23413972
There's no need for you to pursue that direction at all. Many great writers openly shunned making comparisons. At best it's just eh, at worst they take you out of the book with their absurdity. Just the other day, I checked out a novel in a bookstore with the line, "rocks were weeping," which was apparently to say the rocks were wet after rain. Now that's what I call trying too hard.

I just want to make my landscape descriptions sound majestic and poetic. I have this line
>The mountain reigned over the Earth and Heavens, commanding the attention (or respect, maybe?) of all and issuing a challenge to fools daring enough to attempt taming it.
But it sounds weird.

>>23414010

Bro how much xianxia have you been consuming lately

>>23414011
I do not do drugs.

>>23413560
Here: https://archiveofourown.org/signup/609223bda6526a582b6a7d329e1ec96122eb8151

>>23414017
Roll up that Chinese light novel and snort it.

>>23414021
You magnificent bastard. Thank you.

>>23414025
Have fun

>>23414017

True, xianxia is so good as a genre it's basically a drug.

Anyway, me personally (keep in mind I am a subpar newbie), I would perhaps write it something like this

>The mountain reigned over Heaven and Earth, commanding the attention of all who could see it, and implicitly issued a bold challenge to any fools daring enough to attempt taming it. One could had a vague sense of inferiority when looking upon it, and you could swear the mountain itself looked upon everyone with derision, as if majesty was baked into it's very bones.

>>23414031

Fuck me. I brain farted and mashed "could feel a" and "had a" in that second line. Pick one, either one works.

>>23414010
>attention
>respect
Reference comes to mind. Like reference for gods majesty. Awe. Honor.

I think overall it is laid on a bit thick just for a landscape description. I get the idea of the sense of deep respect for the vastness and majesty of natural forces that makes you aware of your own insignificance in comparison. Cosmic humility. But i think you have to make that be felt, not write it out. Somehow. Maybe just imply this sense of humbling feeling of insignificance yet divinely protected by letting the reader decide themselves if they can feel it or not and just stick to describing the setting that would make you or your prot feel this ancient sense of wonder.

I want to write a short story. I have the concept, outline and character already, the problem is: I'm ESL. Should I just keep writing that story? It wasn't meant to be a long novel or something, just a single short story, probably going to publish that one online with my own illustration evendoe I havent decided which site to put my story on.

>>23414041
bro that's reverence not reference

>>23414058

Of course you should. Doing a project is the best way to master a skill.

>>23414060
Yeah sorry, esl af. You get the idea.

>>23413852

Tell that to Gu Zhen Ren. The fact that Reverend Insanity will never be finished is a modern tragedy.

>>23414041
I see what you're saying. More of a show it, don't tell it, kind of thing. I'll see what I can. It's just the setting for one chapter so I don't want to go too overboard, but it is the MC's first time seeing a mountain so it's kind of overwhelming to him.

>>23413624
i thought you would have written something by now

>>23414058
If you didn't say you were ESL I wouldn't have known by your post. Your skill seems good enough to write a story, and errors you make along the way will help you learn the language better. Definitely do it.

>>23413266
yeah this is better, anon, you are able to write but I would say that your prose does come across as a bit impenetrable. I'd recommend putting some of the dialogue on new lines and just generally trying to structure it to be more readable. But yeah, keep going

>>23414062
>>23414077
very well, thanks for the kind response, I will try to work on my story and maybe go back here once I done with it, thanks anon

>>23414027
I posted the first three chapters of what I'm working on, I don't know how you get recognition if you're not doing some kind of fan fiction on here. Is there a way to tag original fantasy or something?

It's called Arakkea

>>23414099
You should put "Original Work" as the fandom tag.
I see you've got the "High Fantasy" tag already. That one's grouped under "Fantasy" so you also show up under that tag: https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Fantasy/works
People who are handy with search can find all original fantasy works: https://archiveofourown.org/works?commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Fantasy&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&tag_id=Original+Work
AFAIK AO3 is not a great place to get readers for original works though. It's a great host, especially if you want to post weird porn or other content that other hosts might not allow, but possibly you should advertise it elsewhere. (No personal experience though, I post fan fiction only.)

>>23414117
Cool, thanks! I'm having some trouble with RR right now, hopefully it'll get resolved.

>>23414021
what's the purpose of archiving your work online, don't you have a hard drive?

>>23414010
Maybe you should actually show it by describing what it does to people, instead of providing water, it cries and drowns entire villages in sorrow and grief, it freezes people in the winter with fright, etc this kind of language deployed over enough characters in a few chapters describes how menacing the mountain is.

>>23414144
I do, but I secretly just want people to read it and tell me how awful/good it is.

>>23413560
>be me
>finish short story
>finally feel like I've written something good
>sign up to AO3, ready to publish
>we'll get back to you on the 28th!
reeeeeeeeeee

>>23414188
is this site an editor site or an archiving site, can you faggots be clear about this, or are you just saving money on an editor by uploading the work?

>>23414192
I asked people here where I could publish my short stories and they suggested AO3.

>>23414031
>>23414010
> The mountain as it jutted daggerlike into the pale blue firmament reigned over Heaven and Earth alike and it commanded the attention of all who could see it. Its very presence above the quiet rim of the world implied challenge to those fools whose hearts dared to consider taming it. One felt inferior in the shadow of the mountain. As if it watched with derision those mortals who traipsed along its base and peered at its heights for a moment before trudging along as before only dizzier. As if majesity was baked into its very bones.

>>23414196
declaratives are dumb

>>23414144
One piece I wrote mainly circulates as a screenshot on /v/. Sometimes people can't find the screenshot so they go to AO3 and take a new screenshot there

>>23414188
Here: https://archiveofourown.org/signup/5746040e6e9cf21270a74a393868294b002da6cd

>>23414192
It's just a place to post fiction. Specialized for fan fiction but ultra-permissive in general and unlikely to disappear. Low on bullshit.

>>23414196
Too many opinions about what it did and not enough description of what that is. This is exactly the kind of writing that he should avoid.

>>23414010
Don't tell me it's issuing a challenge. Show me the dead bodies of the people that failed to reach the summit. Show me the warning signs for new climbers. Show me that it is an immovable force of nature that is not affected by the crude ambitions of humanity.

>>23413873
A larger vocabulary (through reading and TV) and more experience of bad pasta.

I also didn't know the context of the sauce, was it meant to be good? bad? It's easy to come up with possibilities when you don't constrain them.

Go read Patricia Mackillip. She's a fantasy writer and I don't know anyone else who can condense so much story in to so few pages. Choice of words are pitch perfect.

Forgotten Beasts of Eld, her most famous novel does in 200 pages what other writers would need several volumes to tell the same story. But she really excells at short stories like Harrowing the Dragon or The Fellowship of the Dragon.

>>23413904
>Similes are cheap writing
Good job there wasn't a single similie in what I wrote.

>>23413975
Fucking ignore them. Metephors are great, similies good too when not over used. Most of the modern Internet users aren't happy unless you drily, autistically, describe everything as literally as possible.

But you can do it without metaphor or similie

>She never cooked enough spaghetti. Always too miserly, or maybe her hands were too small to measure it right. In it went into the pan and water with salt. Out came the strands of noodles. Into the sauce they went, to be found and eaten by the gastronomically curious.

But you could say the same thing with just

> I drank the spaghetti.

But then you'd get the autists here, incapable of subtext or basic thought, accusing you of not knowing that spaghetti should be eaten.

Don't listen to people who say not to do shit. Make it your own. Just read around alot. It'll come.

>>23414369
You really make me regret complimenting you.

Just a reminder that any "rule" that seems to be written in stone can be broken provided you understand the intention behind your decision to do so.

