/lit/ - Literature

>>23421794
>Consumer molecular printing causes the world governments to completely lose all control of regulations on things like firearms and explosives which causes a gigantic wave of terrorism which causes a gigantic wave of government repression in an attempt to wrestle the problem into submission.

That's not even fiction, anon. We're in the prologue right now.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10998078/

>>23422532
>We're in the prologue right now.
Not yet.

>>23422532
Free access to firearms and explosives isn’t just going to make people become terrorists though.
Maybe if a state actor is handling agitprops or organized crime is heavily involved. It’s going to involve a whole lot of careful planning to get it right

As you're writing, do you keep the whole story in one document or do you have each chapter be its own file and then combine them later?

>>23422551
By careful planning I mean storyboarding

>>23422559
It makes no sense to separate chapters into their own separate documents unless that’s really what you want to do. I just write until the writing’s done and then figure out where I’m going to put my chapter markers. Sometimes I will write a paragraph or two to close a chapter out.

>>23422545
I'm an automation engineer. Some of your timeline is a little behind and some is wildly ahead, but looks decent overall.

I caution you not to overlook the importance of AI.
We're experimenting today with AI that can revise itself, deploy test versions of itself in sandboxes to experiment on, then replace itself with upgraded versions.
And we've been working on giving AI like this access to the real world for ages. And 3D printing is allowing it to rapidly prototype novel designs.
10 years from now people irl will be using generative AI to cook up novel drone and weapons configurations for printing.

>>23422567
These little things can help. Don DeLillo apparently writes each paragraph on a new sheet of paper, so that he can dedicate his focus to it as a complete and crafted unit.

>wrote a poem, any feedback is appreciate:

In the way there’s a girl
She stands in a thicket of suckling hosannas
Wearing whatever was in that season
Tan leather boots with coroneted lacing
And a skirt of pastel persuasion
In her eyes - two infinite pools, or lakes
when shadows grow long,
swishing waves oceanic
when the moon peeps out from its silvery door
Her hands like branches cradle insects
fantastic, webs spun round her elegant
fingers, a spider for a ring, and a wood louse for
a charm
Her feet are carved in milk and dusted with
snow white frosting that kisses the mud,
in which she writhes her long pale toes
Her breasts sit among clouds where horses
drink in tandem and quiet
I approach with my hands tied, mouth
gagged, bound by badgers, a foxtail
for a blindfold, a chestnut in each nostril,
ears stuffed with grass
These things fall away, unfurled that day
I see once again there’s a girl in the way

>>23422581
If you’re putting pen to paper yeah. That’s a great way to do it. Making 26 different word documents when you only really need one, though? That sounds tedious.

>>23422551
Free access to firearms and explosives won't make people terrorists, you're right. But at the same time all of this is happening, the rich is replacing the entire workforce with autonomous drones and fortifying their spaces and the planet's resources with armed drones and robots.

I'm not joking. My job is to roll out automation solutions for factories and warehouses. I regularly have dinner with executives and shareholders trying to automate their companies. After one or two drinks, they will happily tell you about how they can't wait until they can fire all of their workers, and can't wait for walled utopias without any poors, protected by small armies of synchronized autonomous defenses.

Stephen Hawking predicted that outcome years ago and it's becoming more true every day. So by the time this 3D printing really takes off, the public will have ample reason to revolt.

>>23422559
I keep it all in one document when using something like Word that has a table of contents pane, page numbering, headers and footers, etc.
In apps like Obsidian, I put each chapter in its own file.

>>23422524
I wrote 5 pages today. 2.5 sheets. There was French, there was German. Some Dutch, some English. I'm not writing a story, I'm journalling, so I don't have to worry. My prospect is to finish this notebook, with approximately 27 pages left, in less than a month. Progress has been kind of slow. There was much coffee and alcohol free beer. There was much sitting at tables and wondering why I'm even doing this. There was much mmorpg larping and distraction. There was much sneaking out. There was much isolation and there was some farming. There was much standing, worrying, and gnashing of teeth. There were many times that the ink did not flow and I had to dip the pen tip in water. There was much worrying about a broken pen, and there was much wondering if I should upgrade the pen. There was some stepping back in which ink I use and there was much social media. There were many naps, shopping sprees, greeting neighbors, talking to animals, and there was much not tidying the house. There was much wrathful text and there was much law-abiding citizen text.
>Today I made a bit.

>>23422574
>We're experimenting today with AI that can revise itself, deploy test versions of itself in sandboxes to experiment on, then replace itself with upgraded versions.
Sounds delightful.

>>23422610
Kaczynski was right. It’s time to go on back to Walden lake and build a cabin by the water.

>>23422585
>there’s a girl in the way
I like this, it's a pure and direct sentiment, but the rest of the poem feels like you're making a lonely's pervert's sculpture of a woman, to privately fawn over. Perhaps you intend the artificiality, and that's why you say 'These things fall away' as a way to close the poem out and return to the immediate encounter, but it still feels like the majority of the poem is occupied by a kind of... deadness. Branchlike hands and inert breasts and big stagnant pools of imaginary eyes for you to stare into, like in your private garden. The artificiality betrays the directness of the opening, as if (no offence) you were scared of the encounter with someone who might be more than a collection of nice images, who might have a consciousness, and speak back.

>an island in Japan
>so small that fewer than fifty people live there
There is electricity but it’s not always reliable.
There is one school that teaches k-12 in the same classroom
A girl in the 8th grade about to graduate middle school falls in love with a boy in the 5th grade
Will she move away and attend a high school in the mainland or put it all aside to be with him?
Also the teacher is a duck. Mister quackers. He’s also the mayor and the town’s mascot.
Also all of the adults are gone for some reason
And there are no cars.
There is a convenience store but it’s haunted.

>>23422670
Is the punchline that they're abandoned kids?

I mean intentionally, is that the garbage dump of kids?

>>23422675
It ends up being a schizophrenic girl’s drug induced fantasy

>>23422585
>there’s a girl in the way
I like this, it's a pure and direct sentiment - an encounter! But the rest of the poem feels like you're making a lonely pervert's sculpture of a woman, to privately fawn over. Perhaps you intend the artificiality, and that's why you say 'These things fall away', so as to cancel out the poem and return to the immediacy of the initial encounter, but it still feels like the majority of the poem is occupied by a kind of... deadness. Branchlike hands and inert breasts and big stagnant pools of imaginary eyes for you to stare into, as if in your private garden. The artificiality betrays the directness of the opening, as if (no offence) you were scared of getting into contact with someone who might be more than a collection of pretty images, who might have a consciousness, and speak back.

>>23422677
If you really go in that direction, it will ruin the whole thing. If you think the duck teacher and the haunted store are interesting, then make them as real as you can all the way through the story. That's the world of your work. If you think the schizophrenia is what's interesting, then make the story clearly about her schizophrenia from the start. Don't hedge your bets. 'It was all in her head' is a gimmick.

>>23422670
>Don't commit adultery at its finest!
I like this story outline and would buy and effortread it if it was published in a manga format for no more than 20 volumes.

Does writing a dissertation that pretty much no one will read also count

>>23422724
Or maybe 27 volumes, 3 per story arc. Manga's expensive here nowadays.

>>23422729
Give your dissertation to the BigTech language bot and just add it into the database of human effort so that it has a small piece of contribution to ameliorating tech, the world, and possibly, yourself.

>>23422610
>>23422625
Engineer anon here, again.
The insight I get from working in the industry has seriously led to me researching how to escape and cope.

The biggest thing I've found so far is Dunbar's Number.
Guns don't predict school shootings below the national level. School population does, though.
Prisoners used to live by "The Prisoner's Code" and form an alliance against the wardens based on mutual support and respect. The Code disappeared from prisons one by one as prison populations exceeded Dunbar's Number.
The prevalence of study groups and the robustness of social ties among college students can be predicted based on campus population, living hall population, and major population. There's a positive correlation as these populations increase until they hit the 150-300 range, at which point they begin to decline again.

Then there's the Third Place stuff, walkability, etc.

I'm convinced the answer is to build communities for about 150 people with a good balance of shared spaces and private spaces and encourage mutual aid.

The only reason I'm still in automation is because I'm using it to learn how to do things like automate greenhouses and hydroponic setups. I know how to build a basic electric grid off of hydroelectic and wind power, with furnace backups. I just need to figure out the agricultural applications.

>>23422696
It’ll be a massive trauma/mental illness/supernatural fantasy where the girl realizes the root causes of her trauma and her brain ends up rewiring itself as she figures it all out. I had some of it figured out in my head but I feel like I could M night shyamalan the shit out of this story.

>>23422744
There are already vertical farms that are mostly automated and require few workers.

>>23422682
Thanks! That’s really useful

>>23422585
I'm no poetry expert. The first thing I will say is that the structure and flow seems good, if I read this allowed while ignoring the semantic meaning of any of the words I wouldn't get the same terrible energy I would from most poems here. Content wise is where I have some nitpicks
>Wearing whatever was in that season
This line gives me the impression that the clothing is inconsequential to the narrator, but then you go on to describe it in detail
>In her eyes - two infinite pools
The extended comparison to water is fine, but the word choice of "two infinite pools" feels off. I already know there are two things, and "infinite" and "pools" are both stock word choices for describing eyes, so combining them together feels especially cliche
>Her hands like branches cradle insects
Here you begin to compare the woman to a sort of nymph figure who becomes part nature. But the problem is you start this with the invocation of "insects", which without any sort of prior expectation setting makes the reader default to thoughts of "disgust" instead of the more marvelous aspects of insects that you describe later
>Her feet are carved in milk and dusted with
I may just be retarded, but I genuinely have no clue what "carved in milk" is supposed to convey. But the other thing here is that you are extensively describing the feet of someone who was established as wearing boots. I know the narrator is in a reverie, but it honestly just makes the narrator feel a little perverted when the feet he can't physically see are described in more detail than anything else in the poem, especially when followed immediately by descriptions of breasts and bondage.
Overall there's this sort of dissonance between the narrator's earnest admiration and the more disconcerting elements. If that was intentional, I didn't pick up on it

>>23422744
>social network
>the actor in the picture doesn't face the audience
>no wonder he forgets
>neverlookback.jpg
The number seems about correct from experience though, give or take 50.

>>23422585
seems like a bit if a low interview count poem tbqh desu.

>>23422595
Revolt? Kill the ex-boss? Why? Nah, we'll start our own things. Move on, no hard feelings. Go outside more.

>>23422773
With which I wanted to greentext:
>Having followers =/= a social network

>>23422524
who the hell is that in the image because it sure as hell isn't descartes

>>23422810
It's Newton, famous for his quote, "Give her the dick."

>>23422574
>I caution you not to overlook the importance of AI.
>We're experimenting today with AI that can revise itself, deploy test versions of itself in sandboxes to experiment on, then replace itself with upgraded versions.
what is the context here. If you're talking about that AI to control a machine arm or AI that mimics human conversation it completely changes what you're saying

>>23422823
It's basically self-learning AI if anon isn't bullshitting.

