/lit/ - Literature

[Kierkegaard No.13450811]

Do any of you want to read my book when I finish it? I'm thinking of making a free, public PDF just for you if you want it.

[Anonymous No.13451009]

>>13450811
Megumin best girl.

[Anonymous No.13451014]

>>13450811
What's it about, Anon?

[Anonymous No.13451019]

>>13450811
Sure, I'll read it if you want.

[Anonymous No.13451023]

>>13450811
I'll give it a shot. No promises I'll finish it. But if it's engaging I will

[Kierkegaard No.13451076]

>>13451014
>What's it about, Anon?
It's about two big families. But the main gist of it is patricide.

>>13451019
>>13451023
Please do, anon!

[Anonymous No.13451185]

>>13450811
Idk man, I'm not sure if I'm interested in reading something written by a weaboo

[Anonymous No.13451191]

>Kierkegaard LARP namefag
confirmed cumbrain
enjoy being filtered from now on like it-whomst-shall-noy-be-mentioned

[Anonymous No.13451200]

Nope

[Anonymous No.13451206]

>>13450811
Give us a sample page/paragraph

[Anonymous No.13451254]

>>13451076
Well, arent you forgetting the pdf chief?

[Kierkegaard No.13451264]

>>13451206
please no bullying me.

[Kierkegaard No.13451271]

>>13451264
oh shit, there is a typo, Noah is studing at the Harvard Medical School, not Columbia.

[Anonymous No.13451276]

After it produced this, I'm hesitant to look at anything /lit/ has done

[Anonymous No.13451286]

>>13451264
.... precociously?

[Anonymous No.13451290]

>>13451264
Terribly clunky prose desu, it reads like someone pitching the book rather than the actual book itself

[Anonymous No.13451335]

>>13451264
Is English your second language?

[Kierkegaard No.13451338]

>>13451290
Literally the entire first part is just me describing the book as if it's non-fiction lmao. There are so many characters that I have to write I didn't even get to the good part yet.

>>13451335
>Is English your second language?
Yes.

[Kierkegaard No.13451348]

>>13451335
>Is English your second language?
What gave it away?

[Anonymous No.13451356]

>>13451338
Honestly, the prose and syntax are weak. Description of families or situations can be done very well, e.g. Anna Karenina, but your flow just isn't there; it's all very jagged and includes quite a few inelegant repetitions, awkward adverbs, and lacking determiners, among other issues.

The idea may be good; it's difficult to tell based on one page. I recommend getting an editor.

[Anonymous No.13451358]

>>13451264
This doesn't feel particularly captivating. But more importantly, some things you write aren't good prose. Drop "so" after "more or less" on line one. The "apparently pretentious thesis" and "dropped his pretentiousness" feels weak. So far (given that I happen to be a philosophy grad student) something about the way your character is written feels unconvincing, not like a real picture of a philosophy student, but someone's vague attempt to describe it without knowing well what it's like. Drop the "precocious" part, they practically rotate department chairs with no deep reasoning at schools so it doesn't mean anything, though maybe Columbia is different. And at 46, it's not rare (I'm pretty sure the present chair at the master's program I just graduated from is under 46).

[Anonymous No.13451363]

>>13451348
A suffuse of phrasing that's both awkward and over-the-top. Native speakers generally don't write so bombastically, even if the structure may be more complex.

[Anonymous No.13451368]

>>13451338
>tire first part is just me describing the book as if it's non-fiction lmao. There are so many characters that I have to write I didn't even get to the good part yet.

The first paragraph serves as a decent opening (not in any ways remarkable), but introducing every part of the family in such a way sounds like you're reading off a list. Try introducing them through actions, or a scene of some sort. For example, in Anna Karennin Tolstoy introduces his characters in a damn good way.. You learn a lot about them through their actions in the first scene.
Remember sometimes you gotta show, rather than tell, especially in an opening paragraaph.

Nonetheless, it seems like an interesting story as I read on. Still though, intro needs some reworking.

[Anonymous No.13451379]

>>13451264
Sentences are pretty long and clunky. They kind of drag way way on. But aside from that, the story seems quite promising. I enjoy the description of the characters.