>>23414386
But those rules weren't made to restrict your artistic liberty out of idle authoritarian malice, but as tools to help even inexperienced fools produce something readable. So by abandoning given guidelines, you inevitably rejoin the fools.

>>23414429
Agreed, which is why you need to understand why you are breaking the rule and have intention behind it. But I have a special kind of hatred for the people that only give feedback in the form of regurgitated aphorisms rather than engaging with the individual work they are supposed to be critiquing.

>>23413963
Similes are cheap??? Somebody get F. Scott Fitzgerald on the phone! And Ernest "Hackingway" better retitle 'Hills Like Pink Elephants' stat

>>23414446
>you need to understand why you are breaking the rule and have intention behind it
If you can do that, you're already a master of the craft. There are no such people here.

>>23413975
>>23413991
They had bad taste back then, imo.
Metaphors and allegory are peak literature.
The more layers of hidden meaning you can weave together without being obvious, the better a writer you are.

>>23413873
>>23413879
>>23413888
Gene Wolfe did a cool thing where he'd throw in archaic or esoteric words for things that 99% of readers would have to look up to know the exact meaning, but also wrote in such a way that you could reason out the general meaning without doing so. He did this because he wanted to convey to the reader the same feeling of encountering something new and unknown that the character may have had.

Allegedly, there is one single word in all of his publication history that is a typo and thus not found in any dictionary or thesaurus or online database, and he left it in on purpose for the novelty.

>>23414484
Well I can do that and I'm not a master of the craft, not even slightly. It's about using and abusing the rules of the craft to serve the story and not the other way around.

>>23414429
>but as tools to help even inexperienced fools produce something readable. So by abandoning given guidelines, you inevitably rejoin the fools.
no? that doesn't make sense even by your own definitions. the guidelines are there to mask inexperience, but the real solution to being inexperienced is gaining experience, not masking inexperience forever. the rule isn't for you, it's for the teacher.

>>23413844
Say that the character named after your friend has a small dick.
He can only sue if he admits that the small dick is part of what makes the character be him. Look up ‘small penis rule wikipedia’ I’m ESL and not explaining it right.

>>23414504
>it's fucking real
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_penis_rule
kek

>>23414485
>They had bad taste back then, imo
>Gene Wolfe did a cool thing
lmao

>>23414487
>Well I can do that
Everyone thinks they can do that. But not one in a hundred is right

>>23414496
>laws are there to mask dishonesty
>the real solution to dishonesty is to learn how to circumvent laws
You're not nearly as intelligent as you think you are.

>>23414553
See, this is my problem. Because you act as if the rules are written in stone you believe that you must reach the peak of the craft to break them. Most of the 'rules' are made up in order for people to sell writing courses to amateurs.

>>23414562
You say that because you are cynical with distorted world view, and believe you are special and others are just stupid. But you are the stupid one, thinking you have the skills to break a rule despite not understanding why such a rule even exists. Because if you truly did understand, you'd be glad such a principle was formulated to make your life easier, and not do your best to escape it, the same as the thousands of other mouthbreathers out there who think they are special, but produce nothing worth reading.

>>23414560
i'm not sure what point you're trying to make with this gobbledygook and i'm not going to engage with it. if you want me to respond then defend your actual point instead of doing this kind of faggotry

>>23414578
>You say that because you are cynical with distorted world view, and believe you are special and others are just stupid. But you are the stupid one, thinking you have the skills to break a rule despite not understanding why such a rule even exists.
Except I did not say that, I'm clearly saying that anybody could do this and I am not special, and it's not even about the writer, it's about the story. I even said myself I am not even close to a master of the craft. So you're making things up now. Please read before projecting.
>Because if you truly did understand, you'd be glad such a principle was formulated to make your life easier, and not do your best to escape it, the same as the thousands of other mouthbreathers out there who think they are special, but produce nothing worth reading.
I don't know how you can call me a mouthbreather when you are here defending formulaic and imitative writing. If you really think that people should be thankful for the opportunity to copy previous authors and that experimenting with the form is a purely ego-driven pursuit then I have to question your opinion on art as a whole, not just writing.
By your logic people should all write litrpg because the formula is easy and writers should be thankful for that? It's sad that amateur writers will come onto this thread and potentially make the mistake of taking you seriously.

>>23414595
I'm glad we can agree that what you said was sheer gobbledygook. There's no need to continue further.

>>23414578
>you'd be glad such a principle was formulated to make your life easier
but he's completely correct, the "principles" were formulated for the benefit of teachers, not students. i don't know what gave you the idea that writing teachers are jesus

>>23414599
>Except I did not say that
You didn't write your own post?
>defending formulaic and imitative writing
I have no idea what you're talking about anymore. Avoiding writing techniques and practices that are commonly considered lazy and lowbrow does not somehow turn your work formulaic or imitative. It usually achieves the polar opposite, thought these topics are not directly connected at all. It seems your brain cannot endure any more of this conversation.

>>23414610
Who are these "writing teachers" and how and why have you dragged them into this?

>>23414601
do you absolutely have to act like the biggest kike in the world every time you post? you can just not respond when you don't want to talk instead od driving people away with this kind of faggotry

>>23414617
If you annoy me with your dumb strawmen arguments, then of course I'll want to pay you back by annoying you as much as possible, what else did you expect?

>>23414615
don't pretend not to understand what i wrote.

>>23414623
i expected a conversation about writing in the writing thread, not to have to deal with your npd kikeouts

>>23414624
You're the one who decided that what makes up good writing and bad writing was arbitrarily decided by some teachers, and pretend like I'm their undercover agent. But that isn't true. The principles we're talking about were shaped by thousands of years of trial and error by countless authors around the world, their readers, and publishers.

>>23414613
>You didn't write your own post?
...
>I'm not a master of the craft, not even slightly.
This is a comprehension problem on your end, at no point did I posit myself as superior, you just started projecting out of nowhere.
>I have no idea what you're talking about anymore.
Sounds like another reading comprehension problem.
>Avoiding writing techniques and practices that are commonly considered lazy and lowbrow does not somehow turn your work formulaic or imitative.
Avoiding is not the same as 'never ever doing it because the rules are set in stone because I said so'. I have repeatedly said that the choice to use or break these rules comes down to intention, an understanding of what the rule was trying to teach and whether breaking it serves the story. I am not saying that these should be thrown out completely, I am saying that a dogmatic approach to applying these to your craft is not necessarily a good thing.
>It seems your brain cannot endure any more of this conversation.
I'm doing just fine, it's you that had to resort to projection, mate. All I've done is debate with you on your level and you've ignored all my actual points only to resort to boring, formulaic and predictable replies. Which makes sense as it is probably the kind of writing you enjoy.

>>23414636
Who should I have this deep conversation with if you just post crap and then whine like a bitch when you're not taken seriously? Muh kikes! Go back to /pol/ retard

>>23414642
>The principles we're talking about were shaped by thousands of years of trial and error by countless authors around the world, their readers, and publishers.
please list five such principles so we know what you're talking about

>>23414681
I am also curious to read these unbreakable principles

>>23414662
you're not capable of having any deep conversations, that's why you go into kikeout mode the second you're challenged on anything. you'd rather write 100000 posts about why you're not talking to me rather than talk to me and risk me finding out you're a total fraud - but i already know. this is classic npd behavior, you should really get diagnosed if you haven't been already

let's not turn this into a /pol/ thread, I am actually curious to hear what he has to say despite disagreeing with him completely.

My MC has fucked every fuckable female character they've met so far. I mean they've only met three but is this a problem?