Burn enough GPUs and you'll get singularity.

>>23422773
>>23422744
Forgot to include the on-topic bit!
I've been using Dunbar's Number in my writing and it helps so much.
Even if you don't explicitly write any actual story for a character, it really helps to note in a character's note sheet who is in the various circles.
Who are the 5 closest people they consider family?
Who is in the friend group of 15?
What is their clan?
What is their tribe?
If they don't have these, why not? And how does it affect them?

picrel

>>23422754
I don't know how to make those very well yet, so I keep learning.

>>23422823
It's all-of-the-above, to varying degrees of success thus far.
This technique is currently pretty bad for Large Language Models but it's promising for training models that design machinery. They currently don't design anything that reliably functions in the real world but they're getting closer every day. And there are plenty of people experimenting with letting AI control things like 3D printers.

There's an explicit goal for many engineers in the field: First, we'll get AI fixing things like cars with robots. Then, we'll have it designing its own unique tools, limb extensions, body parts, etc, so it can make itself better and better at fixing cars. Eventually automatons will be able to adapt themselves rapidly to any new problem and humans won't have to develop solutions on their own anymore.

>>23422146
took some of your feedback and rewrote it:

In her private chambers, Queen Lenore sighed.

The baby was crying again, it's shrill wails piercing her ears. She had not had more than a half hour of rest without the little parasite screeching for something. Lenore turned to look at her horse-man lover bouncing the baby in his arms. "Our little one's hungry, my love," he said. His hooves clicked as he walked over to her, ready to hand the little screaming bundle over.

Lenore took the babe in her arms, tugging her dress down to let the little loudmouth latch on. Quickly she began to suckle, her cries now silent.

Kuohsinga bent down, his equine face close. "Our daughter's adorable, isn't she, my love?" Tired from the constant crying, Lenore's temper flared. She stuck her hand out, and the rune on his chest glowed and forced him back onto his knees.

"You overstep, slave. She is my daughter only. In my kindness I let you care for her, but she is mine. And a slave like you must remember to always call me mistress. Now fetch me a drink," she said. Lenore recalled when she first entrapped him. Unable to defeat him in direct combat, she had tricked him into an ambush. The rage on that horseman's face when she placed the rune on his chest was fiercer than any wild stallion's.

But she saw not anger in him. No, his ears drooped and he frowned as he nodded. "Of course, mistress." With that, he took his leave.

Lenore looked to her little daughter filling her ever-hungry maw. "You're a greedy little thing, aren't you? All babies are. Gluttonous little milk leeches that can only cry and take."

But as Lenore stared at her longer, she felt her temper fade. The little babe looked less like a reddish potato than a few weeks before. Tracing her fingers over the baby's horselike ears, Lenore smiled a little at the soft velvet fur. And those cheeks! From this angle, they looked so round and plump. Lenore broke into a full grin. "They're like little hams!" she said with a little laugh. Her daughter began to kick a bit now, her tiny hooves shifting in her blanket.

Kuohsinga returned, mug of barley tea in hand. "For you mistress," he said with a bow. His face was like one of her chess knight pieces- stone and expressionless.

"Look! She's kicking!" Lenore exclaimed, hoping Kuohsinga would react. But he merely replied in a stony tone, "Does the mistress wish for me to comfort her daughter?"

Lenore recalled her harsh rebuke before, and felt her eyebrows gather together. "I...I lost my temper. Please."
>took a break now

On my rewrite I have come to the chapter where my MC has failed his Xth job interview and it is looking bleak. His father invites him to move in with him after kicking him out two years ago. Formerly I had this discussion take place in a restaurant, but it was the 4th restaurant scene so I want to move it somewhere more interesting, and preferably, symbolically relevant to their relationship being renewed. A walk in the park is out, I already have enough of those. But I can't think of a good location for such a scene. They are both adults, so no playgrounds, or at school, etc. Any ideas?

>>23422946
A bar. Come on dude.

>>23422946
A restaurant or a bar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NM_LgjNj4k

>>23422946
Something relating to a mutual interest. Maybe something they used to do together before falling out. One of the things I do with my dad is working on his boat. If a fictional version of me had a fight with my dad and became estranged with him, an invitation to come and help out with the boat would be a powerfully nostalgic and perhaps bittersweet opportunity to reconcile.

>>23422946
Would he take his dad up on the offer if his dad invited him over to talk?
Does his dad know where he lives and is he the kind of parent to drop by unannounced?
Could his dad ask him over the phone while he's doing something else thematically appropriate, like leaning on the railing of a bridge, hiding from rain under an awning, or undressing in the dark at home after the failed interview? Him walking away from the bridge, the rain easing up, or flipping on the light at the end of the conversation can reflect him leaving a dark patch with his dad.

>>23422946
>Formerly I had this discussion take place in a restaurant, but it was the 4th restaurant scene so I want to move it somewhere more interesting
It sounds like your story is trying to tell you that it's about restaurants. Lean into it, imo. Listen to your text, follow your subconscious. The restaurant - the half-coldly-commercial, half-warmly-familiar liminal space that supplies the strange background to the drama of our lives. That's what your story is about. Cracking lobster legs and swirling tagliatelle. A tale of four entrees.

This is me and my writing.

>>23422874
you definitely improved all the dialogue tags. good job.

some phrasings seem a bit weird to me still, like "felt her eyebrows gather together", but in general not so bad. it is of course not a full story or anything, so i cannot critique the story itself much.

i guess now you would just have to read more authors you enjoy and improve by learning from them. i mean the general writing style does not seem especially great to me yet, but it is a lot harder for me to actually critique that if there are no obvious mistakes, like before.

>>23422946
Here's 10 off the top of my head:
1. Going fishing
2. A baseball game
3. A bowling alley
4. Going camping/hiking/hunting
5. A wedding
6. A funeral
7. A birthday party
8. Visiting someone at the hospital
9. Church
10. A car ride/road trip

Or like the other anon said, lean in to the restaurant and modify the other scenes to create resonance and harmony.

>>23422772
You’re absolutely spot on in all your points - thank you!

>>23422788
Does this mean ‘low IQ count poem’?

>>23423197
no it was a meme reference from the last thread.
>>23419005
just ignore it.

What are your thoughts on this idea for a story, it may be cliche but we'll see.
>A beautiful auburn haired woman wearing very odd and extraterrestrial clothing washs up on shore
>two best friends, they attempt to help
>due to the face of mc1 she immediately trusts him but is unsure why, total amnesia except for the face of her lover
>she does have abilities as well, but those core memories will unlock throughout the story
>an gargantuan space fleet of unknown origin is decimating solar systems for unknown reasons
>the mysterious woman is completely frightened by this fleet upon hearing its name, but is unsure why
>mc 1's quest is to assist her in getting her memories back and maybe a romantic bond will form, he actively thinks this in the story, not will they won't they bullshit, hes plotting on that pussy
>mc 2 finds the fleet to be intriguing and would like to steal some of their weapons and data chips so that he can use their power
>they travel across planets, galaxies, solar systems to escape the fleet yet get closer to them, they need a "Star Guide" or something, path of the constellation?
>at some point it is revealed that mc 1 has an 30 minute older twin brother that he never knew of, explains her sudden trust of mc1, mc1 begins to seethe badly
>this brother is the fleets leader
>he is the woman's husband, ripping and tearing through space to find his love
>there is a confrontation
>she does not have her memories back in full, but she does not believe the twin brother
>the distance he came to get her, is inconceivable, why was she cast away from their home galaxy?

That's all I can think of for now, obviously all will be fleshed out, lole politics, galactic kingdoms, how they are able to travel such distances in such short time, FTL is an unproven concept in this world, but there are some people who make personal gadgets that appear to make use of it. It would be like driving to another state, I was considering a galactic rail line or something. But idk, I feel as if I'm just meshing a bunch of random things in my mind whilst writing this.

>>23423207
the fact that the older brother is decimating solar systems just to find his love sounds very much like YA books at best
i would understand if he was doing it solo, but leading a full fleet? at the very least, the way you put it, is borderline unreasonable

>>23423207
are you ever going to write anything?

>>23423207
>the mysterious woman is completely frightened by this fleet upon hearing its name, but is unsure why
desu i would be frightened as well, and i would know why.

>mc 2 finds the fleet to be intriguing and would like to steal some of their weapons and data chips so that he can use their power
because intergalactic solar system destroying fleets have zero opsec and any random beach dwelling script kiddie can just own them and start their own solar destroyer business?

>ripping and tearing through space to find his love
yeah makes sense, who wouldn't do that. sure.

> there is a confrontation
gasp. next you tell me there is conflict in your story as well.

>she does not have her memories back in full, but she does not believe the twin brother
why not? he has done some pretty costly signaling with all the destruction. also aren't bad boys what womens want?

>the distance he came to get her, is inconceivable, why was she cast away from their home galaxy?
why is that inconceivable? it is sci fi and they just jump from system to system themselves to flee. what is so weird about that part in particular?

general remarks:
sounds like a fun anime story. especially the evil twin brother.
you did not write much about mc2. is he needed for this at all? could just be mc1 plan b after not getting pussy?

in general any coherent story outline can work if you are just good at writing it. wasn't there some author who was challenged to write pokemon in the roman empire and it became a bestseller or something?

I guess i want to say the outline does not matter much. in the end you just need to write well and coherently.

>>23423207
>>23423231
found the roman empire / pokemon story. it was Codex Alera

http://pagefault.booklikes.com/post/458251/i-want-to-be-a-pokemon-master-

>>23423223
You are correct, it would be significantly cooler for one man to tear through solar systems for his long lost pussy. The issue is not making him too powerful, I would have to make her his weakness or some bullshit twin weakness. I dont sent it to be too snime esque.
>>23423227
I am always writing, but coming up with something to write is more fun than actually doing it. Same with my music production and art.
>>23423231
>>23423259
I appreciate the way you write feedback, do you have any more? Thanks for the Codex Alera recommendation, never even heard of it.

**** "Die!!!!!!!!!!" ****

I tasted copper before coming back to my sense in a strange position : I found myself crouching in front of the arch. I exhaled from pure shock. Of course, nothing was truly exhaled : there was no air in this place.

The last thing I remembered was the blinding pain and the taste of blood in my mouth. Now, I was here, again, wherever that was. I stood up slowly, taking in my surroundings. The arch was tall and elegant, made of smooth, light-colored stone. It stood on a rustic wooden platform that seemed to float in the midst of an endless starry expanse.

Something in the back of my mind knew that arch. I took a step forward, feeling the wood beneath my feet, solid and real despite the surreal atmosphere. The stars around me twinkled like a thousand eyes, watching my every move. There was a serene, almost magical quality to the place, a stark contrast to the brutality of my last moments.

