/wg/ - Writing General #4

[Anonymous No.16055072]

For talking about the craft.
Last one was excellent lads, keep it up.
Previous: >>16023448

[Anonymous No.16055140]

Anyone heard anything from the quarterly?

[Anonymous No.16055192]

>>16052709
A-anon, did you really? You've been memed.

[Anonymous No.16055426]

>>16055140
no, but my submission was shit so that’s ok

[Anonymous No.16055522]

>>16055192
To write something is a sensual experience. Depending on which writing tool you use, a different experience arises. You can write invisible words with your finger on the wallpaper, or short-lived words with a stick in the sand. These are haptic experiences that have their own value.Understood in this way, there is nothing ridiculous about a typewriter, it's sound, rhythm and feel.

[Anonymous No.16055663]

>>16055522
When I was a kid, I found my grandparents' old typerwriter and thought, damn, I'm gonna be a writer now. The fun stopped when I made my first typo, did a line break by accident, and then spent five minutes moving exactly back to that same character again, setting the correction tape, covering the wrong character, except the correction tape was too old and didn't cover it, I had to get another one, which worked and I could input the correct character, only to hit the wrong key again somehow by accident, and had to start the process all over. Finally succeeding, I was able to write on for maybe three lines before making another typo. After about a dozen such fuckups, my fingers hurt, I'd barely written the prelude and was ready to throw the whole shit out of the window.

GOD BLESS WE HAVE COMPUTERS NOW FUCK

[Anonymous No.16055714]

Thoughts on killing off characters? Obviously it's a bit of a trendy thing in popular fiction these days to say "anyone can die" and to kill off characters without much preamble. I suppose GRRM popularized it.

But for me, I think it's better to keep the bulk of the cast alive as long as possible, and when you do kill one of them off, you do it very dramatically and pointedly, rather than making it feel offhand or random. I think, somewhat paradoxically, avoiding killing the cast members off heightens the surprise and the emotion of when one of them actually does die. The reader gets so used to seeing all these characters escape danger over and over, that all of a sudden when one of them DOESN'T escape, the shock of it and the emotional weight of it will be that much greater.

Basically I think Martin has the wrong approach.

[Anonymous No.16055956]

>>16055714
Making the death of characters meaningful and tragic goes against what I think is the core philosophy behind "anyone can die" , because you make your characters more than simple mortals: heroes. Life is full of surprises, some may transform you into a legend, others make you drown in a puddle of your own vomit in an alleyway.
But then yes I agree with you that killing off characters at random is a cheap ploy; making your reader say to themselves when a new character is introduced "oh when is he gonna die, amirite" is proof of poor writing skills.

[Anonymous No.16056061]

>write emotional story
>few days pass
>start thinking it's cringe and that i'm an oversensitive faggot for writing it, so I start hating myself and never try to publish
How do I fix this? I have a theory that it's the enmity between my mother's and my father's characters playing out inside me. My mother is a very sensitive woman from an extravagant, aristocratic, dandy-like family, whereas my father is a very brutal and bullheaded working class man, who sneers at any expression of emotion or vulnerability. Then again, I hear a lot of writers hate their own work, so maybe my self-analysis is a bit tenuous.

[Anonymous No.16056081]

>>16056061
It probably is cringe. Just work on it, unironically.

[Anonymous No.16056090]

> Finished my first draft
> Printed it out to edit with a pen

Boy, it feels good to have the words there on paper in front of me. Don't get me wrong, it's shit, but it feels really good.

[Anonymous No.16056102]

>>16056061
If you start thinking it's cringe after a few days pass(like I do), then you're also probably capable of seeing WHY it feels cringe to you, what aspects of it you can iron over
Having such an adverse reaction to it most likely means that you recognize what can be better about it beneath that embarrassed sensation

[Anonymous No.16056133]

>>16056090
I get you.
I usually write on paper, then type it out and treat it as a light edit, then print it out and ravage it with a red pen.
It feels much more true that way.