>>23414774
It's well known that the rule of "male MC must have intercourse with every female character" has been shaped by thousands of years of trial and error by countless authors around the world, their readers, and publishers

>>23414779
And what if they're not male?

>>23414781
Sorry, lesbians are not allowed.

>>23414623
I have to know, is it the same anon saying everyone's argument is a strawman, as if it's a catch-all word to us against anything he perceives as a 'bad argument'? Because there's literally no strawman here. My god go read what that means, it's so embarrassing to see you use it over and over incorrectly every single time

>>23414785
And if she doesn't have a pussy?

>>23414793
I think you need to explain what exactly your MC is my friend

>>23414781
There is not much point, since the main point of a harem is to have a male character so that zoomers can easily self-insert.

>>23414797
She got hit by a truck and reincarnated as a dildo

>>23414774
kono anon this better not be you because if you're asking if its okay for your futa smut story MC to fuck all the fuckable characters, you're being a retard

>>23414820
I think this post might be a comma splice. I'm getting my experts on it right now.

>>23414965
you have a learning disability

>>23414820
>kono anon, this better not be you, because if you're asking if it's okay for your futa smut story MC to fuck all the fuckable characters you're being a retard
Fixed your post and removed the comma splice. Consider reading 100 more books before posting again.

>>23415015
Genuinely, how the fuck do you still not know what a comma splice is? Or are you trolling? Well, obviously you're trolling with that response, but I can't tell whether you really think that's a splice

This is a comma splice, writing is fun.

>>23415026
I'll honestly take this comma memery over polshit any day

>thread devolves into autistic bickering yet again
How do you keep readers engaged when your storylines are repetitive?

>>23414774
My MC has 3 wives, two of them are full blood sisters and they’re all incestuous elves. How do you not make immortal beings incestuous? Literally all share the same grandpa.

>>23415195
Anons just shitpost when there's no real content to critique. If you want to discuss something, then begin the discussion.

>>23415195
feel free to contribute

>>23413920
You have it turned around!
Tryhard becomes good when shamed.

>>23414812
It’s like the rising of the vibrator hero where the MC is a vibrator and the demon lord is reincarnated as an onahole

>>23415201
I do contribute but I can't carry the thread singlehandedly

>>23414812
I hope you're writing a how-to book.

>>23414965
>>23415015
>>23415022
>comma splice

>>23414965

>>23414377
You probably regret a lot of things in life. Good luck.

>>23414797
See she's like a girl but purple. And with a dick too

>>23414516
>Smallbone's penis is mocked by a prostitute, who refers to it as "like a tiny little pencil stub".
I think "golfer's pencil" is a better comparison. Not only are the pencils notoriously short and hard to use, but it includes the imagery of swinging a golf club, or in this case, failing to because the dick/pencil is too small to even swing correctly.

>The small penis rule was referenced in a 2006 dispute between Michael Crowley and Michael Crichton. Crowley alleged that after he wrote an unflattering review of Crichton's novel State of Fear, Crichton included a character named "Mick Crowley" in the novel Next. The character is a child rapist, described as being a Washington, D.C.–based journalist and Yale graduate with a small penis.

How can one man be this based?

>>23415026
that's just incorrect comma usage. I dont know where this "splice" shit came from. you use a semicolon there, not a comma.

so is "snow crunching like brittle glass underfoot" a good simile or not? It communicates the delicate sound it makes.

>We bought dog food, we bought cat food.
>We bought dog food, AND we bought cat food.

>>23414377
always a second too soon. thats why I never praise anyone

>>23415426
You could just say snow crunching because everyone knows what that sounds like.

>>23415468
Not people in San Diego

>>23415442
>We bought dog food, paving the way for our cat food purchase.

>>23415487
>I purchased some canine chow, which in turn lended itself to consequently allow the action of purchasing feline chow.

>>23415497
It was the chow of dogs, it was the chow of cats

>>23415442

>it was the best of times and yet simultaneously it was the worst of times

>>23415582
this is me

>>23415582
Times were good; times were bad.

>It was the grandest of occasions when the grocer stocked the dog chow, it was the heights of despair when they lacked the cat chow, for it meant the caterwauling would never cease.

>>23415468
why even mention it crunching, why not just say walking on snow because everyone knows what that sounds like? Idiot. Nimrod. End your life. The author is a guide. Stupid. He doesn't just set you in a place and tell you to fill in the details. He holds the brush. Respect yourself and your art.

>>23415640
>anon speaks into the mirror

>>23415497
>lended
lent

If we're peeving about grammar, can I complain about no one knowing that past tense of 'cast' is 'cast' not 'casted'.

ESLs are going to erode all of English's irregular verbs within a century.

>>23414779
It worked for Odysseus.

>The chow hall was brimming with dogs, while a queue of cantankerous cats waited outside.

>>23415655
>lent
fuck I missed that. My masterpiece comment...

>>23415426
It raises the image of shattered windows ie destruction, neglect, urban decay, violence, etc. If that is suitable to the tone of the scene, then the simile has artistic merit. Likewise, it may suit the narrative voice in the scene, or it may not. If you're otherwise giving terse utilitarian scenery description it will stand out as something you're calling more attention to.
It is pretty close to impossible to evaluate a simile or metaphor in a vacuum, unless it's so shit it falls apart on its own.

"In the heart of the forest, the drumming of grouse resonated like a hidden orchestra, each beat a syncopated rhythm echoing through the trees. It was as if the woodland had its own band of percussionists, their collective performance a natural symphony. The deep, throbbing beats of the grouse drumming together created an intricate pattern, mirroring the coordinated cadence of drummers performing in perfect harmony, their rhythms intertwining and reverberating through the leafy amphitheater."

>tfw ChatGPT writes better than I do
I should just give up. I'll never be on this level.

>>23415741
That reads like shit though. I think not only are you a bad author; you also have terrible taste.

>>23415749
C'mon, this is good stuff.

"Deep within the forest, the grouse drummed a primal rhythm, their collective beats reverberating like a clandestine orchestra. Each bird, a master percussionist, contributed to a syncopated harmony that echoed through the woodland. The thrum of their wings was a natural symphony, a heartbeat of the wild, resonating with the precision and unity of drummers performing together, each beat a note in the forest's own melodic composition."

>>23415753
It's full of adjectives that contribute nothing to a unified image or tone. It's just words for words sake.

>>23415753
no it isn't, it's complete word salad. the symphony of each reverberation syncopated with the unity of harmonies to form a percussion of compositions. it's nonsense.

>>23415753
>>23415741
Now ask it to write an actual narrative and see how well it does.

>>23415758
It's deeply poetic. Just tweak it a little bit. "Beyond the forest, the grouse drummed a primal rhythm. Each bird, a master percussionist, contributed to the heartbeat of nature."

>>23415753
I think it's pretty decent if the text is mean to be grouse, or weird orchestra.

But if not, it would be weird if it was the setting of a murder mystery or something.

>>23415766
that's not poetic, it's kitschy. you needed a chatbot to tell you that nature sounds can be compared to music? this is impressive to you?

>>23415766
mate ask it to write an actual story before sucking it off on here

>>23415787
No, I already knew nature sounds can be compared to music, that was the prompt I gave it. It's just interesting how it weaves all the vocabulary together like that.

>>23415795
try putting the chatbot toy away and reading a book for once and maybe you'll stop being impressed by random word salad

>>23415015
You just created a dangling modifier by removing the comma at the end, retard. You should have added a 'then' there.

What gets you excited to start up a page and write? Are you working on a book? School? Roleplaying with friends? Other media?