As I tried to piece together what had happened, I noticed a figure standing at the edge of the platform. A woman, her back turned to me. Something about her silhouette seemed hauntingly familiar. I took another step, the sound of my footsteps strangely muted.

"Hello?" My voice echoed softly, barely a whisper in the vastness.

The woman turned slowly, and my breath caught in my throat. She had no face at all. No eyes, no nose, no mouth, nothing. All I could see were slight recesses on her face were those features were supposed to be. For some reason, it didn't freak me out as much as it should have.

She had long black hair that reached down to her waist. She made a "hello" gesture with her hand, as if beckoning me closer. I naturally came to her, as she was the only person in this place. Or rather, that was what my rational brain was telling me at the time. I didn't actually remember taking a single step forward back then, I just blinked and found myself in front of her.

"Who are you ?" I asked.

"...", she said.

"I see. Am I dead ?"

The woman’s featureless face seemed to tilt slightly, as if considering my question. The silence stretched, pressing against my ears in the soundless void. Then, without warning, she reached out and took my hand. Her touch was cold, almost painfully so, and yet there was a strange comfort in it.

Before I could react, she began to lead me towards the arch. My legs moved of their own accord, drawn forward by an invisible force. The closer we got, the more intense the sensation became, a mix of trepidation and strange anticipation.

As we reached the arch, she let go of my hand and gestured towards the shimmering space within it. I hesitated, glancing at her faceless visage for some sign, some clue. Her silence was unnerving. I could not deduce anything from it.

>>23423411
"I'm supposed to get inside, I suppose?" I asked and waited for a minute. She didn't answer my question. She was still there, looking through her nonexistent eyes, but she was not moving an inch. The way she didn't breath or pretend to breath like I did was bizarre.

She was like a statue, and I scolded myself for thinking that. I didn't know why, but I did.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped into the arch. The moment I crossed the threshold, a rush of sensations overwhelmed me. I felt my body being pulled apart and reassembled, every nerve tingling with an electric energy. The taste of copper intensified, and a sharp pain shot through my chest, reminiscent of my last moments before I found myself here.

I found myself in the place I had left, an enormous smudge of blood on my torso. "Fucking hell!" I cried, the enormity of everything crashing down on me. "I fucking died! No way! How am I still alive?"

And then, for some reason, I began cackling.

Some things to keep in mind when you describe your setting from your character's POV.

>>23423411
> in a strange position : I found myself crouching
is that a strange position?

>Of course, nothing was truly exhaled : there was no air in this place.
>The way she didn't breath or pretend to breath like I did was bizarre.
actually a bit weird how many references you make to normal breathing when it is only pretend breathing. just felt weird i guess. especially when mc "takes a deep breath" i am now thinking in my head "taking a deep fake breath".

>Now, I was here, again, wherever that was.
why do you say explicitely here that they were already here? in all other instances the mc just feels like they remember, apparently without actually remembering something.

>The stars around me twinkled like a thousand eyes, watching my every move
sounds a bit cliche and the metaphor seems a bit needless. i would feel like nobody is watching me in this instance, so this feels like a metaphor that was inserted because it sounds cool, not because it helps with the narrative.

>She made a "hello" gesture with her hand, as if beckoning me closer.
aren't those two different kinds of gestures? hello would just be raising a hand or waving. beckoning closer is moving the hand towards yourself repeatedly.

>I naturally came to her, as she was the only person in this place. Or rather, that was what my rational brain was telling me at the time. I didn't actually remember taking a single step forward back then, I just blinked and found myself in front of her.
this all sounds very confusing. but i guess that could be on purpose. is this really rational at all? maybe it would be better to say that that is what the brain confabulated. but what is also confusing is that you are talking about coming to her but at the same time not remembering it. i guess the confabulation would then make sense, but the way it is written sounded confusing to me.

>As we reached the arch, she let go of my hand and gestured towards the shimmering space within it.
>I could not deduce anything from it.
our mc is a bit dense here.

>>23423430

>As we reached the arch, she let go of my hand and gestured towards the shimmering space within it.
>I could not deduce anything from it.
our mc is a bit dense here.
>"I'm supposed to get inside, I suppose?"
double suppose sounds weird.

>The way she didn't breath or pretend to breath like I did was bizarre.
here i started to wonder what she actually looked like. is she naked so you would naturally see her breathing?
also she has no nose, which should be the bizarre part about her. but we were already told that did not freak mc out much.

>I found myself in the place I had left, an enormous smudge of blood on my torso. "Fucking hell!" I cried, the enormity of everything crashing down on me. "I fucking died! No way! How am I still alive?"
the dialogue here sounds a bit lame. idk, might be exactly what i would say in this situation. but maybe it would be a better "ending" if something else would happen instead if mc telling us the obvious. i mean i don't need a twist, but more then just saying what i would have expected anyway the whole way through your narration. this was just way to telegraphed without any other payoff.
also it seems a bit weird that they now remember that they died, when this seems to have happened before already.

if that is the whole story and not just an excerpt i would say it does not have much meat on the bones. maybe imply a bit more of what had happened exactly just before and why our protagonist is not allowed to die. or what they could do or are supposed to do with this (new?) power.

>>23423278
>I am always writing

so uh. why not post it?

>>23423110
Then you lose your job and career

>>23423514
I'm a full time NEET

>>23423411
If copper is supposed to be blood - blood tastes like iron, not copper.

>use dialogue tag "Josh said confidently."
>everyone else: booo fuck adverbs, they're bad
>???

What do they want from me? The guy just answered a question with confidence, it doesn't need a paragraph metaphor to "show" it.

>>23423563
Fuck those people. Adverbs are useful. They allow for better readability, pace, flow, and tone.

>>23423554
blood tastes metallic. i know there is iron in blood, but any metal will probably do.

>>23423563
if you overuse it, especially with dialogue tags, it just sounds bad. but if you read any author, they of course all use adverbs. just don't overdo it and make the adverb really count without digging too deep into your thesaurus.

i mean just try to rewrite dialogue without and only with adverbs. it just sticks out when you use too many.

>>23423205
What's the meme?

>>23423576
i linked it. you would have to read the thread i guess. but a dude was talking about having had over a hundred confirmed interviews with women in order to not fall into the man-writing-women trap, which some other anon asked about.

it derailed the thread a bit.

the poem felt a bit like man-writing-women i guess.

>>23423489
>is that a strange position?
To wake up in? It is to me

>actually a bit weird how many references you make to normal breathing when it is only pretend breathing. just felt weird i guess. especially when mc "takes a deep breath" i am now thinking in my head "taking a deep fake breath".
mm. you're right there. I didn't want to overwhelm the reader with things he already knew

>why do you say explicitely here that they were already here? in all other instances the mc just feels like they remember, apparently without actually remembering something.
that's part of a small plotline. perhaps I should keep it as stuff he's unsure he's remembering, but it's to put an emphasis on the fact that something is fucking with his head

>sounds a bit cliche and the metaphor seems a bit needless. i would feel like nobody is watching me in this instance, so this feels like a metaphor that was inserted because it sounds cool, not because it helps with the narrative.
noted

>aren't those two different kinds of gestures? hello would just be raising a hand or waving. beckoning closer is moving the hand towards yourself repeatedly.
mm

>this all sounds very confusing. but i guess that could be on purpose. is this really rational at all? maybe it would be better to say that that is what the brain confabulated. but what is also confusing is that you are talking about coming to her but at the same time not remembering it. i guess the confabulation would then make sense, but the way it is written sounded confusing to me.
confabulation is perfect. didn't know the word, thanks

>our mc is a bit dense here.
haha yeah he's a bit of a retard there. I should fix this

>double suppose sounds weird.
true


>here i started to wonder what she actually looked like. is she naked so you would naturally see her breathing?
yes.
>also she has no nose, which should be the bizarre part about her. but we were already told that did not freak mc out much.
yeah, true. I wanted to play on the fact that she is not breathing while every human do which sets her apart from humanity, but it's not like she can pretend to in this situation...

>the dialogue here sounds a bit lame.
yeah, I need to work on it
>also it seems a bit weird that they now remember that they died, when this seems to have happened before already.
the conscious self of the protagonist doesn't know he already died, I don't know if that's clear. probably something I should work on.

>if that is the whole story and not just an excerpt i would say it does not have much meat on the bones. maybe imply a bit more of what had happened exactly just before and why our protagonist is not allowed to die. or what they could do or are supposed to do with this (new?) power.

it's an excerpt, but you've been right all along. thanks for the input.

You ever read a book and have to start studying the fuck out of it because it was exactly what you were going to write, only better in every conceivable way? I got fucked hard by something and I'm glad it happened sooner than later, but it hurts. High level literary mindfuck so it's not like some asshole had the same plot, he had the same themes and ran train on it before I was born to the point I'm trying to figure out what's left of this whore that can still take a dick.

>>23423563
The confidence should be inferred from the answering itself

>>23423690
What if it's just a yes/no response? Like when you're in court being grilled by a lawyer.

>>23423689
That's why I don't read.

What are better ways to say someone sighed? It gets boring saying that over and over to show they're disappointed in me.

>>23423696
Based. Me neither. Fuck books. I only watch anime. When I write, I picture in my mind what the scene would look like if it was an anime and just write what I see.

>>23423704
>>23423704
Hanging their head and shaking it slowly. Maybe pinching the bridge of their nose or rubbing their temples.

>>23423739
>When I write, I picture in my mind what the scene would look like if it was an anime and just write what I see.
wow that's gay. that's immensely gay actually. what the fuck. please show us some of your dialogue and exposition

>>23423773
t. can't picture an apple

>>23423748
That sounds kinda cliche.

>>23423704
if your character sighs so much that that becomes a problem then you should probably stop making them sigh.

>>23423880
But they are surrounded by sorrow and despair.

Anyone else have trouble thinking of what happens line by line in a scene? Like they have the character do something or say something then it's like "then what did he do?". I sit here for 20 minutes trying to think of what should come next.

>>23423993
would it help if you would think about each characters goals in a scene? as long as the character does not feel they have achieved their goal they will have to do something towards that, right? and it is probably clear to you with all the information, what exactly they would want to try.

As someone who feels like they have nothing to write about, how do I get into it?

Should I start by simply diarising my day? Or taking notes about what I'm reading?

It might seem silly but I feel like I need to write something...there has been a long standing nagging in my mind that I need to write but I don't know why so I've never really done it. It's an itch I want to scratch. Looking for some starting advice.

>>23424025
is fan fiction an option for you?

otherwise just come up with an interesting character and put then into an interesting situation. just write a scene. does not need to be a short story even.

Any tips and/or resources for writing fight scenes?

>>23423739
What about stuff like manga, LNs, and VNs?

>>23423112
Thanks. I think I'll continue writing short bits to try and practice my writing, will read some more too

>>23424009
I suppose. My issue usually is I don't want just a full page of dialogue so I feel like I need to add narration bits to break it up and have the characters move around while they talk or something.

Turo laid back and listened as she had spoken.