[Kierkegaard No.13451383]

>>13451356
So basically it's an idea, it's not like. It's not about how I write as much as WHAT I write that interests me, you get me?

I think I will just write the content, then I will practice and practice until I get how to start writing well. It's my first fucking time.

I've got the entire story written in my head, the only problem is how to put it down into words. There isn't one line of dialogue so far.

[Anonymous No.13451384]

>>13451264
Doesn’t make any fucking sense.

>he’s married, and wrote about Heidegger, (apparently?), and Columbia is a College in New York, the state, fyi, and he (unnecessary metaphor) is an atheist, but philosophy is his religion. He also wants to screw his hot daughter

Wtf bro

[Anonymous No.13451387]

>>13451383
That's fine, mate. Get the general idea on paper and then refine. Words are magical clay: they never stop being moldable.

[Anonymous No.13451395]

>>13451383
>basically it's an idea, it's not like. It's not about how I write as much as WHAT I write that interests me, you get me?
>I think I will just write the content, then I will practice and practice until I get how to start writing well. It's my first fucking time.
>I've got the entire story w
looooooooooooooool chill dude. writing is about balancing the subject and the object. you can have a beautiful idea, but if you present it awfully then no one will appreciate it besides you.

it's a good start and it looks like there is a lot of promise in it.

[Kierkegaard No.13451398]

>>13451384
Wait, Columbia isn't in New York State?

>He also wants to screw his hot daughter
I never said that (but he will.)

[Anonymous No.13451399]

>>13451383
Your characters are cardboard cutouts with rattled-off, broad-stroke life stories. That makes them quite uninteresting. Focus more on ostensibly small but overall seminal detail that gives these individuals their character and stations in life, and, indeed, gives them life itself.

Don't be discouraged, but revise-- heavily.

[Anonymous No.13451400]

>>13451398
>I never said that (but he will.)

did you want us to know that from the first page?

[Kierkegaard No.13451418]

>>13451399
>Don't be discouraged, but revise-- heavily.
Yeah, you're right. I just throw in the characters and don't even make them interesting enough to warrant the book being read. My prose is shit. What should I read to get inspiration?

[Anonymous No.13451427]

>>13451418
whatever genre of fiction your novel would be

[Anonymous No.13451433]

>>13451418
For character-building, Anna Karenina.

For world-building, A Game of Thrones.

For beautiful, complex prose, Giovanni's Room.

Start with Tolstoy since your novel seems to be closest to that.

[Kierkegaard No.13451434]

>>13451400
>>13451399
>>13451395
>>13451387
>>13451384
>>13451379
>>13451368
>>13451363
>>13451358
>>13451356
>>13451335
>>13451290
>>13451286
>>13451276
YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU GUYS ARE RIGHT, I WILL JUST REWRITE THE WHOLE THING.

[Anonymous No.13451438]

>>13451434
not a bad start

[Anonymous No.13451441]

>>13451434
Don't be such a diva. You're just starting out. Petulance is extremely offputting. Just own your weaknesses, put your head down, and work.

[Anonymous No.13451485]

>>13451398
Columbia University is in New York City. Which is technically part of the state, but usually when people say that something is in New York State that tends to imply it isnt in the city. Just say "Columbia in New York"

Generally speaking when people say New York they are talking about the city

[Anonymous No.13451486]

Did OP pull a Plaith before finishing his masterpiece?

[Anonymous No.13451543]

>>13451434
Based

[Anonymous No.13451562]

>>13451276
The Lit Quarterly comes out next month. I'm very excited!

[Anonymous No.13451563]

>>13451276
I don't think /lit/ actually produced that. I think some anon found it amidst Amzon's island of self-published trash and decided to larp as the author

[Anonymous No.13451568]

>>13451383
I'm getting American Pastoral vibes from this excerpt bro. Not sure if that's good or bad. But definitely Jewish.

[Anonymous No.13451585]

>>13451485
We know where it is

[Anonymous No.13451641]

>>13451264
>Taciturnity

[Anonymous No.13451644]

>>13451264
Did his Phd on Witt but his masters on Heidegger? Shouldn’t you list the masters degree first? Also, it makes no sense to go from Heidegger to Witt, he/you seem not to have understood either of them. Nice posturing hack

[Kierkegaard No.13451712]

>>13451485
>>13451486
>>13451543
>>13451562
>>13451563
>>13451568
>>13451585
>>13451641
>>13451644
Look, I've just written something else. See if you like it. This time it's a more conventional style and doesn't read as much as non-fiction.