>>23415847
the story I can't get out of my head

>>23415671
It was the best of dog chow, it was the worst of cat chow, it was the age of canine wisdom, it was the age of feline foolishness, it was the epoch of dogged belief, it was the epoch of cat-like incredulity, it was the season of canine Light, it was the season of feline Darkness, it was the spring of dog hope, it was the winter of cat despair, we had everything in dog chow before us, we had nothing in cat chow before us, our dogs were all going direct to chow Heaven, our cats were all going direct the other way.

>>23415857
you mean this story, right?

how do i know that if i post my (utterly brilliant) writing here one of you won't rush it off to a publisher and steal it from me?

>>23415884
You don't. I'm incredibly insecure about the level of my writing and if you post something that is better I promise you I will steal it and publish it under my own name.

>>23415847
if i spend some time doin healthful practices like riding my bike, lifting weights, eating clean, and getting proper, timely sleep, then have some kind of regression into masturbation, drug use, and paranoia i will usually at some point end up in a headspace where i cannot prevent myself from feverishly typing disturbing things into the notes app of my phone from sunset until sunrise. i will then be very pleased with myself and move them over to my computer for organization and proofreading. i believe it is possible that if my relations support me for long enough i will be able to publish at least a very impressive collection of short stories before my nervous breakdown.

>>23415893
i'm not insecure about my ability to write though iam insecure about more things than i can count. in fact, the exercise of counting them could reasonably drive me to suicide. if i had a hawthorne to be melville for or a robert howard to be lovecraft for i could probably write far better and far more often. the only living author i have a deep respect for is rijneveld and she CERTAINLY will never play hawthorne with me because she believes herself to be a man which is a belief system i cannot even pretend to share.

>>23413507
What’s the best alternative to Google docs that I can sync projects between pc and phone? I want to write at work when I’ve got downtime but don’t trust google’s ai to not lock me out

>>23415917
I highly recommend not posting any links to your works. A lot of salty anons love review bombing.

>>23415944
>don’t trust google’s ai to not lock me out
This happens?

>>23415948
nta but do they really? /wg/ has really gone downhill

>>23415961
It really is incredible how much it has deteriorated even in the short time I have been here. I own paperbacks of books I saw exerpts of on /wg/ some of which I contributed critiques for. Now there are 2 or 3 samples per thread that mostly get either lazily mocked or ignored.

>>23415954
If you’re writing adult-only type stuff then yes, it can happen

>>23414010
What's your favourite irl mountain?

>>23415984
Which ones did you buy?

>>23415741
This is terrible. It's a bunch of words that says nothing. It's very purple

>>23415655
It's not even ESL. Slept is grammar flagged by Google. It's now Sleeped.

Then again, Google is ran by a bunch of pajeets

I can't write for more than 5 minutes without either breaking down in anger or tears. this is quite inconvenient for someone trying to be a career writer.

>>23416084
Son of the Sun is the most recent, and there were a couple from before that. Not Call of the Crocodile though.

>>23416106
why

>>23416106
do you get emotional cuz you suck so bad? or because emotional incontinence is normalised in society

>>23416147
NIGGER I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU. every fucking time I post about my writing troubles you just have to fucking come in and just assume some bullshit how bout you get a life you fucking faggot i swear to god I'm so fucking sick of this shit we have like 10 people on this goddamn bored and you have to be one of them and I know its because you're a fucking failure yourself and you are projecting. literally go outside and hang yourself or do it in your room i don't care I hope you fucking die fagggot get off my fucking board
>>23416146
probably cause I suck and have been conditioned to be emotionally unstable.

>>23416159
troon energy

I'm trying to figure out how to write cliche albeit sovlful stuff like picrel.
I love it when they do these autistic exclamations about their convictions and resolve.

>No matter what it takes.... i'll definitely do x
Pure hype even though it's a literal nothingburger cliche.

>>23416159
theres way more than 10 dude

>>23416159
I mean, you didnt really contribute anything to the thread besides complaining, so I figured I'd reply with an equally asinine reply. Maybe you mistook this for /wwoym/

>>23416207
>>23416192
>>23416187
lacking a sense of humor is a bad thing

>>23416213
humor doesnt translate well by text alone. especially with all the bpd people on the internet

>>23416223
i don't know nigga maybe i am a shit writer but what the fuck ever. i'm still gonna write anyway. i don't care, i'm not gonna sacrifice that which im enthusiastic about to "not bother" some terminally online mental defecients

What is a good name for a fictional electromagnetic wave that distorts and reassembles matter when it makes contact? I can't think of anything at all.

>>23416242
Is it a kitschy Buck Rogers sort of setting or is it supposed to be serious?

>>23416274
In the middle? I don't go too hard on world building, it's just a plot device to form the eldritch abominations that my characters have to hunt. A more serious name would be better though in case I want to elaborate on it down the line.

I'm going to write pulpy genre horror and no one can stop me!

>>23415866
Now is the winter of our cat's discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of Yorkie.

>>23416230
well lets see it. I promise I wont lol or be mean on purpose

>>23416324
this is what i've got so far, I still need to edit the second half as thats what i'm writing right now at the moment, but fuck it say what you think.

God woke up and rubbed his eyes and immediately put them to his ears. God, all the whining and complaining. It never ends. He thought to himself. “Get down here this minute mister. I swear.” God looked over at his alarm clock still ringing, which he could only tell between the shouts and the true fact that he had not pressed it, and then he pressed it. It was already 1. “Just because you’re the creator of the universe does not mean you don’t have to do your chores, now GET DOWN HERE. Your breakfast is getting cold. Groaning and shaking his head, God finally came down.
Staring down at his plate, God looked absolutely dismayed while his mother was just sitting across from him at the table in her bright pink dress and her eyes just glazing over the room without actually looking at anything and humming to herself in a soft simple satisfaction until finally fixing her eyes on her somewhat disheveled and quite tired son. “Mah, is there any cawfee in the pawt.” he drolled. “Look down at your plate and see what i did for you, oh you’re gonna love this, its vegan” having his question completely unheard God looked down at his plate at the display of two soft fried eggs and bacon formed in a smiley face with a big fat disked sausage nose. “Its too fucking early for this shit” God thought to himself. “Oh by the way, noooo pressure at all” She started, putting her wrinkled hand on to his and looking at him through those glasses that have the little rosaric strings of beads hanging off them. “I sent you a few job openings, its only if you want, nooooo pressure at all, you know we really don’t mind having you here, we just want you to make something of yourself.” He couldn’t help himself, he audibly sighed and stored his face into the deep caves of his divine hands. “Oh well I was just trying to help.” She quickly and annoyedly snapped before turning her head and walking to the kitchen.
“You know I created the universe right?” “Yeah well I created a delicious breakfast.” “What the hell is vegan bacon anyway” “Don’t use that word at the table.” “Yes mawh.”

>>23416354
continued

God ate his breakfast, took up his plate and walked to the kitchen, when he felt a cold fabriced glass nudge at his side, “oh yeah sorry mah” he took her plate and walked to the kitchen while his mother watched some stupid horeshit on the tv. His head slightly bent God moped upstairs. Opening the door he looked defeatedly into his messy room, papers everywhere, food left out for days on the desk, the universe in the middle. He walked up to it and sighed while tinkering a little. He looked long into the universe and he saw a man walking home, he had just gotten off work, where he had flirted with his coworker. The man looked incredibly happy. He stopped to look at a rose growing in the desert.
“So what are you going to do today?” God turned his head and looked at his frail but resolute mother leaning in the doorway, her tits slightly hanging as she leaned.

>>23414353
>Go read Patricia Mackillip. She's a fantasy writer and I don't know anyone else who can condense so much story in to so few pages. Choice of words are pitch perfect.
Are you havin' a giggle at my expense? This is verbose nothingness.