[Anonymous No.16056135]

>>16056090
Post first page anonymoose

[Anonymous No.16056239]

>>16056090
I get the feeling, it's wonderful. Somehow, mistakes also seem a lot easier to spot on real paper.

[Anonymous No.16056256]

>>16055956
>making your reader say to themselves when a new character is introduced "oh when is he gonna die, amirite" is proof of poor writing skills.

How so?

[Anonymous No.16056267]

>>16055714
It depends. In real life anyone can just drop dead from a brain aneurysm at any moment. It's not very compelling and plot-friendly, in fact, with the death of a person, it destroys the plot, meaning dies with them. In stories, it's different, because the deaths are "part of the plan" and inform the narrative.
That said it can also be a sign of laziness if your only way of simplifying your plot is to kill characters off, a la Martin. He has the excuse of depicting a gritty medieval world where people are stabbed and sliced all the time but at the same time, it seems like he just bit off more than he could chew with so many characters and diverging plot lines.

[Anonymous No.16056295]

>>16056256
In my experience, it's never possible to make characters that don't have overly predictable deaths in such stories. Of course, in some cases, a death of a character that is predictable gives to the meaning of his/her death.
Maybe I was too hasty with my opinion, a better way to phrase it would be to not make the deaths cheap, however frequent they are.

[Anonymous No.16056370]

>>16055714
Bro read war and peace to learn how to kill off characters. Death is symbolic always. Your first mistake is writing fiction for entertainment and not for meaningful self dialogue. Killing a character is the same as changing a part of yourself, or moving on. Tolstoys literally killed prince andrew three times before he left him dead. Logic doesnt make good books.

[Anonymous No.16056372]

How does one make the story more kino?

[Anonymous No.16056388]

/wg/, I am able to write at the moment but I feel like I'm missing out on the fun part

Until about a year ago I was obsessed with intricately creating stories and finding new things to insert into them, but for the past year I haven't had any new ideas for stories or plot points and so I haven't been able to enjoy the autistic pleasure of obsessive tinkering

Is there any way out of this slump? don't say "Take a break" I've tried that a few times but it just gave me enough time to get anxious about the possibility that my love of writing is gone for good

[Anonymous No.16056389]

>>16056372
Write fiction for entertainment

[Anonymous No.16056491]

>>16055714
Martin doesn't actually kill key characters, so it's not like his protagonists dying is ever a surprise (sans Jon if he would actually stay dead). For him killing characters is just a plot devices and plot devices aren't too shocking. Random deaths would be.

While not doing any killing at all until you do has positives too, I find it takes authenticity away from the work. Random deaths unrelated to the plot give a work something life-like, it's a lot more fun too.

[Anonymous No.16056542]

>>16056135
Sure. Go easy- like I said, it's still an early draft.

[Anonymous No.16056575]

>>16056542
Yum. There's not a huge amount there since you double spaced it but that is some tasty prose. Well done anon

[Anonymous No.16056624]

>>16056542
I like the prose (loved the bit about cutting yourself on the light) and would read more, although Dies Irae seems a bit pretentious unless there's a heavy element of religion in the story. How long is it/what's it about?

[Anonymous No.16056735]

>>16056575
>>16056624
Thanks both! It's about a woman reflecting on her religious upbringing following the death of her brother. Around 4900 words / 16 pages double spaced

[Anonymous No.16056909]

>>16056388
>I haven't had any new ideas for stories or plot points and so I haven't been able to enjoy the autistic pleasure of obsessive tinkering
Take a story, then replace the main character with a loli, and see where that takes the plot.
There may be inspiration in retardation.

[Anonymous No.16057046]

Thoughts? I wrote this up today. The beginning of a short story in which a painter repents for letting fame get to his head.

[Anonymous No.16057154]

Who else takes some time to get "into the groove" of their big stories?

