/lit/ - Literature

not bad, I really like the last one.

I usually try to finish the whole thing in one go. Then come back and chisel at it until I think I've said all I wanted to say there.

"There's a less tortured way of saying that."

My biggest rule is "go slow".
It's also the only rule I cannot follow.
I'm just too fucking excitable. I want to tell everybody fucking everything right away.

>using that godawful app

>as a man the character must take action. Happen to the world, so to speak.

You sure about that, boyo?

7 aha

Depending on the narrative format, the narrator must be one with the character(s).

So if your character is a buddhist monk, the you must wear a different spectacles. Its hard to find more than two or three voices if youre starting out. But if you put yourself in your character's shoes, even if you don't know where to go, that can be used!

>>3777609
can you clarify the second point a for me. It seems like that would depend on the character.

I try not to swear. It's the easy way out of pushing myself to write something eloquent. Never swear as a narrator, but allow it for characters.

>>3777821
I agree with this. When the narrator swears it sounds like they're trying to hard or a kid using the words for the first time.

>>3777818
Its just another method of developing a 'boy' or a young character. As in the child can be doing nothing but bringing to life the scenes around him. And yes, it depends on the character.

>>3777816
Wow, that is lovely advice. I often find myself goign back to chapter one or early chapters just to realign myself and I never get anything done this way.

>>3777816
I never knew Steinbeck was so handsome

>>3777822
>>3777816
More

>>3777821
I do this as well, unless the story is intentionally vulgar. But I also avoid words like dang, or jeeze.
Not patronizing the reader is important.

>>3777822
Goddammit, some subtle and hilarious insight on Twain.

>>3777818
This anon(>>3777827) hit it on the head. In terms of boys and men, it's regarding their character not so much their age.

>>3777777

I consider this one the holy grail of advice.

I just keep a laser-focus on sustaining reader interest. Being boring is my greatest fear as a writer.

>>3777851
Is it a coincidence that Orwell's prose was dry as the Sahara?

>>3777851
nope

>>3777851
Oh Orwell.
I break damn near everyone of your rules on a daily basis. For shame.

>>3777858
But boring has its place in literature.

Whoops! Didn't look closely enough thought it was Vonnegut.

This was the one I meant. Fuck Orwell.

>>3777878
I don't know how I feel about 8. It's difficult to pull of huge amounts of exposition and remain entertaining.

>>3777609
>not changing Notes font to Helvetica

shiggy diggy

>>3777894
I think number 6 is the one peps need to focus on. I get tired of how some writers handle some characters with kid gloves.

>>3777776
Hey, he tried

>>3777851
His moustache makes me uneasy. He should have been forced to shave it. Or better yet grow a full beard and long hair and grow it over his eyes. Fucking mongoloid.

>>3777932
I think this is my favorite so far.

What's the source for these images?

>>3777936
Except it doesn't fucking mean anything.

>>3777964
I think you might not be a writer if you don't get what that meant...

>>3777966
I think you might be a fucking tween if you think it's actually a helpful quote and not just some flowery bullshit that sounds nice

>>3777964
Sure it does. You've heard of writing as catharsis, right?

>>3777974

>Flowery
> Hemingway

Pick one.

>>3777981
You won't get a book like that. A short story, maybe, but Your characters don't won't always feel like you do, situations change-- if you want a good story, "I'm feeling deep things right now" is not going to cut it.
That's the kind of advice you give sixteen year olds who write bad poetry about how nobody understands just how empty they are inside.

>>3777995
I'm sure you're an expert writer. All those books you wrote that we read.

>>3777995
You make yourself feel like your characters. It's like acting. I think you're a little obsessed with this whole teen-angst thing. Some kind of demon you just recently fought off, or something you worry you might slip into? I imagine the trick is to not have your characters or narrator be an angst-ridden teenager. This might be a bit more difficult if you are an angst-ridden teenager, but either way, a good slice of great prose out there has obvious emotion infused into it.

>>3778003
You mean like all those poems your glaring at right now?
Be honest. Are you listening to Linken Park?

>>3778035
>>3778035

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5poSw7tFLB4

This actually. Was in another thread talking about it.

>>3777995
>You won't get a book like that.

No writer has ever written therapeutically, nope, certainly none mentioned in this thread.

>>3778028
Putting yourself into a character and "bleeding onto your typewriter" are two entirely different things. So is catharsis, by the way.