>>23416354
wow i forgot to say, "put his hands to his ears" anyway say whatever you guys think.

>>23413507
>Girl refuses her friend's romantic advances
>They drift apart but become friends again later on
>He says they are friends
>The question is always on the tip of her tongue of them being a couple
>However she cannot bring herself to ask him directly because she feels she cannot be the one to ask for another chance after refusing all the other offers
How might the girl subtly indicate her romantic interest?

>>23416380
>>However she cannot bring herself to ask him directly because she feels she cannot be the one to ask for another chance after refusing all the other offers
Damn right. She missed her chance and now she must suffer for it. Don't give it to her anon, don't piss off your readers by rewarding this harlot.

Guys i have a character that went from being poor to working class to dirt poor again to hobo level and now he is just working class again.
he is used to being stared at the way people do to hobos and shit but now he's all good now and is basically invisible to the average person.
what would your writing process look like for a character in that sort of situation realizing those stares are gone? (minus his personality, it's not relevant to the question but if i were to say anything he is naive and autistic as fuck (not literally)).
of course, you dont have to reply. that's fine too.

>>23416380
>>The question is always on the tip of her tongue of them being a couple
what does she like about him?

>>23416492
>>23416386
His unyielding love for her, she missed that sheer devotion.

I think I'll have it where he tells her that every time he gave his heart to her and she refused it, it broke him bit by bit, and that he cannot give his heart to her again.

Buuut I also had an idea where she more or less offers so much financial and material gain he accepts her again

>>23416508
>every time he gave his heart to her and she refused it, it broke him bit by bit, and that he cannot give his heart to her again.
Yes. She is not to be trusted. And he cannot be bribed.

>>23415847
Every time I read something shitty but with elements I like I want to create my own world full of things that I like.

>>23416488
This happened to me irl. I went from poor to homeless to college to middle class. It was gradual.

The first thing I noticed was that people would move out of my way instead of expecting me to move out of theirs.

The second thing was realizing I didn't need to make excuses. When I was homeless, everyone wanted to grill you if you inconvenienced them. You couldn't ask for anything or go anywhere without being prepared to explain yourself. Even little things like buying snacks at a gas station or buying a burger at a fast food place so you don't feel bad using their bathrooms. The cashier might grill you for wasting money, or a customer might ask why you didn't just get a job.

After getting out of that, I kept the habit of over-explaining myself and eventually realized that it was burdening people because once I was presentable they no longer wanted to interrogate me.

The far, far, bigger shock was when I finally realized that I had stopped flipping my bedding looking for pests. When I was poor, mice or brown recluse spiders or other things like that would infest wherever I was living. I developed a habit of taking off my pillowcases and turning them inside out to check them before bed, shaking out and flipping over the blanket, using a flashlight to look under the bed and around all sides of it, etc.

One day, as I neared the end of my college degree, I flopped into bed after a really long day and realized suddenly that I hadn't so much as flipped my pillow or shaken out my blanket to check for spiders. I had to lay there and think about how far I'd come for a few minutes before I could doze off.

>>23416380
If you want to be realistic, just have her do nothing.
Or maybe glance at him twice in a row when he's not looking.
That's about as aggressive as most women get when they like a guy.

>>23415847
>What gets you excited to start up a page and write?
Nothing. I have never been excited to write. Trying to get words on the page is like pulling teeth.

I hate myself.

>>23416242
Either pick some Greek roots and smash them together, or say they are named for the scientist(s) that discovered them.

>>23416612
>That's about as aggressive as most women get when they like a guy.
Unfortunately true. In high school the girl I liked was on the volleyball team (I didn't know at the time) and said I should come to a game sometime. I missed the hint and just said I didn't like volleyball. Then she just kinda looked away and that was that.

Hopefully one of you can use my screw up to make a compelling story.

>>23416242
integration ray

>>23416380
Simple. To the point.

>>23416612
>>23416638
Bad news, maybe the women you're dealing with just don't like you that much, maybe you'rejust ugly. A woman I work with for no reason came up to me and asked me if my dick had a name, and then told me how sensitive her pussy was. She couldn't be more blatant.

Me btw
>>23413624

>>23416762
She sounds like damaged goods. Normal ladies don't speak like that.

>>23416766
Are you a child All? All women are damaged goods. They just conceal it in different ways. If you meet a chick with a robust personality and interesting taste in music, art, literature, etc. Where do you think she got said taste from? Her little clique of girlfriends? Or from all the men that have been inside of her. God, I can't wait until start writing my female characters. Do authors get hate-reads?

I wish I could be as innocent as you.

Does anyone want to comment on my draft revision? I'm going through to add more details, hopefully making it better.

>>23416361
huh. I like how stuff is actually happening. thats different then what I usually see. The idea is interesting. Its refreshing to see good pacing. could do with some formatting. it got weird at the end though

>>23416762
>Bad news, maybe the women you're dealing with just don't like you that much, maybe you'rejust ugly.
I said "most women". Now name about 2.5 billion more that do more than glance at your hands or your lips and expect that you MUST have seen her blatant signals.

I had a coworker tell me after I quit a job once that she was disappointed that I never asked her out even though she always got extra dressed up and went the extra mile with her makeup any day we were scheduled to be in the office together. I asked her why she thought I knew she was putting in an extra effort if I never got to see her when she wasn't doing it. You could see the soul leave her body as the weight of 3 years of effort and 3 years of longing imploded within her.

>>23416836
Women literally expect you to read minds.

>>23416828
I appreciate what you said and I definitely need to edit it some but yes thank you.

>>23416836
>>23416846
Sounds like ugly people problems. Women always initiate with me. Maybe that's why my writing is so bad, its a hobby for uglies. Couldn't be moi

Is it just a rule that every general on every board on this god forsaken site has to have at least one retarded troll?

I fucking love when I have a brain blast that not only solves the immediate issue but ends up feeding back into the overarching themes of what I'm writing.

>>23416869
One is low. Be grateful it's not higher.

>>23416876
Those are good moments. They are rare though.

>>23416836
>I had a coworker tell me after I quit a job once that she was disappointed that I never asked her out even though she always got extra dressed up and went the extra mile with her makeup any day we were scheduled to be in the office together. I asked her why she thought I knew she was putting in an extra effort if I never got to see her when she wasn't doing it. You could see the soul leave her body as the weight of 3 years of effort and 3 years of longing imploded within her.
Fuck, that's funny

>>23416869
Sorry, am I trolling because women aren't as pristine and angelic as your simp mind tells you they are? Or am I trolling because I asked for writing feedback? I'm being serious on both fronts

>>23416891
To be fair, I did that as a male too. Get all dressed up and wait to be hit on by cuties. Never happened. They must've just not noticed my signals or were intimidated by my sexually aggressive aura.

>>23415481
Californians drive to visit the snow, then go home where the weather is decent. If you lived in California, you'd know that, poser.

>>23415847
Drinking strong coffee.
Smoking weed.
Gooning.
I can't ever stop thinking of my story whenever I do these.

>>23415847
I just do whatever and let my mind wander and out of nowhere something will just come to mind and I'll have to hurry up and write it down before I forget. Sometimes that kicks off an hours-long flood of story. Sometimes it's one sentence and it's a week before I can write anything more.

Dawn and dusk seem to be peak hours for inspiration, though.

>>23416869
Yes. Generals get camped by spiteful autists who forever prevent discussion of the actual topic and drive off sincere posters. The only good discussions are those that are off topic to the thread and the board, like some /k/ommandos randomly talking about their love of Stargate or something.

what’s a good way to make it seem like your characters have emotions

>>23416927
Imagine a sociopath trying to blend into human society and write that.