I'm working on a big long novel-length story right now. As I go back over the first couple of pages, the first ten or so pages, I'm cringing about how out of sorts and unpolished it feels. But the longer I go into the work, the more things seem to click into place, until by the time I'm at about page 15 or 20 things are up to the quality I expect from my own writing. And even then, it's not really until even later, into page 30 or 40, that the story "feels" right. I know I'm going to have to edit the first couple dozen pages quite a bit. But by the time I'm far enough into the writing, I really feel like I know what I'm doing and the work is flowing easily, and all the most recent stuff feels and reads great.

I guess it reminds me of that Gene Wolfe quote: "You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing." It definitely takes me a noticeable amount of time to learn to write each novel of mine.

[Anonymous No.16057358]

>>16057046
I like it!

[Anonymous No.16057383]

>>16055140
KMD said they wanted to print my story and I signed a declaration etc. but haven't heard anything since. Has anyone got paid yet or heard anything about the editing process?

[Anonymous No.16058313]

>tfw doing great work these days

I'm about 83,000 words into this thing and I'm in the home stretch of the story. Not quite sure exactly how long it's going to be when it's done, but now I'm very confident that I'll finish it before the year is out. Of course, then I'll have to edit it.

[Anonymous No.16058543]

>>16055140
>>16055426
>>16057383
Still processing the acceptances, payments, and attribution. If you've filled out your offer sheet/declaration form, please shoot me your paypal info so I can pay you. 11/25 contributors have been compensated so far.

[Anonymous No.16058803]

Thank god there's a thread here
So I want to write things, since I was a kid I wanted to be an author. But I've found through trying to write stuff that I don't have anything to say.

I've got ideas for adventures and "What if's" but my dumbass brain can't ever correlate it to an actual message. I literally just think of something and try writing dialogue and go from there, but I know I don't have anything I want to convey through my writing. I just find it hard.

I just wanted to write about people and adventures or dealing with concepts or just fun dialogye but I feel my writing will come off as really shallow and no-one would want to read it.

Is there a way around it or am I just a basic idiot who should probably give up?

[Anonymous No.16058905]

>>16058803
Just write for entertainment and hope that a meaning or message unintentionally arises from the adventure.

[Anonymous No.16059248]

where do I start?

[Anonymous No.16059355]

After two years and two scrapped drafts, I'm finally in the last third of my novel.

[Anonymous No.16059923]

>>16059355
Good for you

[Anonymous No.16060686]

>>16056542
>>16056735
The language is old but fluid, but I felt you were beating around the bush a little too much. Basic facts like that it's her brother who died should be established right away on page 1. Because as it is, I have no idea what the text is talking about, or why I should care, and it distracts and disconnects me from the narrative.

The opening paragraph implies it's the mom and only the third one proves this incorrect. You don't need to be blunt and declare "my bro's deeeeead!" on line 1, it can be subtle, but still let the reader get on board.

[Anonymous No.16060716]

>>16057046
That's pretty good, anon. Your narrator has steady, strong voice and identity. Some cliches and cheesy word choices, but we can pin those on the cherry boy narrator. Next to no mistakes.

But what I don't get is, why does everyone here write like they were born in the 19th century?

[Anonymous No.16060734]

>>16055072
lol Kassian is really messing up that turtle Tkachuk

[Anonymous No.16060742]

>>16058803
Read, live, broaden your horizons. A person can't come up with a message without opinions on various things, and there can't be opinions without pain.

>>16059355
The last third is always the best part, like riding a bicycle downhill. Finally you can take all the threads and let them tie themselves up.

[Anonymous No.16060773]

>>16059355
that's a neat wordcount anon, great length
what is about? is this your first novel?

[Anonymous No.16060812]

Should I translate the first page of my novel and post it here for critism? There are references to my culture in it too so it would be kinda hard to judge the meaning I want to convey

[Anonymous No.16060827]

>>16060812
Depends, how good are you at English? If there's a lot of grammer or spelling mistakes it'd be hard to evaluate, but if you're fluent go ahead.

[Anonymous No.16060845]

>>16060827
Good enough. I tried to write in a concise manner too so it won't be too hard to translate it to another language.

