/lit/ - Literature

write one when you have a story inside you that wants out.

don't force it.

That's not a question you can really answer with a concrete, empirical number. Go out, live, experience, read, learn how to write and edit and re-draft-- that's really all you can do brochacho.

127

>>6193663
This. Absolutely do not attempt to write anything unless you've read exactly this many novels first.

>>6193652
100-200

>>6193663
Nah it's clearly 128, how can you get that wrong, probably the reason you're a failure.

15? B8?

I've read 8 so far this year m8. Up your game.

Homer never read anything and he's supposed to be good.

>>6193676
>15? B8?
At this point most people stop reading after high-school, and many don't even read the books assigned to them

>>6193690
I understand that. But what the hell makes a person like that think they can write a book?

>>6193652

200 plus criticism, short fiction, drama and poetry.

You can write a novel now.
What are you waiting for?

>>6193703

It doesn't have to be an original work. Just take an old classic and add zombies!

>>6193652

you want to read 50 books that you feverishly enjoy. airport thrillers, harry potter, neil gaiman, if you're a chick maybe jane austen and eat/pray/love lady idfk

every 10 books, read something <200 pages that won the booker prize. you'll find it boring despite top-of-field experts extolling its greatness. feel bad. go back to genre thrillers.

after book 50, figure out what made you compelled to keep reading the enjoyable books. if you can't figure it out, read Aristotle. read Francine prose. read a cheap screenwriting how-to book. if you still don't get it, go back to read 50 more books.

after you figure it out, switch to good books. read 50 of those. then you're as ready as you will ever be.

>>6193708

I have started writing numerous novels, developed the plot, etc, but i always find myself asking myself the question of whether i'm qualified of criticizing the quality of my own writing, and so i came here and decided to ask you people your opinion on the matter.

I'm thinking about putting my writing efforts to a halt and spend a year reading the great classics to get a greater perspective on what can be considered good.

>>6193686
le start from le greeks

>>6193718
Oh so you've already written novels.
I'm sorry it's too late to read books now.
It's 217 of them BEFORE you start writing the first one.

>whether i'm qualified of criticizing the quality of my own writing
You could do an experiment with controls.
Ask different individuals to rate your novel(s) and compare your own rating to theirs.
If your own rating falls outside of an acceptable error range compared to theirs, you'r not qualified in criticizing the quality of your own writing.

>>6193686
Homer was part of an oral tradition. He never read anything but he did hear plenty.

>>6193717
>booker prize
>top-of-the-field

lol

>>6193726

I haven't finished them, only developed the plot and the characters, and sometimes i manage to fluently write out a scene, and then after that i start thinking about how it can develop to the next chapter without sounding too bland or boring.

Writing anything outside of what can be considered a direct part of the plot is excruciating for me - i always get this feeling that i'm just writing about meaningless shit that i necessarily need to do in order to proceed to the next step in the book.

You know when you're reading a book and it seems as if what you're writing is just to add more pages to the book, and to introduce you to the subtleties of the characters and setting the mood etc - yeah, it's those parts that i detest writing - i want to get right to the point.

This makes me think that i might be a better screenwriter than a novelist - but my dream is to write something that gets adapted into a movie.

Go ahead and start now.

It'll be a garbage book if you've really only read 15 novels (how is that possible?), but if you want to write, you're better off writing more rather than writing less.

Start writing now, and keep writing and keep reading. You'll get better at both the more of it you do. I know that right now you think the first novel you write will be the one you want to publish. It won't. It'll be trash. Your taste in books having only read 15 of them is almost certainly trash. Just keep working at both and you'll eventually produce something good.

>>6193749
Writing a novel is easy.
First you write the first page then you write the pages in the middle then you write the last pages.
Use a keyboard, it's less tiring on the wrist than a goose feather.

>>6193756
this anon is correct

>>6193777

Trips of truth - we should all follow his advice and shit out a novel with seamless ease.

>>6193658
retarded. you get better at writing by writing, not waiting until you have the perfect idea. kill yourself so that you stop giving bad advice please

All of them. Then write one that hasn't already been written.

>write six hundred words for my genre fiction short story
>smoke a cigarette
>browse /lit/
Now this... is literary lfe.

>>6193663
Gonna have to agree with this one, this is the magic number.

>>6193652
More is generally better to help you develop a strong palette, but there's obviously no magic number. What's more important than reading novels, however, is practicing your writing.

>>6193719
>LE IMPLYING NOT STARTING WITH THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH
>WHAT DO YOU LIVE UNDER, A ROCK?

How many novels do I have to write before I can read one?

>>6194025

>>6194057
Become proto-literate

>>6193848
he said writing a novel not writing in general.
Obv you write short stories and write daily, but do you think your wankoff practice writing is good enough to become a novel?

some might, miraculously. but no, you don't just make a novel to make a novel.