>Chapter 1
>Started on May 1st
>8,055 words, which feels like too fucking much and at the same time nothing at all
>Still adding and removing shit the more I read books (real books, not how to write books)
>Whenever I sit down to write, at least spend 2 hours (not even editing. just writing)
>Feels like a lot of things are happening but it's only the literal start
Am I ever going to finish writing a whole fucking story, I wonder.
Do I want to write a whole fucking story?

>>23416935
What is chapter 1 about?

>>23416935
Introducing the main characters and the setting, setting up the tone and the themes of the story and showing the hook of the story.
It's a supernatural horror mystery thriller with extreme graphical violence and very strong sexual elements. Since the sexual violence is just vile and makes me look like I'm mentally ill (as I been told in this thread before) and just opening up with it doesn't sit right with me anymore (and would just get me called "edgy"), I decided to get more tasteful about it and make it an exploration of evil: why people do it and how people cope with it... but it's also escapist anime fiction. I'm trying to hit a sweet spot between "serious shit" and "anime slop" because I haven't seen anyone else do it (at least not in the way I would like) and I feel like reading something like that.
If I divide the first chapter as it is so far into smaller parts based on what each parts does, maybe I actually have...
>Introducing main characters
>Main characters' talk about shared past
>Main characters do something together and it's also the setup for what's to come
>Going deeper on main character A's current situation and setting them up for what's to come
>Going deeper on main character B's current situation and setting them up for what's to come
>Main character A does something really really fucked up (the pay off for all the setting up)
>The aftermath of said fucked up action, which leads to chapter 2
SEVEN chapters.
Considering how boring it sounds when I break it down this way, maybe it would be good for the intended audience to have small chapters instead of a fucking huge one.

>>23416970
>Since the sexual violence is just vile and makes me look like I'm mentally ill
Have you read any of the popular booktok titles that are popular with women? Some of those books heavily feature stuff like werewolves raping women in the first chapter and women gush (no pun intended) about them.

I hear other writers talk about how they frequently have to throw away scenes that they loved just because it wasn't a good fit. Is it weird if I very rarely do this? I feel that once I am sufficiently attached to a scene, I will bend the world and narrative to make it fit.

Take the coombrain pill. I was in bed on Sunday night and thought of a setting that fit my Erotica predilections, came up with 7 short stories there, woke up, now it's Thursday and I'm at 8,312 words, an intro and 1.75 stories written. My kink friends are eager to read and give feedback. It's the classical type of pornography where there is no bullshit just two or three paragraphs to establish the characters and settings then right into the action. Modern erotica doesn't understand how to develop characters through their sexuality, which leads to awful meandering reading experiences. Best part is it took no time out of my day since this was done when I'd usually be watching porn. This is the hyperbolic time chamber for practicing writing

>>23417100
Sometimes the bending basically requires a whole new story. At that point you might cut the scene and try to save it for something else.

>>23413606
If anyone wants to read/critique it, I put it up on AO3. My account on RR was nuked so some of this is rough. If you don't like original work or WN style stories it's probably not for you.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/56116507

>>23416288
I would pick a figure from mythology with similar abilities to name it after. One of the Titans, or nymphs, or satyrs perhaps.

>>23416364
This is AI, right?

>>23416869
would you like to point out an example? or rather cowardly scream about it without consequence?

>>23416935
dont worry about it. I've been writing mine since 2001

>>23415442
We got food for the cat and dog
We got our pets' food

>>23416508
She can get a dog.

>>23417100
if I was reddit I'd say "if youre not cutting out stuff all the time, ur doing it wrong,"
but in actuality, editing is a complex process involving pacing, timing, tone, chronologics, patterns, voice, conciseness, correlation, and vision, of which needs to be constantly moved around and changed to create an optimal transfer of intent and information to the reader.
Most (quality) authors do this automatically without actually flowcharting all of that, but thats the best I can describe it.

>>23415442
>We had purchased food for the cat, before remembering that we also have a dog. The dog, coming second in our hearts, would have to suffer. In my mind, the dog food purchase had been a waste, for the dog had shitteth upon mine rug, and the cat had shitteth upon mine box. Verily, I had caved and purchased the dog food so that my bitch ass wife wouldn't accuse me of neglecting our animals.

>>23417140
What’s going on with the beginning? It reads like a fairy tale

>>23417140

>My account on RR was nuked

The fuck? What did you do anon, how could you possibly get nuked on a site for reading amateur novels?

>>23416364
>First paragraph describes
>a kingdom and its neighbours
>farmsteads, presumably a village with hunters
>a field where nothing will grow due to an ancient battle of a now dead king
>a forest mountain where a being keeps animals

Mate, you're off your gord. This is concise for fantasy world building. Especially by modern standards.

Maybe go read dick and Jane.

>>23417216
>First paragraph describes
That's half the problem.
>One day he left X and went to Y
Incredibly bland and boring prose. Also there is no reason to care yet about where any of these places are in relation to the others, so it's like reading an encyclopedia entry.

The rest feel like a chain of run-on sentences without getting to the point. I have no rats asses to give about the red-eyed salmon or white-tusked boar who could sing like a harpist.

>>23417209
Judging by the tags, it's porn, and they don't want porn. Also, the MC is advertised as a 15-year-old and underage porn is instant ban on RR.

>>23416545
Idk I think for that he can be bribed

It'll be one hefty price though, and I might still have him be extremely miserly with his affection as well

>>23416364
This is such a tolkien, middle earth larp that I am not even going to say anything more. Mondor? It just lacks a certain sense of urgency and scale and obviously, originality.

>>23417221
>Incredibly bland and boring prose.
I don't think so, I see a land of mist and forest, of old battle relics littering what are now farmers fields. I'm not sure you could do better.I'm not sure you have read better.
>Also there is no reason to care yet
It's the second chapter of the whole book, and you're spouting nonsense like a 3rd rate creative writing course.
>The rest feel like a chain of run-on sentences without getting to the point.
You lack an attention span.

Stick to booktok, or post a better example

>>23417167
No, you just have no attention span.

>>23416364
You're now aware it's a fairy tale.

I'm convinced content editors are a meme. Every time I look for the justifications for having content editors, the arguments always without fail amount to either nitpicks or "I read a book once that didn't have an editor. The pacing, tone, characters, and had major plotholes, but it certainly didn't mean the writer was bad, they just needed an editor." It's the biggest cope of all time. The problem is that it's an unquestionable part of the central dogma that most writing communities center around today. They don't want to write, they want to do paint by numbers genre conventions and pay someone to fill in the gaps

>>23417233
>It's the second chapter of the whole book
That's even worse. It should hook a reader from the start. If it's still dragging this much by the second chapter all hope is lost. Most people will have put it down by then.

I'm glad you like it but I have no desire to read more of this history textbook she's creating.

>>23416836
Did you at least fuck her?

>>23417239
I think most quality control type of shit when it comes to writing is a big time cope. Or maybe it just isn't what I look for and care about regarding writing. I've read pretty bad writing from a form standpoint, and even somewhat from a content standpoint, that still contained something I liked or found thought provoking in it, so I didn't care. I'm having a hard time articulating what I mean because I'm motherfucking retarded but in short, I agree with you.
Like if you read something by a fuckin Malaysian immigrant who can barely speak English and it was all piss poor broken shit but there was still a little something in it that resonates, I'd prefer that to something highly polished but contains the same old crap. And I'd actually pr3f3r they didn't get an "editor" because then it doesn't feel like it's authentic anymore.

>>23417184
I was going to say your post was shit until I read this part
>Most (quality) authors do this automatically without actually flowcharting all of that, but thats the best I can describe it
And then I realized that's just true and I do that too. So I still think editing is bullshit but what you're talking about is more intuitive..