[Anonymous No.16061010]

>>16060716
Because we accept that anything written after WW2 with few exceptions is trash.

[Anonymous No.16061023]

>>16060686
Sure, that makes sense. Would perhaps changing the first line to "Eileen knew that she should deliver the news *of her brother's death* in person" be too overt, or would that work??

[Anonymous No.16061089]

>>16057046
I really enjoyed this and would love to read more. Would you be interested in swapping stories/extracts for beta read purposes? I'm

>>16056542

Would be good to give and receive meaningful critique focused on a single project, and outside of fiverr it's difficult to find good beta readers.

[Anonymous No.16061130]

>>16061023
That's kind of in-your-face but serviceable. You could also simply write "the news of (brother's name)'s death", and then separately mention who he actually was.

[Anonymous No.16061146]

>>16061010
Dressing your text in a tailcoat and wig doesn't magically make the contents good though. Most of the time, it's just kinda ehhh

[Anonymous No.16061174]

>>16060716
For me it's just sort of the way it comes out. Amateur writers in general tend to word vomit all over the page and leave it there, and as I understand it things like restraint and the elements unique to one's growing style only come with continuous work over time.

[Anonymous No.16061199]

>>16061174
That's true. I'm just surprised how universally /lit/izens admire classic authors and choose to be influenced by them rather than more modern writers or books. Except the DFW fanbase

[Anonymous No.16061235]

>>16061199
What modern writers or books would you recommend? I'm admittedly reading mostly classic stuff at the moment, but I'm open to anything.

[Anonymous No.16061399]

>>16061199
>>16061146

The Western Canon exists for a reason. Tolstoy, Proust, Flaubert, Joyce - these works are crowning achievements of literary aesthetics, even though Joyce and Proust especially could have charges of purple prose levied against them. The modernist school of dumbing-down, removing all adjectives and keeping sentences tight as a Puritan's bun is born only of lowered modern attention spans, which crave novellas and short stories to read on the plane and post on Instagram. A truly beautiful text eddies and flows like a river, shorter and more concise here, flowery and extended there.

Take this passage from Joyce:
> He closed his eyes, surrendering himself to her, body and mind, conscious of nothing in the world but the dark pressure of her softly parting lips. They pressed upon his brain as upon his lips as though they were the vehicle of a vague speech; and between them he felt an unknown and timid pressure, darker than the swoon of speech, after than sound or odour.

Beautiful, objective aesthetic value. This is why Joyce will be read 100 years from now and John Grisham or whoever else is in the WHSmith top 50 today will not.

[Anonymous No.16061473]

How do I make readers care about my characters

[Anonymous No.16061485]

>>16061399
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The masters weave ornate imagery, but when you look closer, there's nothing pointless or wasteful there. It's not style for the sake of style, but a razor-sharp slice of human nature and emotion, honed and folded a million times like a katana. Amateurs don't see this. They want the same coat of paint, but under the hood is empty. And thanks to their tireless efforts, the style itself has become synonymous with drivel.

Except Joyce is shit and so is the passage you posted.

[Anonymous No.16061576]

>>16061485
> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
False
> Joyce is shit
Oh okay sorry I didn't realise you were a tasteless hack.

[Anonymous No.16061794]

>>16061473
Either make them entertaining to read or relatable in some sense.

[Anonymous No.16061831]

>>16061576
Joyce is to writing is as Pollock is to art.

(Fucking oxygen thieves.)

[Anonymous No.16062002]

>>16055714
>Be GRRM
>Kill off main character
>Build up related characters to take up the mantle
>Kill off half of them too
>Never give a satisfying pay-off defeating/killing antagonists
>Get writers block for 10 years because the narrative flow suffered a complete collapse
Huh.
Ironic how his magnum opus is all about subverting convention and challenging fantasy tropes, and then wound up making basic storytelling incongruent. Now any resolutions he gives will either be 'predictable' or increasingly unsatisfying. This is why when you anons make your million word long epic, don't try and make it double as a cynical meta-analysis of the genre

[Anonymous No.16062097]

>>16062002
His goal was to make money and it worked beyond his wildest dreams. Which is why any criticism of his methods rings kinda hollow.