“This one is called Imara. Though elves often don’t divulge their ages, this one has seen twenty-one winters. My own tribe is of the eastern forests, far beyond the great borders of the human lands to the east. It has been… six years, if this one does recall right.”

“Since you have seen your family?”

“Yes. This is correct. The elf-kin are considered immortal, though perhaps we just do not die of old age. Long-lived are we, and storied in ancient knowledge.”

I write some of my characters dialogues assuming the reader knows they are ESL, particularly elves. In my mind, this sounds incredibly accurate to what an elf might say if the elf had only a working grasp of the common language.

Twain once wrote about tapping into hypnagogic states for creativity. I've experimented with this where I nap while obsessing over my idea trying to resolve the issues, but even in a semi-dream state I can't figure it out. I recommend it though. The clarity of thought you get in those states is pretty surprising

>Develop fantasy story and world for a long time
>The essence ends up being: a dozen or so gods
have to set aside their differences to perform a ritual and this is accomplished through scenes of contemplation and emotional conversations with one another
idk if this is retarded or based

>>23424100
Do you have actual martial arts experience? Give it in detail.
Do you have no prior experience? Keep fight scenes ambiguous and short, describe more the nature of action rather than the action itself.

>>23423563
>he seethed calmly

>>23423571
Everyone reading the line is going to wonder, where the fuck did this faggot go to school. I know I did.

I'm putting a 4chan reference in my story. There will be mention of a green frosted cake in the shape of a 4 leaf clover for St. Patrick's day. It's subtle, but I'm doing it for you guys <3

>>23424161
They don't sound very god-like, but then again, they never do in fantasy

>>23424185
i mean many authors have described the taste of blood as tasting pennies. those used to be made of copper, now are made of zinc. sucking on any metal would probably give you the same sensation. you don't need to be scietifically accurate to describe the taste. people who have heard of tasting pennies will understand tasting copper just fine.

any good authors or works to read for gun-fight writing?

>>23424254
Just prick yourself on the finger and have a little taste

>>23424261
Blood Meridian

>>23424261
Louis L'Amour, Larry McMurtry, Elmer Kelton

>>23424254
Most of mankind associates the taste of blood with iron, not pennies or copper. By your logic, you might as well write, "tasted aluminum in my mouth", since metal's a metal, eh. But it just makes your readers go wtf

>>23424100
I feel even in something like shonen the choreography and technicals of the fights are pretty inconsequential and the audience is mostly supposed to care the flashy finisher type moves, the dialogue and any clever tricks pulled.
>>23424239
isn't that just how irl paganism works though
>>23424280
The taste of metal in blood is faint enough that you'd only notice it if you were primed ahead of time, blood has a subtle taste that is hard to compare to anything else (that doesn't have blood in it) The texture of blood is more interesting because it is thick to the touch but goes down the throat like water

>>23423411
>>23423430

>Now, I was here, again, wherever that was.
This is kind of awkward and difficult to understand.

>feeling the wood beneath my feet, solid and real despite the surreal atmosphere.

>a stark contrast to the brutality of my last moments.
These two are in the same paragraph and have exactly the same way of relating a contrast. I find the first one the more heavy handed of the two, but in any case they are too similar to be next to each other.

>she began to lead me towards the arch. My legs moved of their own accord, drawn forward by an invisible force.
Describing him as being pulled by an invisible force after establishing that she is pulling him is again slightly confusing. I get it, I understand what you mean, but it stumbled this passage for me.

Otherwise I thought it was a little inconsistent POV wise with how grounded the character's narration is at some points versus how poetic he can be elsewhere.

>>23424176
>Give it in detail.
This always sounds autistic as fuck

>>23424280
What are you, some kind of metal sommelier? I knew what he meant immediately and even you made the association yourself in order to even have this pedantic argument.

>>23424367

>He doesn't spend his free time licking and sucking on different various metal bars

ngmi

I've hit a snag and I've been wracking my brain over it since yesterday
>There's this dude, his death kickstarts the plot
>Official version is that his death is a freak accident, unlikely to occur but not done out of malice
>One investigator finds evidences of murder
>One investigator finds evidences of suicide
>What actually happened is, he got trapped in a room with what is (essentially) a vampire, which proceded to shred his back for its own amusement (it's not really a vampire, but it's a creature of the night that stalks people and is compelled to cause as much suffering and fear as possible), until it managed to open the curtains of his room, showing the light of dawn, which in this setting is mortal for everyone, but for the life of me I can't make this series of events makes sense in how the characters would act

I'm probably just going to doodle rooms patterns until I find something interesting to use.

Was conscious about my prose and pulling random books off the shelf to try to get a pulse on some different styles. Something about Austen's really gets to me. It is simple, easy to read 200 years later, and you the reader likely possess the talent to have written any individual sentence (ignoring some archaic grammar and word choice), yet it is entirely delightful as a whole. It doesn't have that intense quality you'd get from a more renowned prose where every single line is striking and beautiful, but I'd say it should be the gold standard for functional prose. Completely random paragraph just so you don't have to go searching to see my point
>But when the gentlemen entered, Jane was no longer the first object; Miss Bingley’s eyes were instantly turned toward Darcy, and she had something to say to him before he had advanced many steps. He addressed himself to Miss Bennet, with a polite congratulation; Mr. Hurst also made her a slight bow, and said he was “very glad;” but diffuseness and warmth remained for Bingley’s salutation. He was full of joy and attention. The first half-hour was spent in piling up the fire, lest she should suffer from the change of room; and she removed at his desire to the other side of the fireplace, that she might be further from the door. He then sat down by her, and talked scarcely to anyone else. Elizabeth, at work in the opposite corner, saw it all with great delight.

>>23424444
It would be asking a lot of a young writer to be able to keep so lovely a prose as this up for 300 odd pages. I really love how, in Austen's world, there are fewer "intense, big gestures of love" but more quiet nods and little talks.

I lay alone in a cold, dark room. The bright screen of my phone suddenly assaults my eyes; I stare into it and endure. The brightness fades as my eyes adjust, and the room grows darker. I keep staring for 3 hours. Exhausted, I pass out.

>>23424350
>blood has a subtle taste
Nigga go see a doctor, you probably have ten sorts of deficiencies. There's nothing subtle about that taste and you can even smell the iron.

>>23424367
>you made the association yourself in order to even have this pedantic argument
Anon himself explained the association earlier, it never occurred to me, which is the main cause of this whole argument, retard. Why are you even defending this? Does your blood taste like copper? wtf

>>23424493
>wow the phoneposter knows... he knows... where the heckin semicolon is on the keyboard........?!?!?!?!?! hoooooooooooooooooly........

>>23424493
I know you have Grammerly+ nigga

/wg/, tell me true. All my ideas for stories take place between 2016-2019. But now I'm getting word that all the new movie scripts for big blockbuster tripe take place in that timespan. Is the idea to have all my stories be metamodernist pieces that take place between 2016-2019 all garbage now?

>>23424520
if they're garbage now they were probably garbage before, too

>>23424520
The world practically stopped developing in that period, so where else would you set them? There's literally no difference between 2024 and 2018

Where the fuck do I find beta readers?

>>23424557
You probably only really want people you trust to critique your work, honestly. For example, if you post something that's more artistic and literary here, all the genreshits will pour out of the woodwork, pretending that they aren't genreshits, to try to get you to simplify your language, make the plot more central, etc. Conversely, if you post genreshit, artfags will jump on their soapboxes and tear you to pieces over your amateurish prose and autistic fixation on things that have precisely zero literary merit. I've come around to the idea that only my opinion on a piece really matters. By asking for feedback, I give up my ownership and throw my vision to the wolves. I try to be my own harshest critic because I'm the only person who will be able to do it from the fullest set of information available. Point being, without knowing exactly where a critic is coming from (his tastes, preferences, and probably most importantly, abilities), any criticism is likely completely worthless. I trust myself enough to know that I can write. Anything I write will usually have some kind of literary beauty to it. What it's usually lacking is coherent, overarching narrative. My wife constantly checks me on that. I trust her. Trust is the most important thing.

>>23424498
Perhaps he's a crab. In his very own bucket.

>>23424557

Royalroad.

And here, if you want to pastebin stuff.

if I write an isekai power fantasy about weak becoming strong and write a bunch of cliches I will I become popular

>>23423553
>When NEETing becomes your work
Oh wait...

>>23424708

Yes. People love to hate on isekai power fantasy's but we just ignore those protests and continue enjoying them anyway.

>>23424573
theres a difference between preference and literary standards. of course others are going to impose their preferences on your work, but the best critique comes from a place of objectivity, (even though most modern writers seem to refuse rule and standard)

>>23424195
dont forget to add yotsuba

>>23423739
congrats. you just described the current degeneration of the arts in its entirety

>>23424708
Only if it's a mega harem with a herbivore MC and you spend 30+ chapters writing about the MC's never-ending quest to find rice only to bitch about it not being superior japonica rice and then another 30 chapters on onions sauce which isn't the same because stupid other world.

>>23424100
Two goons came at me, one from the front, the other from behind. I whipped my left foot at the front man, a good roundhouse kick to the jaw, sending him tumbling back like a shrimp. Then I spun around to give the second man a good one-two, but this one was slick. He dodged my fists and executed a goddamn somersault away from striking distance. I’d clap if he weren’t trying to kill me.

>>23423739
That's really bad dude. It's going to harm your writing. Writing is about creating interesting, communicative sentences. Ultimately, the scene doesn't live in your imagination, it lives on the page. The instant tell for amateur writing is the sense that the writer is just playing out a little movie scene in their head. The words feel incidental and arbitrary - they're just the substitutes that the writer's having to rely on because they don't have the skills to make movies. Whereas in good writing the sentences do things that could never be translated onto the screen. 'The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.' How do you communicate that in an anime? 'I hear always the sullen thud of the waves; and the chained beast stamps on the beach. It stamps and stamps.' That's powerful precisely because Woolf's beast doesn't have a concrete, pictorial form. If you don't read books, you won't know what you're missing out on.

>>23424800
>the best critique comes from a place of objectivity
I personally have very little use for objectivity. I don't think literature is best written or experienced from a place of analysis. Trying to be objective about it essentially takes you out of a space where you're able to experience the work and into the brainworm land of analysis. I say leave that to the critics. The most useful critiques to me are simply whether or not it works and a simple, subjective "why." I couldn't give less of a shit about analysis. It's parasitic and kills the spirit.

>>23422524
I feel like the only n word who feels worldbuilding and magic systems are a waste of time.
Sure it's fun to toil over a specific city's tax policies or figuring out what they eat and everything, but I can't help but feel like I'm wasting my time. All that time spent researching about this city's federal religion and whatnot is time that could be spent putting actual pen to paper and actually writing something.
I'll probably still read history books and/or occult books for "research" though. I need to skim the Lesser Key of Solomon in order to have a better grasp of the ritualistic elements of the story.