I started a thing where when I read I have a paper. In the left column and vocabulary I'd like to use more. Not seeking out million dollar words, just the twenty dollar words that I'm not using enough, like 'penchant' and 'briskly' are the most recent ones. On the right column I jot down interesting sentence structures. Hopefully this helps with something

>>23417209
The only caveat was I didn't do it.
My account was reinstated but all of my work was deleted so whatever. I moved on.

Why does everybody hate Foucault so much
I find his method/technique interesting

>>23417263
Damn, 50 year ban. That's pretty brutal.

>>23417278
Yeah, someone just did that to my story and I got blamed/banned for it
>>23417222
There were H scenes in the story but I put disclaimers like "Everyone in this story is 18 years or older" and even spoiler texted the entire scenes saying they weren't necessary to the story.
The only person who was underage was the MC and he was 16,17, and then 19

>>23417278
Yeah, someone did that to me.
Glad I had my work backed up, not like it was great or anything but some people liked it.

>>23417263
2074? If I still alive at that time I would be either 72 or 73 years old

>>23417264
Foucault was interesting but the language he used has now been co-opted by the kind of authoritarians he seemed to despise.

to the anon I am emailing for feedback, sorry I couldn't get back to your story yesterday, I should have time this weekend.

Man editing fucking sucks, spellchecking is about the most boring thing imaginable

>>23417463
don't you have a spellchecker built into whatever software you are using, anon?

>>23417466
I do but they aren't always accurate!

>>23417444
I dont know why everyone always assumes he despised anyone. He didn't seem like a very political figure. I think he believed humans were fundamentally retarded and didn't really choose a side.

>>23417484
Fair enough, for me it is implied in the way he discusses power.

>>23417484

>he believed humans were fundamentally retarded

I mean, can you blame him for this opinion?

>>23417235
No it's just not that interesting.

What would you guys rather read as an excerpt for my novel (whatever has the most votes I'll post. Either in this thread or the next one)

>18 year old girl has to solve a surreal puzzle revolving around fast clouds, an upside down waterfall, and an abyss with no name. While everything around her gets worse and worse. Horror surrealism

>A violent and very stupid brawl occurs in an old-school trucker diner. That started because a racist trucker and a janitor (who is like a mix of Mike Tyson and Mr. Rodgers) don't want to clean a dirty bathroom. This section has the feel of a metaphysical character examination and a looney tunes cartoon

>>23417489
Well, to me he always seems to be discussing power pretty neutrally and amorally. Like in Discipline and Punish, when discussing the spectacle of the medieval forms of public torture, he doesn't really condemn or praise the sovereign, but also doesn't do this for the crowd or the condemned man. He doesn't blame the sovereign entirely for the harshness of the punishment, and points out that the public considered it their larent privilege to witness and add to the torture of the condemned man. He doesn't really seem to be saying anyone is more right or wrong than the other, just laying out what tends to happen in economies of power. It could be true that in doing things like this, his goal is to reveal the absurdities and provoke something new to develop by shedding light on it, but he never really advocates for anything or states a position. That's part of what I like about his method.
>>23417495
No, I wholeheartedly agree with that assessment

>>23417241
>That's even worse. It should hook a reader from the start. If it's still dragging this much by the second chapter all hope is lost
It's really not dragging. And listen too much to creative writing hacks.

It does hook you. From the first paragraph, which you did not post.

A better example is something else you didn't post.

Don't conflate something you don't like with bad. You are wrong in this regard.

>>23417501
Proving my point. If you can't stick out a paragraph, how are you going to get through any book?

Post something here that does interest you.

Guys, I really think my book is good; I think I might have something here. I'm unironically only worried about the "state" of publishing. I mean, I threw in a lesbian couple to try and make it more palatable, but I'm worried they won't accept a book from a white guy with no followers on instatok.

>>23417567
If you're writing with any of that in mind then failure is a certainty.

>>23417559
nta but he is right, it's not a very interesting paragraph. It feels like a Tolkien rip off and does that fantasy thing where it mentions a bunch of made up locations and names that I don't care about.

>>23417567
Fuck the readers. Write what you want to read.

I've come up with an idea of a serialised story but I have no idea where to publish or market it. Any tips?

>>23417587
You want the money before you write the story?
Write the damn story

>>23417559
Ok.

>The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

>The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.

>>23417581
FR if I cared about what a bunch of internet people thought about my writing I'd quit writing.

>>23417599
This reads like someone asked an AI to make their story more complex sounding but couldn't figure out how to make it read like a human wrote it.

>>23417601
>>23417581
>>23417574
It's all well and good saying that, but these internet people hold the opinions of the agents who are to pick up the thing, and the publishers beyond them. Unless I want to self-pub and fade into immediate obscurity, I have no choice but to consider them.

>>23417598
No, I am doing this as a side project because my novel is exhausting me and I want to actually get some writing out there. When I say
>I've come up with an idea
I actually have two of the stories in first draft, but what's the point of continuing if I am clueless about publishing in the serialised format?

I don't care about money I'll be publishing it for free, but I want people to read it.

>>23417605
Oof.

>>23417617
Read the sentences out loud in your head as you write them, do they make sense to you?

>>23417633
This is a troll right?

>>23417599
>Gravesend
>greatest town on earth
hehe

>>23417611
I think you may have been missing my point.
Friedrich Nietzsche was thought of as a fucking kook and a loser by the time he started writing all his books. Nobody liked them and nobody liked him. He had to self publish all those books. They didn't sell. He died in obscurity, having gone insane after spending time wandering around in the woods across Europe.
His books became some of the most read and most impactful ever printed to the page. He never lived to see it.
Do you understand?

>>23417599
>The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm,
Literally not English.

Why not just read a few more books, if you can. And get off the AI bots?

>>23417579
That's cool if you don't like it. I feel you don't really have the experience to critique any genre books when you just reach for Tolkien.

It is an award winning novella, chosen by authors, so maybe you do you?

Also...

Post a better example. Because the other post was AI. Bad AI.

>>23417713
>I feel you don't really have the experience to critique any genre books when you just reach for Tolkien.
maybe, I have the same problem with a lot of fantasy writing.
Unfortunately I don't think awards mean much. This seems like an average fantasy book even though the writer is clearly competent, but the content is not particularly interesting to me.

>Post a better example. Because the other post was AI. Bad AI.
Sure, see picrel. I picked a random excerpt from my favourite genre book. I had no idea what a nenuphar was the first time I read it, but I could pick it up from context, and Wolfe's prose is a lot more evocative than what you posted imo, which seems to feel more like an info dump. That's pretty uninteresting on its own. It's telling me about the world, but Wolfe puts you there to experience it yourself and imbues it with more meaning.

I anticipate that we will agree to disagree here.

btw I agree the other post was bad too. I don't like AI writing at all, I think it's more boring than anything humans write.

I only want to make it to put literary agents back in their place.

>>23417798
And you know what the craziest thing is, anon? You're going to succeed. Why? Because you will never give up, right?

>>23417803
Right.

>>23417809
good lad.

>>23417669
>They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

>>23417113
>Modern erotica doesn't understand how to develop characters through their sexuality, which leads to awful meandering reading experiences.
Based coomer.
Teach me your ways. Post work or works that you enjoyed.

>>23417879
Bozo was an artist and a visionary. That's why his name is synonymous with his art form.

>>23417879
But Bozo the Clown's artform was based around making people laugh. So you've simply listed 4 people who were successful in their endeavors.

>>23417770
>Wolfe's prose is a lot more evocative than what you posted imo
Yes, he's writing from the first person. Things read more immediate and visceral that way. Maybe that's why? I am personally very fucking weary of authors who write present tense. Takes a master to pull that off.