[Anonymous No.16062285]

>>16062097
Imagine if JK Rowling signed her movie deal and then in a decade failed to release Half-Blood Prince, and gave the directors a rough outline of Prince and Deathly Hallows to make the final 3 movies.
How do you think that would have went? JK at least had a coherent, thematically fitting ending planned, but it would still be rough to watch because scriptwriters who expected to ADAPT and not INVENT were given a skeleton of a draft to work with.
When Game of Thrones was still running, normies and journalists were unironically comparing him to Tolkein as a rival giant of the genre. Now? The show will be remembered for its awful final seasons, and the books may have popularised grimdark cynical fantasy but that's a pity because GRRM's writing issues are like some sort of cosmic force willed him into apathy and emotional drain.
A lot of readers buy into the Myreneese Knot theory for why Dance took 6 years to complete... but Winds is gonna be 5x more complex, and Dream moreso if there's any living characters left.
GRRM's fucked. He may be a millionaire but he's also an obese childless septugenarian. You're not gonna have grandchildren defending his legacy, and given the lack of progress on Winds and D&D's performance on HBO, you're not likely to have fans help him out either

[Anonymous No.16062344]

>>16062285
You can't take fame and popularity to the grave with you. He won't give a fuck when he's dead. And being a multi-millionaire probably makes his last years pretty damn comfy.

[Anonymous No.16062354]

>>16061399
>body and mind,
Breaks the flow.
>dark pressure
What sort of faggotory is that supposed to mean?
>vehicle of a vague speech
Doesn't work too well with press.
>an unknown
>darker than the swoon of speech, after than sound or odour.
Vague and redundant.

Only lips pressing upon his brain was an interesting, although also kinda icky imagery from this mess. If a random wrote it, they would be viewed as a "okay but tried too hard to say something without having anything to say".

[Anonymous No.16062400]

>>16062344
He was a multi-millionaire for a good while now, and still kept writing. He clearly enjoys it and not being able to finish it would be a shitty feeling.

[Anonymous No.16062691]

>>16062400
Of course he says he's writing. People would burn him at stake, if he outright admitted he's quit. Gotta keep up appearances

[Anonymous No.16062856]

>>16061473
Make them strong and cool with clear goals and driving towards their goal no matter what. Readers despise protags who are bitter, self-pitying, etc. They want someone with passion.

[Anonymous No.16062921]

>>16062354
You are either Chinese or have such deficient capacity for aesthetic appreciation that you will never create anything of value. I suppose you think poetry is likewise "faggotry".Why waste time looking at flowers, or a sunset?

[Anonymous No.16063346]

>>16062921
>poetry
>being anything but a complete joke
top kek

[Anonymous No.16064141]

>>16063346
rude

[Anonymous No.16064496]

dumb question here, /wg/
do you write in past tense or present tense?
why?
what's the difference?

[Anonymous No.16064510]

>>16057154
Yes. I usually start with some short stories in the same setting or with the same characters just to get into the flow before I start writing the actual novel.

[Anonymous No.16064551]

>>16064496
Depends on what I'm writing.

[Anonymous No.16064564]

>>16055072
the adage is "show don't tell"
But I resist this a lot, because adhering rigidly to 'show don't tell' causes whatever you're writing to become enormously long and cumbersome. It's like how everyone praises renaissance painters for trying their hardest to just make photorealistic shit, instead of actually crafting something more nuanced. That's not to say they didn't have skill - but storytelling shouldn't be about photoreplicating reality.

And furthermore, just as whitespace is important in visual art, I think you need white space in your writing - to imply and leave empty through "tell"

But I find it really hard to balance show vs tell, if I tell too much I feel like the story becomes really disconnected and impersonal.

