/lit/ - Literature

Exceptionally lewd opening image

>>23735311
Eh? All their naughty bits are covered.

My story is boring me.

My story excites me but I want to quit because what I'm writing doesn't do it justice and capture how awesome it is in my head.

>>23735361
If he was deceased, his skin would be pale.

>>23735411
It is, or are you done of those "I'm not a racist because I don't see color" people?

I have to write one thing per week. It could be a short story, a poem, an essay, whatever, but I have to write and finish it, otherwise I will never become a better writer.

>>23735374
>been imagining this scene for three months
>write most of it last night
>read it back today
>it's literally the worst thing ever created

I wish I could just make movies instead.

I've been watching Brandon Sanderson's lecture series even doe I'm not a writer and never wrote anything
I'm already on #9

what is wrong with me

>>23735454
I've watched it too and I think he sucks. But his advice sounds solid. He obviously knows what he's doing. I just hate his writing style.

>>23735416
The man's skin in the photo is quite ruddy. My dad was ruddy all his life, but was decidedly pale-blue when I found him dead.

>>23735454
>>23735463
I re-watched them last week as I started working on my new novel. His lessons are mostly macro writing, and it's more about tools to craft your story; you may use them or not, depends on what you want to use. Best way to use them is pick-and-choose. They are fun to watch, and a great resource to have for free.
Micro writing is way more of a science of one.

>>23735503
Melville
> “Hark ye yet again—the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends’ glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn—living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards—the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. ’Tis but to help strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone? Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!—Aye, aye! thy silence, then, that voices thee. (Aside) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me now, without rebellion.”

>“God keep me!—keep us all!” murmured Starbuck, lowly.

Brando Sando
>don't monologue

>>23735515
To be fair, that is a tl;dr if I ever saw one. I'd skip the whole paragraph if I came across something like that in a book. If anything important was said, I can infer the details later.

>>23735559
That's why nothing you have ever written or will ever write will ever be of value, nor and in the future. You can't even read it, it makes the skin of men crawl to recite. Kill yourself, do the world a favor.

>>23735515
>Melville
Died poor and unknown

>>23735579
Lives on forever and you like it.

>>23735576
Post your work

>>23735515
Brandon Sanderson literally tells you to start your book with a monologue

https://youtu.be/mMeNnX1FGgg

>>23735585
THE MAN WITH THE WEED MAKES IT AN EVEN QUESTION WHETHER HE BE A GREAT SAGE OR A GREAT SIMPLETON.

“Well, there is sorrow in the world, but goodness too; and goodness that is not greenness, either, no more than sorrow is. Dear good man. Poor beating heart!”

It was the man with the weed, not very long after quitting the merchant, murmuring to himself with his hand to his side like one with the heart-disease.

Meditation over kindness received seemed to have softened him something, too, it may be, beyond what might, perhaps, have been looked for from one whose unwonted self-respect in the hour of need, and in the act of being aided, might have appeared to some not wholly unlike pride out of place; and pride, in any place, is seldom very feeling. But the truth, perhaps, is, that those who are least touched with that vice, besides being not unsusceptible to goodness, are sometimes the ones whom a ruling sense of propriety makes appear cold, if not thankless, under a favor. For, at such a time, to be full of warm, earnest words, and heart-felt protestations, is to create a scene; and well-bred people dislike few things more than that; which would seem to look as if the world did not relish earnestness; but, not so; because the world, being earnest itself, likes an earnest scene, and an earnest man, very well, but only in their place—the stage. See what sad work they make of it, who, ignorant of this, flame out in Irish enthusiasm and with Irish sincerity, to a benefactor, who, if a man of sense and respectability, as well as kindliness, can but be more or less annoyed by it; and, if of a nervously fastidious nature, as some are, may be led to think almost as much less favorably of the beneficiary paining him by his gratitude, as if he had been guilty of its contrary, instead only of an indiscretion. But, beneficiaries who know better, though they may feel as much, if not more, neither inflict such pain, nor are inclined to run any risk of so doing. And these, being wise, are the majority. By which one sees how inconsiderate those persons are, who, from the absence of its officious manifestations in the world, complain that there is not much gratitude extant; when the truth is, that there is as much of it as there is of modesty; but, both being for the most part votarists of the shade, for the most part keep out of sight.