>>23424964
It's probably why most worldbuilding hobbyists never actually write anything worth reading. They create this Disneyland ride on-rails and populate each nook and cranny with cardboard cutouts but never actually put anything into it that lives and breathes. It ends up just being a straight-line journey through a world that has no actual life or human essence. Sure, they'll dutifully vomit out 5000 words a day and pretend it's writing but they'll never actually put anything of themselves into it. Sure, there'll be an eminently fappable Gladys the Swordmaiden or whatever and a Buff McHardbody but never once will anything deeply and authentically human grace any sentence of any page because they've already busted their entire creative load figuring out what color underwear the eight year old girls wear on Saturday.

>>23425017
people who write genre seriously live inside your head huh

>>23425026
Do you live in a milquetoast world where everything is totally cool bro and copacetic man? Do you hate nothing at all?

>>23425033
Thanks for teaching me the word 'copacetic'

>>23424964
Worldbuilding and magic systems is where a setting can truly get original (otherwise you just end up with litrpg slop), but yeah at some point you need to stop and actually figure out what you want to write that's so interesting.

The /wg/ anathema has just completed its mini-arc, and now it's time for the Academy.

"As dense as any cliche Japanese highschool child. Wish I could see the look on his face when he realises he's being the thing he hates, but he might be too self absorbed to be properly horrified when he does or to arrogant to even notice."

"Christ, this guy is unlikable. And I don't even know how to give useful advice on how to fix him. I know it's possible to make likeable assholes, but I genuinely don't know where to start fixing his mess is a personality."

"No, Iike asshole characters, usually, but this one is just a bit too much. Killing him with manhole cover was a. Correct thing to do. Resurrection with powers was a mistake."

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

>wow! this uh magic system is uh... so original!
What manner of human being

>>23425047
>https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/76148/revenge-of-the-slop-king-litrpg-cheat-power-harem
>500k words in 6 months
>for this

>>23425071
Yeah, why not?

>>23425047
Sincerely some of the worst writing I've ever read in my life. Why not slow down and write something authentic? Why is everything so completely superficial and meaningless but also simultaneously boring? Is your approach to just provide material for people who simply must move their eyes and ingest words at any cost?

>>23425106
>Why is everything so completely superficial and meaningless but also simultaneously boring?
Care to provide an example?

>>23424430
Have him thrown out of the window in the struggle, exposing the vampire to the sun and giving ambiguous reasons for his injuries, ie lacerations from broken glass vs vampire claws, broken bones from fall vs fighting.

>>23424444
Austen is really great at giving you only what you're interested in, and plenty of it. In that excerpt, every single thing mentioned makes a real contribution. The opposite of this is My Immortal wittering on interminably about everyone's MCR shirts and doc martens.

>>23424708
you shouldn't write to become popular you should write because you like it :)

>>23424498
I don't think I could tell you the difference in taste between copper and iron

The man killed the other man and so there was just one man.

>>23425246
tasting copper wins. you and me can feel the victor. congrats.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=tasting+metal%2C+tasting+copper%2C+tasting+iron&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

>>23425042
What separated a story that was truly good like Mushoku Tensei from a common litrpg was the attention to detail they paid to the fantasy aspect, particularly the magic. MT's magic wasn't new, but it felt fresh especially the automation processes they explain in later volumes where they pull apart an automaton built by someone who figured out how to put multiple layers of spell circles overlapping one another like a circuit board
Who the heck does that?

>don't take myself seriously
>write derivative mike ma schizo babble
>take myself seriously
>write juvenile teen angst cringe
how to write about deep things and not sound like a whiner? At this point I think it's just a matter of wordsmithing to make silly things sound important.

>>23422524
I dunno about anyone else but there’s something about smug midwit proto-redditor bussy that really does something for me. Every time I hear “neither holy nor Roman nor empire I just want to slide my juicy stub right up between those pantyhose, the smell of wig powder filling the air as I pull on that long grey hair and moan “talk to me like a fucking idiot” and just splooge buckets of cum.

>>23425358
That was Voltaire but i guess at least you got the nationality right.

>>23425343
Have you tried looking how Slop King does it?

Bottom line is, don't whine, just be free.

>>23425343
Maybe that's who you are inside. If you want to write something else, you will have to grow as a person.

Does anyone else write better in a rainstorm? The other day it rained all day and I just penned words like a madman for fifteen hours straight taking little breaks

>>23425381
Going by the pic not the name, sweetcheeks.

>>23424573
I think /wg/ has a problem where everyone who actually writes and learns from their writing just becomes better and too busy writing to actually idle around here.
What you're left with is then a bunch of crab bucket faggots who, if they put at least 5% of what they write in effort to crabbucket someone into actual writing, would become a better writer overnight in just a few months' time.

/wg/ is fine for writing beginners, but expect beginner advice. And a lot of crab bucket faggots.

>>23425502
This is a containment thread, so these failed bucket crabs don't pollute the rest of /lit/ with their nonsense. You're just now figuring that out?

>>23425538
>You're just now figuring that out?
I am not very smart.

>>23425538
The rest of /lit/ is aids. This is the only thread on /lit/

>>23424444
That passage would get eviscerated by an editor these days and you'd get told you have to rewrite the whole thing because it's not "succinct" enough.

>>23425583
Ignore all editor advice regarding prose and instead take their advice on ease of reading and grammar errors.

>>23422524
Forcing myself to push through the story and plot at the expense of good prose and everything else just so I can have a basic barebones first draft quickly is probably the best decision I've ever made because my discipline has drastically improved

>>23425471
Now I think about it all the best writers tend to be from places with gloomy weather. Who's the best author ever produced by Arizona?

>>23425538
>pollute the rest of /lit/
>pollute the piss with shit
>now there's shit in our piss

>>23425605
Rest in piss.

>>23424918
>The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.
wtf does that even mean?

>I hear always the sullen thud of the waves; and the chained beast stamps on the beach. It stamps and stamps.

You can just overlay sound effects, you don't have to physically show a beast.

>>23425625
>wtf does that even mean?
Nothing new under the old sun, brainlet.

>>23425627
It's a very awkward way of putting it. Any sentence that causes your reader to stop and question it is bad writing.

>>23425583
Seems incredibly succinct to me, even by contemporary standards

>>23425631
I'm not even that anon but that didn't make me stop to think about it, even if
>having no alternative
was a little unnecessary.

>>23425631
>Any sentence that causes your reader to stop and question it is bad writing.
bruh

any authors or works for learning how to write shootouts in a more modern setting than the old west or are old westerns the best of gun fights in prose?

>>23425679
I can't give you any better advice than to write action-reaction and make the reactions as visceral as possible.

Do you want an example of how I've done it in my unfinished VN?

>>23425583
Are you kidding me? Austen's prose is very lean and compact. I think her old-fashioned voice just makes you automatically think 'flowery and overwritten' without paying attention to the content of what you're actually reading.

>>23425625
Don't judge them from my post. Read Molloy and The Waves and then judge.

>>23425679
This just IMO but focus on the sounds and smells. Don't go full /k/ and launch into a two paragraph autistic rant about the caliber size or what brand accessory is attached to which model gun. Unless that fits the character's viewpoint, of course.

>>23425731
I read a shitty book in an airport once and the author took a break during the tense cat and mouse secret agent on the run portion to essentially copy+paste the wikipedia entry on the ak-47. The rest of the book wasn't great but that part really stuck out.

>>23425746
Sounds like that pic someone posted a week ago where the author basically ran an ad for some IRL Mexican restaurant in the middle of a chapter.

thoughts on this imagery?

moon like butter melting through the oven glass
a hawk over like a balloon on a fieldmouses twitching tail
Highrises with freckled hair and buttoned up vents
A bus carved out like a halloween turkey
Washed up scales of a cornhusked lake beast
boats cut bald like boys going out to war

>>23425746
Was it Tom Clancy?

>>23425731
>Don't go full /k/ and launch into a two paragraph autistic rant about the caliber size or what brand accessory is attached to which model gun.
This.
>Unless that fits the character's viewpoint, of course.
And this.

Here's some examples from my hopefully only yet unreleased VN. Excuse the formatting, these go line-by-line with all the fancy VN stuff inbetween.

He notices a pistol partially buried in the sand.
He takes it, checks it.{w} Loaded.
Good news is, it's foreign.
Bad news is, it's the wrong kind of foreign.
And the ugly, that the model is not exactly known for its reliability.
[MC thoughts] "No better way to check..."
He quickly peeks out from behind cover.
He sees two heads sticking out from behind a rock, some distance away.
He fires off two shots in quick succession.
The heads disappear as the bullets hit the rock.
[MC] didn't intend to hit - if he did, it would have been very fortunate.
It was simply a greeting, easy to understand by all languages of the world.
'Hello. I'm armed too. I'm going to kill you.'

Another scene goes like this:

They start firing at the men, it takes them a moment to realize they're under attack.
Some of them are struck and fall over dead in an instant. Those that weren't hit manage to scream out an alarm in their native tongue.
One of the men hugs a tiny rock for a sliver of cover and fires blindly into the darkness.
The few remaining survivors join him, taking shots at nothing in particular.
The muzzle flashes from their rifles light them up for just a fraction of a second...
But that brief moment of light is treacherous in the dark.
[MC's friend] and [MC] do not have to look hard for their targets, while their enemies can't see a thing.
The price difference between a bad flash hider and a good one is trivial - but in combat, it is paid in blood.
It does not take [MC] long at all to take aim and hit the rest of the men
A few shots later, the last echo of gunfire fades away, and the nigh-silence of a hailstorm returns to the dark valley.

Yes I am also looking for feedback, I am heavily restricting myself to length of the lines.

How on earth do you guys manage to strictly stick to an idea? Because even when I'm writing something I want my mind just keeps churning out more and more ideas on it's own, it's so distracting I never manage to get far with any story before my mind starts drifting and something even more interesting pops into my brain and I end up abandoning my initial project. I have too much inspiration and not enough discipline. How do I build discipline?

>>23425808
Take notes of your other ideas and focus on the one you are working for.

If you experience a block, shift to the other idea most appealing to you right now and do the same.

If I’m organizing my story in terms of action set pieces I’m not really writing anything worthwhile, am I?

>>23425841
What makes you think that? Isn't that what all but slice of lifeshit is?

>>23425762
Sounds hilarious.
>>23425780
A second rate imitator, I'm pretty certain.

>>23425794
This is so boring
Man I hate action. It's so boring and gay.
"The man shot another man. He's tough. He doesn't care. The government is le bad"

Overt masculinity is the gayest thing to happen to literature

>>23425794
I liked the first one a lot more. The second is unbelievably dry for two guys fighting for their lives and killing their enemies.

Is there anyone here who has a patreon or something similar? I'm curious about it but don't want my name to get out.