>>3778047
>FEELINGS BAD!

>ME NO WANT FEELS!

>FEELS FOR SISSYS!!!

>>3778039
What do you mean by written 'therapeutically'.

>>3778053
The only possible way for you to truly comprehend the sheer magnitude of how idiotic that assertion is, is by actually knowing me.

>>3778069

Face it. You just did.

>>3778061
Why?

I don't specifically mean 'therepeutically', but it includes that, writing more for self-reflection and solidifying what you feel than for an audience.

>>3778072
That response doesn't even make sense, dipshit.

>>3778078
You are an annoying human being.

>>3778078
>Cannot into how full retard you've gone.

Were you home schooled?

>>3778083
And you're a dipshit. I think we're finished here.

>>3778092
>I think we're finished here.

>Pretending to put big boy pants on when losing your shit

Priceless.

>"Give yourself permission to suck"
one of the best pieces of advice when it comes to a first draft.

I think my big failing is trying to create a PERFECT, PRINT READY first draft.

>>3778101
Yeah, that's a big no no. Its explained you do all your writing with your write brain when you do your first draft.

You then go back and edit left brained.

Or so I'm told.

>>3778104
>write brain
Right brain...

Yep. There's proof in action right there.

>>3778089
Let's recap.
>1:Quote is stupid
>2:Quote is not stupid
>1:Writing entirely by emotion isn't a good method for writing a book
>2:It's called catharsis!
>3:WHAT ABOUT CHARACTERS!?
>1:The quote, catharsis and character development are not the same thing
>3:YOU HATE EMOTIONS
>1:False
>2:YOU WENT FULL RETARD
>1:That doesn't make sense
>2:b/c you were home schooled.
Shit, man. I got told.

>>3778101
Im-fucking-possible.
Took me years to break out of that habit.

>>3778124
> Not knowing which post are mine.

>>3778003
>>3778014
>>3778037
>>3778038
>>3778053
>>3778063
>>3778072
>>3778089
>>3778098

Stay plebe.

>>3778104
gonna try that

>>3778138
>implying I actually give a shit

>>3778143

Pick related.

>It's you.

>>3778183
Shit what was it? I saw this somewhere and I liked it.

XXX: So I was sitting there, and YYY was sitting across from me, writing, and I realized he was crying, so I asked, "What are you crying for?" and YYY answers, "I wasn't planning on this character dying."

Or something like that.

>>3778198
I know them feels. I always assume everyone is fallible now and try to gear myself for the possibility of any and every character eventually dying.

Which doesn't make things any easier. I have a character in particular within the novel I'm currently writing. In my original outline, he never existed, but once I got to a certain point in the story, the need for a character to push the plot along arose. So I created Len. As the story has been developing, so too has Len's character and overall importance in the plot. He's quickly become one of, if not my absolute favorite character in this book.
Thing is, as I've gotten further into his story, I've been able to extrapolate what his fate will ultimately become, and it looks depressing as all hell.

The writing process is incredible. You set out with all these rigidly set notions in mind and then, as things develop, they're shattered and reassembled into something better than you could've ever imagined. In the end though, things reach a point where all these creations you never knew you had within yourself and never intended to actualize have to be taken away.

"The only time I come to know anything
is when it comes to me
at the point of my pen"
Jean Malaquis
OR
For Pale Fire readers: it's Method B

>>3777609
I imagine an emotion and when I write, I write until the words spark the same emotion.

I'm not very good at it.

>>3777993
Holy shit fuck off.

>>3778342
Little late to the party on that one.

>>3778063
Damn it Chesterson, do I follow your advice or everyone else's?

>>3778449
Seriously. Most curveball post here.

>>3777993
I'm a big Hemingway fan, but that quote offers very little practical writing advice.

Reading his work, on the other hand...

>>3778507

I beg to differ. I've come up with great lines in bed and found they were purple shit on waking.

Write while wearing a dress or while blasting christian hymns. S'all about getting into character

These work for me:
-Write an idea, start from there, develop it
-Along the way I get a few ideas where the story might go, write those down, make them a marker that I must reach somehow
-in case they don't work, I rewrite them
-if I need to fix something, or make shit go a certain way I add a new character that I MUST reuse at some point in time
-when I'm not writing I think about the characters I'm using, what quirks, flaws or characteristics I can give them, then I give 'em to them and make it all work somehow

It's fucking impossible to describe it.