[Kierkegaard No.13451717]

>>13451712
It's "Yes, he has." That was a typo.

[Anonymous No.13451724]

>>13451712
>Noah would wake up at 8am. When he woke up he would get out of bed and mom makes breakfast. He brushes his teeth and mom is making breakfast down stairs. Arriving down stairs, where his mom is in the kitchen, she gives him coffee she’s like- is it too hot?- no he says

WHY GOD WHYYYYYYY

[Anonymous No.13451729]

>>13451712
>the coffee was tasty as ever
>TASTY AS EVER

Incredible

[Kierkegaard No.13451736]

>>13451724
>>13451729
look, it's my first time writing, you guys don't have to shit on me, ok? I wrote this in like, 2 minutes.

[Anonymous No.13451785]

>>13451264
on
Master's Degree ON
Fuck me
You don't want me to bully you? Anyway:
>After having attained his Master's, however, he dropped his pretentiousness and started writing and focusing on philosophy with the same honesty and sincerity a religious man does with full conviction that the soul was immortal and belief in God the only way to avoid eternal torment, so in this way, philosophy had been his religion.
Wow, I'm unironically winded. I don't want to throw the book at you in terms of criticism, but that's... your exposition is both grating and chalky, as well as off-taste, like toothpaste frosting.
>Besides this intense intellectual curiosity he had for this subject that provided no real objective answers however,
pic related. Are you baiting me?
>he had no religiosity at all. He was an atheist.
Better

>Robert had three children,
If you're going to keep expositing so directly, at least put in a colon so the next 'sentences' can be cleanly excreted out ("Robert had three children:").

>a well-behaved, taciturn and remarkably clever man
God dammit stop engraving your image into my mind-space, it's irritating. Do you post on /r/JordanPeterson?

Hammer out more of the impurities, even your grammar is unwieldy. And come back later.

[Anonymous No.13451788]

>>13451736
You should write in your first language.

[Anonymous No.13451789]

There’s absolutely no reason to read this “novel”

[Anonymous No.13451795]

>>13451729
KEKEL

[Anonymous No.13451807]

OP, just remember, writing isn't like athletic ability. There isn't a golden era when you can perform at your peak at a young age. This discipline requires time and dedication. Unless you arrogantly dismiss all criticism you can only improve.
God luck bb. We're all going to make it.

[Anonymous No.13451812]

>>13451712
Sandwich and eggs are not typical American breakfast

[Anonymous No.13451813]

Please, next time don't make the main character so obviously a self insert fantasy about where you want to end up in life.

[Anonymous No.13451821]

Don't take the criticism too deeply to heart, OP. Absorb the good and disregard the bad. A lot of the people that are roasting you are insecure about their own writing, if it even exists. At least you're trying and putting it out there for feedback.

Keep your head up and keep chipping away, pal.

[Anonymous No.13451822]

>>13451785
Oh wait I looked it up, you're right to use in; It was your weird syntax around thesis that fucked me up.

[Anonymous No.13451862]

>>13451264
Anon, you're being too descriptive. I know exposition isn't that easy, but you can do better. Who are your favourite authors? You could grab some inspiration from them

[Kierkegaard No.13451961]

>>13451862
All I've been doing so far has been exposition. There hasn't been one line of dialogue so far. Did I fuck up too hard?

[Anonymous No.13451963]

I hope you nasty bullies are happy, you made OP cry
https://desuarchive.org/r9k/thread/53335737

[Anonymous No.13451982]

>>13451563
Ethan Smithers still posts here you know
Road less Traveled is his newest book I think

[Anonymous No.13451985]

>>13451963
OP is clearly a child with likely a well-off family given his delusions about how good he should be as a first-time writer paired with how he's taken the criticism.

This experience will make or break him depending on if he's a bitch or not.