>>23425926
It's unbelievably dry because they are ambushing a squad of enemies at night during a hailstorm, while they other guys are completely unprepared for a fight. It's essentially just a high-effort skeet shoot to them. The first one is MC being ambushed.
>>23425879
>"The man shot another man. He's tough. He doesn't care. The government is le bad"
That's ironic considering the rest of the VN is about ethnic militias killing other ethnicities and MC cares a lot. It's a flashback. He pretty much has PTSD.

A fractal rainbow of emotions and experiences converge on the prism of the present which reveals its rich constitution through subtle frowns and held tongues. The past reveals itself in proportion to your denial of it.


I like writing pseudo-profundities that articulate my not fully coherent worldview but writing entire stories and settings and stuff is so hard bros.

>>23425969
Why should I care if they don't? It reads like a target practice session being described by a witness who wasn't that interested. If it really warrants no drama at all, why waste wordcount on it?

>To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.
>ywn write a sentence like this
How do you cope?

>>23425998
>Why should I care if they don't?
Because it tells a story. Are you actually shitposting? Can you not tell the storytelling value of what it means when someone doesn't care that he just wiped out a full squad of dudes because they were on the wrong side?

>>23422748
Nah I agree with 696, just write it as real as possible and this is basically Murakami. But your own voice. Untangling of wires is what the main character should think they’re doing the whole time, but never actually do.
À la Wind-up Bird Chronicle.

>>23426012
>ywn write a sentence like this
Why?

>>23426020
Yes but it shouldn't be BORING. If you need it for the plot but it isn't interesting to read, write your way around it. Do it a couple of ruthless, taciturn sentences. Pick up with them scavenging the dead guys' equipment and maybe talking irreverently about what they will do next over the mangled bodies.

>>23426055
>Pick up with them scavenging the dead guys' equipment and maybe talking irreverently about what they will do next over the mangled bodies.
Way ahead of you buddy. Just for you, a brief continuation:

[friend] "[mc], you son of a fuckin' bitch."
[mc] "What?"
[friend] "I take aim at a guy, he drops dead. I take aim at another guy, he drops dead."
[friend] "And it happens again and again. You were doing it on purpose, weren't you?"
[friend] "Fuckin' bastid."
"[friend] slaps [mc] on the back. [mc] grins and chuckles quietly."
[friend] "And you were scared of these guys?"
[mc] "I just don't want to get overconfident, [friend]. It could have gone worse."
[friend] "Aah bullshit. Come, let's take their shit and scram."
[friend] "And be careful, some of them might be still breathing."

why do ppl respond to everyone posts but mine

>>23426075
Because they either have nothing to say or you want responses to purplest prose shit while artfags aren't around.

>>23426070
I think you missed my point. If the firefight itself essentially doesn't matter (it's just a step on the way for the protagonist to accomplish whatever his goal is) then it is made interesting either by developing the character and relationships of the two guys the reader does give a shit about or establishing something important, like how they fight together and rely one one another, that will later have dramatic relevance if they get separated. The earlier excerpt didn't do that.
I like that you're following that scene up with character stuff. It would be better if the fight scene itself either also did that or was a lot shorter and less detailed.

>>23426089
>like how they fight together and rely one one another, that will later have dramatic relevance if they get separated.
That is shown in other flashbacks and campfire stories that I won't bring up here. This is a small excerpt of the story, you realize.
And the relevance is that his friend fucking died in the war. He literally pushed it away into his subconscious so bad he just forgot and namedropped his dead friend to another, suicidal friend as if he was alive.
That suicidal friend then drops a cue that "yeah, I might go visit him" and MC completely misses that and blames himself for that for a long time, causing his OTHER friends (who are less mentally ruined) to worry if he's not going to kys as well.

It's literally a small out of context excerpt about a gunfight you fucking nigger.

>>23426097
Context I couldn't have known has no bearing on the original criticism, which was that it was dull to read, nor with the reason it was dull to read. If other scenes convey the interesting stuff, what does this one do? What is its purpose? Me and that other guy probably found it boring for the same reason, which is that not much really happens. I could post a small excerpt of a great book and it would be interesting as fuck to read.

>>23426166
>I could post a small excerpt of a great book and it would be interesting as fuck to read.
Demonstrably false by how often excerpts from actual classics are posted here and then promptly shit on.

>>23426184
Ok fair point but your writing should still be interesting.

>>23426193
Nah I'll just tell a good story even if it has to have that 10 boring lines.

>>23426196
Does it really have to have them, though? They're boring because there's nothing interesting going on. If there could be, add it or alter the scene to include it. If the scene is doomed to always be boring, cut it or pair it down to the essentials. I assume you don't include a scene where the MC gets a compressed nerve from sleeping on the rocky ground or other boring shit that is an essential part of being in a war but is nevertheless not fun to read.

>>23425767
they all sound cringe.
in the eight context i could see a bus looking like a carved pumpkin though.

>>23426222
No, the scene immediately cuts back to him realizing he's standing in the shower for who knows how long and asks himself how he managed to fuck his life up so bad in the mirror.

And yes, it does have to have them. The theme of how quickly you can die if you relax keeps coming up again and again through the story. This is one of those times.

I have tasted both copper and iron and also i have tasted blood.
I can very confidently say that blood tastes much more like blood than either copper or iron.
I have also had titanium in my mouth, though it didn't taste like much.

I swear, formating text after it's typed is more tiresome than typing it.

>>23426270
thank you for your insightful input on this topic anon. i really feel like that was the one piece of the puzzle that was missing.

i am truly grateful.

>have bits of exposition spread out evenly among the beginning chapters
>on a re-read it makes more sense to group some together
>now chapter 3 is huge and chapter 2 and 4 are tiny
There is no way to win

>>23426387
Ignore fags who tell you to trickle shit in, just don't do massive boring infodumps.

The best way to do it is present information rather than tell it. Think about it, what describes a vampire better?

An infodump of a character explaining what vampires are, how they suck blood, how they burn in sunlight and have to prey for humans at night, that they have fangs?

Or someone screaming "vampire!" in panic, and seeing one actually suck blood with its fangs out, then burn up in the sunlight when it's cornered?

Is the time of post-humorously recognized authors over? Does the internet age mean anyone with merit will be discovered before their deaths? Or forgotten if not?

>>23426447
No, sorry, your best shot is that your genius will be recognized after you die. Until then, it's mockery and ridicule while some pseud calls your writing shit while you're alive.

>>23426461
It seems unlikely to me that with the glut of content being produced in the digital age that anything not noticed immediately will ever resurface. How would it?

>>23426501
I just said it's your best shot, not that it will happen.

>>23426398
I agree, it's just in my case it's a very short 'flashback' paragraph of an earlier event used to contrast the current discussion. I had brought it up earlier, then planned to have a character reference it later, but incorrectly, to make it a little funny. But then I thought "what if people take a break between chapter 2 and 4? They won't remember it." So I think it's better to move the flashback right next to the comment. It's a difficult call.

I'm also on the fence of how much space to devote to describing the setting. Like in one scene I have a donut shop. I think everyone knows what one is, so I just say there are some kids laughing and smearing chocolate frosting on their faces and a clown juggling donuts is painted on the wall. No need (imo) to go deeper than that, but then I get critique that I'm "rushing" things and not "setting the scene". idk.

>>23426530
>but then I get critique that I'm "rushing" things and not "setting the scene".
There will be always some dissatisfied cocksucker. Read anon's post above that goes in depth on this. Tell the story you want to tell and only worry about the audience you want to worry about, rather than some artfaggot telling you that your prose isn't pretty enough.

>>23425964
you can have an anonymous patreon in the sense that patreon as a company has your real contact info but your supporters only ever see an alias. same with being an author on amazon. in both cases either you would need to do something stupid to doxx yourself, or an actual employee would have to leak the data.

>>23422524
>2:44 am
Yup, it's writing time

>>23425762
>>23425746
That reminds me of that time Hemmingway wrote in the middle of one of his stories something along the lines of “he sat at Botin’s for lunch. they are excellent. if you’re ever in madrid you need to have lunch there.”

>>23426566
Based, I already am.

>>23426569
Hemmingway and many other classic authors would need to deepthroat dicks to get published these days.

I don't know how to pad scenes for impact in this format.
PoV is a man (Character A) with expressed, unresolved feelings towards a woman (Character B) who is temporarily sharing a body and mind with a fake human (her creation, Character C) that's trying to win his heart to eat them both. B's trying to tell him before she's subsumed, but the creature doesn't want him to know, and she can't name her directly without putting Character A at risk of death. She uses her cane and imitation of Character C (voice and hobbies) during a monologue to clarify her meaning, though the significance misses Character A in the moment.

"[Character A]" She tugged [my braid] again.
*It's not a leash.*
I pivoted, my hair pulling through her nails. She had a perfectly neutral expression on her face. Dreaming in midday. I felt a bit of my heart flutter in it. "Listen."
She tapped her cane against the floor. Attention was focused on her.
"Imagine for me a date. In the nearby barrack, there's a collection of tapestries, like those at home." Her ring finger pulled the braid farther in. "In a few days' time, when we're both off." Breath warmed the ear.
"There's wine there, a few instruments, a donated vase..." Her voice had changed its pitch, settling an octave up. "It's a perfect rendezvous spot for two lovebirds."
Then, as if to burn the scene, her voice lowered and the cane dropped once more. Her wrist brought me in: "But it's not love. It's a monster's obsession. A *mission*."
I didn't know what to make of it. Her expression hardened. She opened her mouth, then bit down on her teeth.
Immediately, her fist clenched and an eyebrow dropped into a heavy scowl. Her body locked and bristled. She glared through me, and I could feel a terrible ire stir in her. The sweeper trio from before glanced in our direction before moving their conversation to an adjoining hall. Her neck stiffened as she fixed me with a drowning expression. Her eyes had dropped all of their previous fancy. In the space of only half a minute, the perfect lunchtime scene had been made a horror show. "Mmmh!" Her nails dug into her palms; her knuckles whitened. She grabbed her cane and threw it against the far wall, following it soon after as she fell to the section beneath the window, then splayed across the floorboards.
I moved to give support and relocate her. I barked out to one of the nearby loungers (who, with only some stuttering, lent her a shoulder) and began to pull her up. The expression on [Character B]'s face became nondescript. It all stopped at once. She blinked.
We were both shoved off, and she stood herself upright. A quick look around, recoiling from the appearance of the sun through the window.
In the space of only a handful of seconds, she recomposed herself, collected her cane from the foot of the nearby table it'd rolled to, and hastened away, leaving two rattled men to confirm with each other what they'd just witnessed.

An unsporting trick, we summarized. Mean.

now i know why people write fantasy. It's so much easier and 10x more fun.

>>23425017
Hey fuck you man

>eat food
>get tired
>can't write
It just keeps happening

>>23426729
eat smaller meals. big meals sap everyone's energy it's not a you thing
better for your health too fatass

>>23426729
That's why I practice the Stalingrad last stand writing method.
>no food
>no water
>only energy drinks and/or methamphetamines

So I'm planning on publishing a collection of about 5 horror short stories and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the ideal length for a short story.