What started this was, to account, if necessary, for the changed air of the man with the weed, who, throwing off in private the cold garb of decorum, and so giving warmly loose to his genuine heart, seemed almost transformed into another being. This subdued air of softness, too, was toned with melancholy, melancholy unreserved; a thing which, however at variance with propriety, still the more attested his earnestness; for one knows not how it is, but it sometimes happens that, where earnestness is, there, also, is melancholy.

>>23735592
if i watch this and you've misinterpreted it in any way, im going to tear your fucking head off

>>23735515
brando sando literally says to start your book with a monologue thoughbeitever

https://youtu.be/mMeNnX1FGgg?t=256

>>23735598
You are not, nor will you ever be, Melville.
Post. Your. Work.

>>23735603
he's talking about discovering your character. say goodbye to your little head

>>23735611
>BRANDON SANDERSON HATES LE MONOLOGUES!!!
>Source? it came to me in a dream
>Brandon Sanderson literally, directly, unambiguously tells (you) to write a monologue in 4k 60fps??
>NOOOOOO THAT'S NOT WHAT HE MEANS!!!!!

generally 'the greats' either intuitively, or via survivorship bias, or through EXPERIENCE AND EXPERTESE. know the rules, and know when and how to braek them. how to subvert expectations.
you need to know what the FUCK is it s oyure doing before you can pull off stunts like some classic author.
and expectations are everything. you have to play to an audience, or accept that no one is ever reading your shit. simple

>>23735308
>Sexually overcharged
Hm? Like they want to fuck a lot?

>>23735620
>I HAVE NO HEAD AND I MUST REEE

>>23735625
it's a lie told by women who wish they were a character on sex in the city

>>23735643
What's Sex in the City even about? It's for women so I assume it's about being railed by twelve hot dudes in a row and bragging about it.

>>23735661
It's literally just that

>>23735625
Most girls lose their virginity by 12, if that tells you anything. They are never more than an hour away from being able to get sex when they want it (which is damn near every day).

I think that the advice of "just write" is bad. Isn't there some kind of technique to writing besides just slapping words onto a page haphazardly? It also assumes you have a base amount of knowledge when it comes to writing a story. Am I right or wrong?

>>23735774
Every time I "just write" it's ends up as garbage I just have to spend 10 hours fixing later, making the whole first write session a waste of time.

It's easy to feel that detailed descriptions might slow down the pace, but it's crucial for creating a vivid, immersive atmosphere. You can balance detailed descriptions with action by weaving sensory details seamlessly into the scene.

>>23735767
maybe in brazil or afghanistan or something. it's closer to 18 in the free world

>>23735798
You're confusing the legal age of consent with when they actually spread their meat curtains and take a bow. Two totally different things.

>>23735798
Not sure what you're on about but kids were definitely banging at my high school

>>23735798
>closer to 18
lol
You'd make a great fantasy author

>>23735801
>>23735802
>>23735804
i say this as the sex having 'hero' of freshmen in my white upper middle class highschool. years ago. im a big boy now

I've never knowingly met anyone who's had sex, other than my friend of 20 years who only admitted it to me once. Unless they have a kid, my default stance is to assume they haven't. It's just not something people talk about openly.

>>23735818
they do, actually. you just have to be the person they can tell that to. or a woman

>be addicted to reading MTL chinkslop and also works of 19th-20th century great writers
>have even read medieval works, poetry of all kinds
>prose somehow continues to improve
>haven’t been able to finish anything because chinks are great at shitting out 4k+ words twice daily
>occasionally extricate myself from addiction
>fall back into it

how can i stop myself from binge reading 400+ chapters of MTL’d chinese nonsense? despite the fact this habit hasn’t somehow affected my prose in any major way, it still distracts me from writing.

i thought this was wwoym. had tabs open, sorry (was also baited by the other comments. spare me)

how do I not infodump but also not confuse the reader

>>23735851
please give an example

>>23735854
I don't want to infodump you though

>>23735851
Impossible.

j/k, I want to know too. I'm literally struggling with that right now. Best advice I've heard is just drop tidbits in gradually, incorporating them naturally, either into conversation or only when relevant in narration. If you start small and broad enough with the details, it shouldn't confuse people. Then when they understand the gist, you can dive deeper.