[Anonymous No.13451991]

Hijacking this thread to post my work
RIP anon, first time writer and ESL here as well so I know your pains
Let's get better :333

[Anonymous No.13451996]

>>13450811
Whats that anime?

[Anonymous No.13451997]

Absolutely dreadful, Kierkefaag.

[Anonymous No.13452003]

>>13451961
Yeah. Try to make the exposition go naturally. Let the traits and facts you want to tell come by during the dialogues, and keep in mind that you don't need to tell everything about your characters

[Anonymous No.13452011]

>>13451991
haha Slop sounds racist. Good start.
>Sam giggled
So did I; Very enjoyable, anon: B+ w/ an A~ in waiting if you edit in something about the gays.

[Anonymous No.13452042]

>>13451991
Glad you had a laff anon
I'll see what I can do with the gays

[Anonymous No.13452049]

>>13451961
No. Everyone relies on exposition, it's just a fact. Get over it, literally, learn to rely on yourself and your "brand" (kill the postmoderns) of consideration, i.e. the way you would tell a joke, down to the tone of voice, tilt of your head, gesticulations, etc. You have to consider your facts before you exposit them so nakedly, if those facts had flesh you would be in prison for exposing your genitals: you'll find that in literature your punishment reaches similar levels, and it's why I referenced your habitual behavior of shitting out text. Stop exposing your unwashed genitals, anon!

[Anonymous No.13452127]

>>13451996
Konosuba

[Anonymous No.13452245]

You imply that Rachel Horowitz was rumoured to have worked at the Stenburg factory, and then in the very next paragraph you state she did!

Which one is it? Does the narrator not know, or does he?

This also smacks of author insertion. Author fantasies can be seen and smelt a mile away. No one should ever tell your character they're "really smart". Show, don't tell.

When mentioning heights, it's fine to just say "tall". FYI, Americans use feet and inches anyway.

Too much description of characters. I don't need to know about hair colour or eye colour. Tall, dark and handsome is enough of a descriptor. Writing is about cribbing shorthand notes from culture at large.

The description of the daughter is creepy. Really creepy. Please don't have her fuck her dad. The descriptions of women in general are pretty bad. You can just describe women as women, there's no need to define them all by their attractiveness.

And what's your obsession with Jews? You seem simultaneously obsessed with and horrified by them. Don't be, it's weird.

Speaking of obsessions, what's with the shoehorned classical literature, philosophy and cinema references? It's weird, doesn't seem to add anything to the story and it will lead to your reads (as seen above) getting caught up in you not understanding Heidegger, rather than the story (of which there is none so far - but that's okay, we're like four pages in). The references smack of pretentiousness and trying to show off how much you know. Just write story, anon.

You could do with improving your dialogue grammar. I don't know what the hypens are about during speech, but scrap 'em. Look at some other literature (open a Harry Potter, for example) and just copy the speech forms in that. This is forgiveable because English isn't your first language, but it will unfortunately turn off any prospective readers other than 4channers out to bait you. Beyond that, dude, learn when and where to use capital letters for proper nouns. You get it right on Kindle but you dropped the capital letter on Whatsapp. You should be picking this up during proofreading. That sort of stuff should never get through to any reading audience, no matter how early days.

Beyond that you could make something out of this. But the key is to actually just write it. Stop looking on 4chan (of all fucking places) for validation. All writing is shit at the first pass, the difference between good ones and bad ones is the good ones believe you can polish a turd.

Keep trying, anon. It is hard but don't be discouraged.

[Kierkegaard No.13452712]

>>13452245
Thank you a lot, Anon. You're the first one who I felt gave constructive criticism and even encouraged me. Thanks a lot. I'll scrap all of it and rewrite it. The story is good, it's just that I suck at the execution, probably because I've accustomed myself too much to non-fiction.

[Anonymous No.13453608]

>>13451434
Write in Portuguese, which I assume is your native language, and if you want to write about academics and intellectuals you need to have some notion of what they’re actually like and what their work actually involves. You need to do some serious research at the very least and if you insist on writing in English, you need to improve. Also stop namefagging

[Anonymous No.13453868]

>>13452712

Don't give me that fucking weird loli shit.

Just read more normal fiction and watch less brain-rotting Japanese cartoons for degenerates.

You're welcome.