>>23424964
you arent the only one. there arent many of us left

>Intend to translate my story to other languages one day
>Hinge a mildly important piece of foreshadowing on how English works and effectively make it untranslatable
Haha, fuck.

>>23426986
How so?

>>23427091
It heavily hinges on the ambiguity of what "one day" means.

>>23425502
True. I often find the advice most prevalent here is about grammar and rarely about prose or style. If you have written a 1500 word paper then the people here will most likely critique your comma splices, choice of genre and flow. They will not talk about scene, characters, etc.

>>23427118
If you can't put a sentence together without glaring mistakes, then it's worthless to speak about "style". Your prose is NOOB SHIT. The end.

>>23426787
10-25,000 words

Today I wrote a short chapter of a character who won't be important for a few hundred more pages going on a walk. There will be a chapter not to far from now of her foil character going on a walk.

>>23426603
There's no form here. The padding is clear, the impact is not. Your characters are performing all these physical actions without any particular focus on one or another, all in sequence, like you must highlight every minute movement. You don't need to. Organize more, say more, type less.

>>23427246
What does that mean in this context? The actions directly reflect what happened from the pov of Character A. Should he speculate?

>>23427252
>I pivoted, my hair pulling through her nails. She had a perfectly neutral expression on her face. Dreaming in midday. I felt a bit of my heart flutter in it.
>She tapped her cane against the floor. Attention was focused on her.
>Her ring finger pulled the braid farther in.
>Breath warmed the ear.
>Her voice had changed its pitch, settling an octave up.
>Then, as if to burn the scene, her voice lowered and the cane dropped once more. Her wrist brought me in:
>Her expression hardened. She opened her mouth, then bit down on her teeth.
>Immediately, her fist clenched and an eyebrow dropped into a heavy scowl. Her body locked and bristled. She glared through me, and I could feel a terrible ire stir in her. The sweeper trio from before glanced in our direction before moving their conversation to an adjoining hall. Her neck stiffened as she fixed me with a drowning expression. Her eyes had dropped all of their previous fancy.
>Her nails dug into her palms; her knuckles whitened. She grabbed her cane and threw it against the far wall, following it soon after as she fell to the section beneath the window, then splayed across the floorboards.
>I moved to give support and relocate her. I barked out to one of the nearby loungers
>The expression on [Character B]'s face became nondescript. It all stopped at once. She blinked.
>We were both shoved off, and she stood herself upright. A quick look around, recoiling from the appearance of the sun through the window.
>she recomposed herself, collected her cane from the foot of the nearby table it'd rolled to, and hastened away

This quote is almost the entire non-dialogue portion of the passage. Characters doing nothing but doing. Hardening their expressions, whitening their knuckles, gesturing ceaselessly with minimal detail in each minor gesture. There is nothing to compel a reader onward here - it's like reading about dolls being set in new positions over and over again. What about the narrator's feelings? What about their inner voice? What about the setting to enhance mood? Are there chairs? A table? Or is it a black void of nothing as you've detailed? Do the characters have characteristics that might justify an adjective or two? It's so sterile and lifeless as is, a continuous medium shot on an unset stage. "She blinked." Jesus, you can do better than that.

The disorderliness of it can be addressed by trims and rearrangements, but the whole of it isn't exactly worth saving as is. Think bigger.

>>23427274
I'm not sure how many thoughts one can fit in during the few seconds of someone having a seizure. Potential causes and recourses?
I did mention both a window and table in the hall, and her reaction to the sun's glare. Not sure just how much furniture is necessary in any given scene.
More details on characters, I can do.

>>23427291
The descriptions are much too clinical, at least for me. They don't reflect the narrator's inner state unless they're comatose. There is no thrill or terror or uncertainty here, no sense of anything much awry at all, far from the human response to someone having a seizure. It's not badly written but needs more evocative details. Drill down further on fewer details, instead of keeping a running tab of the what-happened.

>>23427148
Can you tell me what are the requirements of a good scene.

>>23427363
Plot progression and/or character development.

>>23427366
That's too vague. This is the kind of stuff that should be discussed here not fucking grammar and comma splices that can be corrected by grammarly.

>>23427370
>that's too vague
So is "a good scene".

>So I stumbled headfirst into the saloon. The bartender gave me a look that said "Oh, you again? Get the fuck outta here."
>Fuck him. I paid my tab. I'm here to drink, and I'm here to get handsy with some of the local ass.
>"Hey baby." I said, before realizing I had my hands on a dude.
>"No dudes," I told myself, as I moved on up to the bar.
>"What'll it be, asshole?"
>Who fuckin pissed in yer cheerios?
>"I'll have the sarsaparilla."
>All of a sudden, the jukebox stopped. There had been some gasps, though from which direction I do not know.
>"Th-the sarsaparilla?"
>Did I fucking stutter?

>>23427309
"[Character A]" She tugged [my braid] again.
*It's not a leash.*
I pivoted, my hair pulling through her nails. She had a perfectly neutral expression on her face. Dreaming in midday. I felt a bit of my heart flutter in it. "Listen."
She tapped her cane against the floor. Attention was focused on her.
"Imagine for me a date. In the nearby barrack, there's a collection of tapestries, like those at home." Her ring finger pulled the braid farther in. "In a few days' time, when we're both off." Breath warmed the ear.
"There's wine there, a few instruments, a donated vase..." Her voice had changed its pitch, settling an octave up. "It's a perfect rendezvous spot for two lovebirds."
Then, as if to burn the scene, her voice lowered and the cane dropped once more. Her wrist brought me in: "But it's not love. It's a monster's obsession. A *mission*."
I didn't know what to make of it. Her expression hardened. She wasn't angry, but there was intent in her words. She opened her mouth, then bit down on her teeth. Whatever thought she'd put together had been cut off.
Immediately, her fist clenched and an eyebrow dropped into a heavy scowl. Her body locked and bristled. She glared through me, and I could feel a terrible ire stir in her. She'd tugged the braid (though I don't believe she intended to this time). She was clearly unfocused. The sweeper trio from before glanced in our direction before moving their conversation to an adjoining hall. We'd disturbed a sleepy morning for them. Their uniforms weren't fully on.
I tugged her sleeve to rouse her from her thoughts. At the very least, we could move out of the general hall, to one of the side-rooms, where we could continue this...what would one call this? What monster? Me? Her? A nearby recreational room had been left vacant, a chessboard and cola visible through the crack in the door. As I moved, I sought to steady [B], but her feet resisted the pull. Eyes still empty, she fixed me with a drowning expression. She'd lost all previous fancy. No reason or dialogue to be had. She was gone.

>>23427309
>>23427384
Her nails dug into her palms; her knuckles whitened. I dearly wanted to move, but the possibility of her health being compromised nudged that door shut. As I'd considered this, I heard a loud bang from across the hall—she'd thrown her cane in what most would consider an open letter of challenge to the inhabitants of room 'G-5'.
A set of footsteps returned to see what might've been the most exciting of the morning's offerings: A well-assembled, decomposing woman scorning a room (or perhaps her staff) with a readily intense expression, leaning on her compatriot and angrily exhaling.
Her blood ran hot beneath the skin. The day was too early for whatever had (hadn't?) happened. Too dramatic a shift. Water, a sedative, a day off... Solutions weren't forthcoming. I couldn't say what was wrong here. Should I call for a medic? Is this a medical emergency? Another pair of footsteps followed after one "May", who stared at us from the hallway intersection.
[B] slumped, bouncing off my hip and being suspended from the floor only by my hold of her elbow. I lowered her slowly, trying to remember where the women's residences *were*. One of G-5's inhabitants answered the earlier challenge, "Something wrong?" I froze up. I didn't know what to do or where to go here. He called back to some of the room's other inhabitants, waving his sleeve in our direction, and they peeked from behind him. Six people standing and not a single one moving. "Would you...?" I forgot how to finish a sentence, communicating the rest of the idea in gestures and head angling. He understood, and caught her left side, beginning to hoist her up. I mirrored him, lagging only slightly. As I stood, the sun caught my eye from the window behind us. I wasn't sure where to take her. I looked down the hall, to my right, beginning at least from the assumption that getting out of this building would bring us closer to a valid destination.
With my first step, I felt a hard shove against the side of my neck. Our charge had recovered almost immediately. Her face showed no signs of tumult. One looking from outside might've thought we were needlessly accosting a co-worker.
We were both shoved off, and she stood herself upright, straightening her garb and resuming her usual posture. A quick look around. She settled on her cane, sweeping it up into her hand. Without a second glance, she hurried off. I was asked many questions that had no answers.
"Is she alright?"
"Did you say something?"
"You two get into it?"
I was too stuck in the earlier events to acknowledge the questions. Thankfully, they waned and the day continued for us all, the spectacle having concluded.

>>23427382
>That punk raised the tap on a barrel best kept under the bar.
>"Two cubes of sugar."
>"Y-yes sir."
>The room had been quiet. You could hear a pin drop.
>He looked around and all he could see were the scared looks of bar patrons.
>They had been watching him, apprehensively, afraid of his next move.
>The protagonist takes the glass, chugs the contents in one gulp, and slams it down on the bar table.
>"Now it's a party!" He yelled to the horror and dismay of the patrons.
>"That'll be $8.50"
>"Put it on my tab."

Stealin' all ur ideas as we spek. Already took ur best line.

Is 1500 words for a single dialogue scene too much? The context is basically the protagonist working on an important device, but then his boss appears and assigns him to a different project, which he disagrees with and engages in a verbal fight.

Is 1500 words for a single dialogue scene too much? The context is basically the protagonist working on an important device, but then his boss appears and assigns him to a different project, which he disagrees with and engages in a verbal conflict.

>>23422524
If great artists steal, how much can I steal before I get sued for plagiarism and illegal reprinting? Like for example, from the King in Yellow?

>>23427440
>ableeblee abloobloo qualifier qualifier insecurity aaaaaaargh!!!!
Read picrel. Realize that there are no rules except to write as well as you can and believe in yourself.

What do we think about posting our own stuff in here?

>>23427471
Don't worry. No one's stealing that kek

>>23427495
:(

>>23427497
It's very tell-y and abstract and inhuman. I'm all for a passage of flowery, beautiful language but there's no sense of beauty. It's got some "advanced" language peppered throughout boring, utilitarian sentences. There's no sense of rhythm, flow, lyricism. Don't restrain your language use on account of people who don't understand, but at the same time realize that your overall level of language use must be commensurate with the level of vocabulary. It's not enough to use words accurately. You have to use them beautifully and with an artistic purpose. Otherwise it's just a kind of self-congratulatory invitation for people to roll their eyes at you.