Not the best comparison but I like Gene too. He won the same award 6 Years after McKillip.

>>23418206
>Yes, he's writing from the first person.
Yeah this is a good point. Much easier to give the text a more personal feel from first person. It was also a random pick, I'm sure I could find a more appropriate excerpt to compare from Long Sun or something.

>>23418206
oh and fuck AI. Not a single disagreement with what you said about AI.

>>23417605
>>23417701
>>23417713
How will the credibility of prose critique on /wg/ survive this?

We doing a continuation thread or what?

>>23418349
there was never any credibility to begin with. i already knew that 95% of the posters itt legitimately cannot tell chatgpt from classic novels if a paragraph is presented without context. they have subnormal verbal iq, it was over for them before it even began

>>23418365
I'll bake.

>>23418446
>>23418446
>>23418446
>>23418446
>>23418446
yes I put /wg/ - writing general as my name

>>23416508
>His unyielding love for her, she missed that sheer devotion.
no, this is dumb, there needs to be a better reason, like they have chemistry or she thinks he's really passionate about his hobbies, or is a reliable friend or something or they've always been together or whatevs.
>I think I'll have it where he tells her that every time he gave his heart to her and she refused it, it broke him bit by bit, and that he cannot give his heart to her again.
it would be better if he just hid that emotional side from her but idk i dont know what his character is supposed to be like

>>23416762
I think the story would be more believable if you said that she tore her clothes off and fucked you in the breakroom.

What's our response to men writing women redditors?

>>23417227
Thank you!
It reads like a 15 year old that skimmed the Silmarillion tried to write their own version.

If I'm being honest, my greatest fear when I'm writing is that THIS is what my compositions look like. Because this is what they look like to me. I know what inspired every name and every major theme I use, so when I look at my own writing I see a patchwork of everything that inspired it.

I have to tell myself, "Other people won't notice it so much. It's inevitable that people will get a feeling of who your inspirations are as they read, but if you're good enough it won't jump out of the page and punch them in the nose."

But at the same time, I've read many studies, articles, and books on what makes "good" art and it always boils down to this:

"Good" art is art which balances the familiar with the novel in such a way that it's neither boringly familiar nor shockingly novel. It is art that is novel enough to not be boring but not so novel that it doesn't "hook in" to any of the audience's previous experiences.

So you DO want a degree of familiarity. Even if it were physically and biologically possible to produce a 100% original work, you wouldn't want to because it would seem alien to most of the audience. I have ADHD so I know the balance I prefer strongly favors the novel compared to what the average audience prefers, so I have to blindly trust that some of what I write that seems too boring for me may be cozy and comfortable for most readers, and some of the most interesting things I write may need to be toned down to be relatable to most readers.

>>23417264
>>23417444
Does Foucault have an influence on modern writing, beyond his anti-authoritarian themes being super popular in a lot of YA novels?

>>23417484
My dude, crack open wikipedia and read the segment about his life in the 1970s.
He was a prominent figure in multiple left-wing activist groups.

>>23417463
>tfw you've read AAA+ novels that go on to sell millions of copies that have embarrassing typos in them even though a dozen people probably read them before publication
If it can happen to them it can happen to anyone! AAAAAHHHHH!

>tolkein had a hundred pages of exposition in lotr
>therefor it's ok for mine to have hundreds of words of narrator exposition!

>>23418931
>If I'm being honest, my greatest fear when I'm writing is that THIS is what my compositions look like. Because this is what they look like to me
The fucking arrogance of this.

Award winning work, her first, voted by other fantasy and sci fi writers in 1975, back when if you wrote fantasy you were ostracised by other authors, and you think it looks like your work.

You write fairy tales too?

doubt.jpeg

>>23418931
>I have ADHD so I know the balance I prefer strongly favors the novel compared to what the average audience prefers, so I have to blindly trust that some of what I write that seems too boring for me may be cozy and comfortable for most readers,
Nah, we would find it boring too. There are books written by literal schizophrenics and you're worried you come on too strongly? watch out for those edges bro.

>>23419245
Do you really want to attempt an Argumentum ad Populum?
Do you really want to claim that just because something is popular it must be good?
Maybe the influences of authors like Tolkien were more novel and less boring back then, but by today's standards I would be ashamed if my writing looked like that.
Times change. Standards change. The music of the 1930s was often boring and stilted by modern times. Saying you want your modern work to be more complex and creative is not the same as diminishing another work in its appropriate historic context.

Maybe that was great writing when it was published. Today, you can't deny that it would get a B in a Creative Writing class for freshmen in college.

>>23419262
Specifically, I'm worried about pattern recognition.
People with ADHD have brains more hungry for stimulus, with higher minimum thresholds for dopamine response. So, without effort, they can read 10 disconnected sentences and rapidly iterate and recombine them to find patterns that neurotypical brains will not because neurotypical brains will be satisfied with less stimulation. They have no reason to reflexively over-analyze.

I worry that some themes and messages and plot points require too much of that. I don't want to write anything that feels like Finnegans Wake to neurotypicals.

>>23419323
>Do you really want to attempt an Argumentum ad Populum?
Awarded by her peers? An award given to Gene Wolfe, Fritz Lieber, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson? Yes.

And you are obsessed with creative writing classes, which is why you will never produce anything of merit. Your peers will be other bitter creative writing flunks.

>>23419340
Yes adhd is a convenient and less stigmatised condition for you. You are autistic. Aspergers probably.

>>23419388
>And you are obsessed with creative writing classes
I took one as an elective. How is that obsessive?
You skipped the meat of my reply. Why? Can't you respond to it?

Why did you double down on the logical fallacy and then shift to an ad hominem attack and not at all address the fact that anyone whose writing today looks like that would never be picked up for publication?

>>23419416
>You skipped the meat of my reply. Why?
Oh, I'm sorry dude. You were in favour of prose that hold attention earlier, now you think we should read the rest of your work no matter what?

Make up your mind.

>>23419391
Unfortunately, no. I've been tested a dozen times.
You'll love the conclusion most examiners ended up at though: I'm just 3+ standard deviations above average, per standardized intelligence tests, for whatever they're worth.

Some people suspect me of autism because they can't understand me. The average score of 100 is functionally handicapped compared to me. An average adult attempting to understand me is like a 10 year old attempting to understand an adult.

>>23419445
Alright. I've made up my mind. Address my point or don't bother responding. Go on. It should be easy, right? If I'm clearly wrong it should be no trouble at all for you to even just briefly describe how, right? Just a sentence or two.

>>23418950
Sure, but that doesn't really matter. All the things he went for, were single issue campaigns. He supported prison reform not because he was a leftist ideologue but because his insights in Discipline & Punish lead him to believe in penal reform.

This article is interesting and sums up how I view him:
>https://areomagazine.com/2019/02/25/michel-foucault-arch-leftist-or-subversive-conservative/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20interesting,was%20actually%20a%20closet%20conservative.

>>23419458
>Alright. I've made up my mind
So did I. I don't have to read any more. This was your point, no?

>>23419448
>An average adult attempting to understand me is like a 10 year old attempting to understand an adult.
You understand every edgy teenager thinks the same? Your problem isn't complex, your fear is that you're simple and uninteresting. And you are.

>>23419536
No, but I don't expect anyone with so little to do and so easily triggered to be clever. I applaud your effort, though.

>>23419547
I told you that you'd love their conclusion.

>>23419622
>so little to do
There's only one person here writing boring polemic diatribes. And its the person accusing an award winning author of not being interesting enough.

>>23419624
Don't know why I don't see it sooner. I'm too polite. But it's always autism.