Any other advice is welcomed though. I need it too.

>>23735864
>>23735861
it sounds like you just need more control over (the goals of) your scenes. practice...
but if you could give context, i can probably give you more

There's this scene I'm really inspired by I want to put in my story. How do I make it my own?

>>23735881
just change the window dressing and you're good to go

In my story, there's a timeskip and a flashforward. Right now there's a timeskip and then the flashforward happens a couple of chapters later.
Would it be better to have the flashforward, then go back to the timeskip?

Is 100k words too short for my first web serial?

I've decided to just copy Moorcock

>>23735898
lol i bet you have bambi

>>23735910
quoi?

how do I write a tragedy that sees the main character rise from a bad situation only to fall back into it via their own bad decisions?

How is your worldbuilding going? Have any of you ever incorporated the closeted homosexual habit of older men to just walk into the park and beat each other's dicks off and then walk away like they were just passing by and it never happened? I am working on an urban fantasy necromancer academy sapphic driven subversion of Adaptational Heroism where there is a reserve list for students to be allowed out of the necromancer academy and almost always they end up getting cornholed by the gargoyle priests who live in the alleys. The thing is the professors know this and think it's okay because necromancy is EXTREMELY stressful and they think it's natural for them to want to get waylaid and pounded, but lately students have been getting murdered or severely beaten because the gargoyle priests are more interested in each other. I was thinking that the whole sapphic thing really shines when everyone else in the setting is super chauv/cis/physilust based and pushing out of anonymous sex and basically implying that it's fundamentally problematic to not know who you're cumming with. Anyways, just troubled latinx lesbian writer things, looking forward to my free Hugo when it drops

Worldbuilding is way more fun than actually writing. I wish I could just create a world and have a good writer write a story taking place in it.

>>23735930
Study Greek tragedies, that is your basic structure.
Your tragic protagonist has to have a faltar flaw (hamartia) which leads to their downfall. There's also an angle of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Essentially, read Oedipus Rex and study why it works. Then move forward through the history of tragedy, Shakespeare, that sort of thing.

I wish English had more words.
>ran and sprinted are too fast
>jogged is too casual
>already used rushed and hurried

Do superheroes call themselves heroes? How about regular heroes?

>>23735943
Well, the story is the part that matters in a book, lol
Could see someone with those preferences being a game world designer or such though

>>23735962
Trot

>>23735943
>>23736036
become a concept artist

>>23735811
You're on 4chan. You've never had sex in your life. Face it.

>>23735943
Write RPG scenarios. D&D/Pathfinder is all about cooperative fiction in a campaign setting.

Why am I so unproductive?

>>23736095
maybe you weren't cut out to be a writer. why do you want to write?

Anyone tried to write like how people actually speak? By that I mean something like this:

I just bought a bottle of water.
And the woman said, “Military?”
And I said, “No, just my husband.”
And she said, “Who?”
And I said, “Just my… husband?”
And then she laughed—so hard—she gave me a double discount.

—Or something like this:

My girl asked me. She was like, “Babe, what’s your love language?”
I’m like, “What?”
She’s like, “You know, your love language. How do you convey love to your partners and loved ones? Like, for example, a love language could be words of affirmation.”
I’m like, “Words of affirmation? I was raised by Asian parents. I’ve never heard one word of affirmation in my life! Nobody ever told me, ‘Jimmy, you’re so great. You can do it.’ They’re like, ‘Don’t fuck it up!’ Their love language is verbal abuse!”

Clean it up a bit, add some light descriptions, and I think it could be a fun prose style for a contemporary setting.

>>23736043
she's not a horse

>>23736139