>>23427471
>bowed a thankful bow
Okay, there are some glaring mistakes. Did you edit this or is it just a draft

>>23427500
I think flow is something I'll need to work on, same with vocabulary. I always feel like I need to prove myself as being worthy of writing by using nifty words. But if they're no good, then what's the point? Thanks, anon
>>23427501
It's fresh off the press

>>23427501
>some glaring mistakes
I wouldn't call it a mistake but man, people need to stop doing this. It doesn't sound good.

>>23422524
I'm an ESL (french fag) and I want to take my chance at writing fantasy slop on Royalroad, in English of course, do you think I could? Or would EFL persons instantly detect that I'm a fraud?

>>23427453
>King in Yellow
It's in the public domain.

>>23427546
Depends on how good your English is.

>>23427546
There are chinks and other subhumans writing completely incomprehensible gibberish and still get thousands of followers, I promise you, no one cares. You'd be at a much bigger disadvantage using heavily idiomatic native-level English, which the pajeets can't understand.

>>23427553
I can shitpost on 4chan but I'm not able to read an Oscar Wilde novel without an English dictionary for example
>>23427554
Kek then I'll at least try

>>23427571
Good grammar and clarity are more important than big words, especially for pulp.

>>23427512
I cum a cummy cum, thick and cumlike in its cumminess.

>>23427399
What was my best line?

>>23427582
i don't think you read much if it's your first time encountering that kind of repetition. "he smiled a broad smile." it's intentional and correct.

>>23426012
I'd write a different sentence!

>>23427645
>i don't heckin think you passed the litmus test if you think the butterfly looks like a vag
In other news, Chuck sold his shop.

>>23427674
Isn't that called a rorschach test anon?

>>23427755
>help i am an engineer brained untermensch
The signage is going up. It's under new management.

>>23427764
Anon...the meds...you have to take them

>>23427811
It reads: Sneed's Feed & Seed (Formerly Chuck's)
>It reads: Sneed's Feed & Seed (Formerly Chuck's)
It reads: Sneed's Feed & Seed (Formerly Chuck's)
>It reads: Sneed's Feed & Seed (Formerly Chuck's)
It reads: Sneed's Feed & Seed (Formerly Chuck's)
>It reads: Sneed's Feed & Seed (Formerly Chuck's)

>>23427832
Chuck's suck and fuck, now sneed's

>>23427118
Most of the samples posted here are too short to critique anything but spelling and grammar.
>>23427363
A scene consists of goals, conflict, and outcome (usually disaster). Many more of the basics are covered in picrel. It's the basis for most of the "how to write fiction" books that came after.

>>23427967
Yeah, this dude totally knows what he's talking about. Loved the, uh... Drummers of Daugavo! They'll be talking about that one for the next three or four centuries.

>>23427975
This. I scoff at this shit because it doesn't come from a place of success.
>I PUBLISHED 15 BOOKS!
Okay, and how many of them I have heard of?

>>23427984
The pattern you'll find is that the vast majority of How-To Book authors' most significant work is... a How-To Book. The rest are Stephen King, whose approach is obviously to just shit out a bunch of dreck and send it to his team of editors. There are a few exceptions, but they're usually in the form of lecture transcripts.

>>23427975
You've heard of his students, dumbass. And go ahead and be smug, literal nobody...I didn't want to help you anyway.

>>23428000
>literal nobody
Almost like he is.

>>23428000
Sorry, we can't all be a $ELLING WRITER like you

>>23427989
Editors also put out a good guide from time to time. More descriptive and technically focused but still an important part of craft, especially if you're self-editing.

>>23427989
Ursula Le Guin and Chuck Palahnuik come to mind and I'm sure there's a bunch of others. I don't think it's as rare as you're saying

oh nice is another retarded debate on writing for fun vs money about to kick off? how about you fuckheads don't, for once?

>>23427967
There's 20 year old college students pumping out litrpg slop selling 100x better than this nobody ever did. Even if $$$ was my goal why would I listen to him of all people?

>>23428014
How about you sick my dick you disgusting faggot?

>>23428025
Don't you have something better to do than troll 4chan threads endlessly?

>>23428027
At least I’m not a whiny little bitch like you.

>>23428056
Aren't you though?
I'm gonna go write now

>>23428000
>I didn't want to help you anyway.
you wouldn't have helped him. you're just another retard that read a self-help book and now larps as an expert online. it's just noise, it doesn't help anybody.

>>23427967
Stop posting this dumb book like it's the writer's bible

>>23428076
My bad, you’re a little bitch who does the cut and run.

>>23427546
Royalroad users are primarily ESL themselves so if anything it might be an advantage

>>23427471
This was actually okay, compared to a lot of stuff I've read here over the years. You're reaching for something, and I think you know how to get it.

Some minor comments:

1. "bowed a thankful bow" - is there such a thing as an ungrateful bow? Personally I would not reveal his inner emotions this way. Trust the reader more; it isn't always the role of the author to articulate, and sometimes suggestion or tacit understanding is easier to appreciate. If he bowed low, or quickly, or however, picture this bow and try to articulate that without revealing the motivation behind it.

2. Some minor stylistic irritations: "let him kiss her hand" should be "allowed him to kiss her hand" if you are writing in a more formal and strict manner, in my opinion. Same with "some kind of" and especially "like he was" (the latter is jarring)

3. Proper use of commas - I may be wrong but the commas interrupt the flow improperly, such as "It seemed to her that after ever keystoke, he paused..". Perhaps since you are specifically mentioning a pause it fits stylistically, but still: in my opinion it should be: "It seemed to her that after every keystoke he paused and performed some type/manner of inner calculation, as though he were..." What do you think?

4. "his own imagination" - not sure why "own" is necessary here; nitpicking.

5. Calculation - you mention calculation twice, which insists upon it being regarded as a theme or symbol. However, your use of the word is conflicting; initially it is either neutral or positive (he is positively calculating, as an artist) but in the latter calculation is derided as the act of an automaton (or automatom if his name is Thomas :D). Either dispense or clarify.

>>23428239
What makes you say that? I don't see why RR would have a high ESL %. RR is slop consumers but all the major english speaking countries love their slop so it's not like there's a reason there would be a ton of ESLs (more than any other internet site)

>>23427975
>>23427984
>>23428024
>>23428168
>>23428202
yours are minority opinions. enjoy your containment thread

>>23428259
oh wow 812 people who are even less successful at writing than the author rated it five stars. if i ever need to lose weight i'm definitely going to ask fat people

>>23428202
Yahweh or no way, mother fucker.

>>23428288
do you have any useful advice or do you offer only mindless seething

>>23426239
Your refusal to consider feedback after asking for it gives me high hopes for the future of your writing career.

>>23428259
This guy really just posted a goodreads rating spread as "proof it works"
My sides are in orbit

>>23425767
Similes are heavily dependent on context. The moon, bus, and arguably building ones all contribute to a kind of cosy in cold weather vibe, so if that's what you were going for I'd say yes they work. The others don't do much for me.

>>23428301
No, only that your opinion is a minority one. I never said anything about proof. Are you having reading comprehension issues or something?

>>23428249
As if you went to all the trouble of typing this out for free. Thank you so much anon.

1 - Good advice, I'll redo this bit since other anons have said similar things.

2 - "Like he was" This is the only time I've used it throughout the whole book, and it's already bit me in the ass. I wasn't sure about it either. Allowed, will do.

3 - I struggle with grammar in general, I even use grammerly to try and help me with that. I prefer the latter example here just because it reads a little easier.

4 - Good point

5 - I feel conflicted about this. It's an interesting point to note and fits the theme. (I might just be coping here, but stay with me) The whole book is kind of about the fact that his brilliance separates him from her, and she admires it even though it disturbs her. So it kind of makes sense that it could be used twice. Although it was an accident, and if it's really disruptive, I can resketch it

Thanks anon for taking the time to advise

>>23428294
it's useful to have a basic grasp on how the world works, which you don't. holding the "majority opinion" in a field where the failure rate is upwards of 99 percent is not a good sign at all. like, you actually thought "all the failures agree with me" was a slam dunk

>>23428370
Oh yeah? Well … you’re a nigger!

>>23427384
>>23427386
Can I get feedback on the adjusted scene? Context at head of >>23426603

>>23428370
And why do you think the people that read Swain's work, and take his advice to heart, are proportionally as much of a failure (or more) than the ones who don't? Again, just mindless seething, and no attempt at useful advice. 4channers really are the worst...all the social impairment of nerds, and none of the brains.

>>23428258
>I don't see why RR would have a high ESL %
Have you ever used your actual eyes to look at the content posted there?

>>23428501
Haha. Cope and seethe, faggot. Your the looser here.

>>23428530
Yeah it's shit writing, but that doesn't make them ESL. It makes them shit writers. EFLs are shit at language too, as a whole

And of the few stories I clicked on, the writing really does just seem shit in a normal, amateur way, not with a bunch of common ESL indicators

I think you're just making shit up. There's no reason RR would be unpopular in america/canada/england/australia. I don't have the demographic stats but I bet RR has a normal amount of ESL distribution as anywhere else

>>23428534
>looser
illiterate
opinion discarded

>>23428339
No problem, I wish you well. It's much easier to see this kind of things from the outside, and ultimately you have to assert what you feel is authentic.

What's the story about anyway?

I finally understand why writers like GRRM and Tolkien are so goddamned verbose.
I added one detail 60% into the story and had to add paragraphs to earlier and later chapters to account for it because it'd be fucking stupid if this detail appeared in isolation, with no prior establishment, and then was ignored for the rest of the story.

It makes me want to try writing by beginning with a one-sentence synopsis and adding sentences on to justify and explain each part and just grow exponentially until it's a proper short story, or something.

>>23428553
"Your the looser" really didn't tip you off to the obvious troll, huh?
Fucking embarrassing

>>23428574
You didn't know trolling isn't allowed on 4chan outside /b/? Typical

>>23427975
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=32987
For anyone interested in evaluating this guy's advice for themselves.

>>23428339
>>23428555
Also, if the story is about a composer and his lover, I would recommend reading biographies of prominent composers. They are fascinating.

Strangely, today I came across this novel which was written by the lover of Chopin, which is written I think from a female perspective (Lucrezia Floriani by George Sand). I haven't read it, and probably won't, but still. It may be worthwhile.

>>23428588
or you can just to archive.org and read the book for free

Does writing critique only happen during certain hours?

>>23428610
>>23428610
>>23428610

>>23428548
>I think
I don't believe you

>>23428594
That is free, and has the original layout and artwork

>>23428614
And I don't believe you either, so I suppose this goes nowhere. However my argument actually has some logic, where you just said random things as if they were true. Why would the biggest English web novel site not be filled with mostly EFLs? Just a nonsensical statement to make with no proof

>>23428670
Have you seen the American education system these days? It doesn't exactly center around teaching anything useful. The only part of the English language covered in school anymore are pronouns.

wow, look at this pile of crap: https://files.catbox.moe/d9sukc.zip

Should I read the short story or the novel version of flowers for Algernon?

>>23428603
You have to wait for Frank to pass out from the pills and the booze. Then this place picks up markedly.