I wish there was a tool I could use to gauge it, without just having another human reading my work, I just get lost in my own reflection

[Anonymous No.16064636]

>tfw my writing group kinda died once I left for training
>want to get back into writing since now I have more free time
>often wish I had someone to bounce ideas off and test them but everyone is busy

Does anyone want to be my writing friend?

[Anonymous No.16064651]

>>16064564
I’ve noticed when people try to only “show don’t tell” they usually fall back on cliche’s

[Anonymous No.16064660]

>>16064551
care to give examples?

[Anonymous No.16064677]

>>16058803
You gotta just get a journal and pour into it. Expect it never to see the light of day. View it as training. If you let your insecurities and self-judgement stop you, you won't get the ball rolling.

[Anonymous No.16064689]

>>16064651
"showing" is the hardest part of writing, because you could sit there and describe a room - but that is utterly a hackjob of writing. You need to "describe without describing" - you need to cut through the physical material reality and describe the essence of the room. That's what makes writing good. The things in the room tell the story. How you describe them is integral, too.

But if you're a lousy writer, you will just "show" a room; you will just use purple prose to describe a bed and a table and a window and people will check out immediately because you're 200 words in and you haven't even started a story.

[Anonymous No.16064830]

>>16064636
Everyone here is your writing friend

[Anonymous No.16064845]

>>16064496
Both have uses, although, as a rule, I would recommend avoiding present tense like the plague

[Anonymous No.16064873]

>>16064830
Fair, but I always liked one-on-one interactions, from my experience it's hard to really understand someone, their process and goals, without spending significant amount of time building that familiarity. That being said, I won't turn this into a contactfag thing, I'll figure out.

[Anonymous No.16064876]

>>16064689
Don't be a hack. Purple prose has no place in truly "showing" the room.

[Anonymous No.16064940]

>>16064876
Sure it does. You have a story about a princess, so you doll up the room in attempts to sound articulate and smart, so you start combing through a dictionary to describe its opulence. It becomes purple and gaudy.

A room that is lived in betrays its owner. You needn't dress it up.

[Anonymous No.16065091]

>>16064940
There's no law saying you HAVE to do that. Don't. If you can't think of a smart way to describe the room, show it through the character's movements and actions. There's no excuse for being bad.

[Anonymous No.16065134]

>>16062921
Poetry is generally pretty faggy, yeah, although it's also so hard to get right, so I sympathize with the poor sods who try it.

>Why waste time looking at flowers, or a sunset?
Actually, a pretty good question; although I bet the answer why we enjoy pretty things is going to be pretty dull and disappointing, so I never bothered to look harder at it.

And not like the Joyce sentences are even remotely similar. Writing is essentially communication, using a lot of words to say very little, sounds like pretty bad communication.

[Anonymous No.16065167]

>>16064564
Showing isn't necessary longer. If it is, you might be showing the wrong thing. Generally it's mostly used for stuff like emotions. Sure, saying someone was "sad" or "mad" is more efficient on the wordcount but it also tells us very little due how general these emotions are. Showing the actions which lets the reader gets a better picture of the exact mindstate wouldn't take much more words.

[Anonymous No.16065182]

>>16064940
Generally it's better to focus on one or two objects that don't fit the mold and stand out.

[Anonymous No.16066172]

This entire thread is just one big personal attack.

[Anonymous No.16066260]

>>16061399
>>16064876
I don't believe in "purple prose." This is a term used by English teachers who couldn't cut it as a writer. There is good and bad writing regardless how spare or elaborate. Living in fear of sounding purply is an excellent way to shut down your ambition and become a cautious, halting, unchallenging and unchallenged writer.

[Anonymous No.16066914]

>>16066260
post an excerpt

[Anonymous No.16067450]

>>16066172
Howe come, anone?

[Anonymous No.16068049]

>>16066260
Why would anyone live in fear of fucking up something in writing when there is editing? Sure, it’s more of good vs bad writing, but purple prose tends to be on the bad side most of the times.

[Anonymous No.16068097]

>>16067450
All this talk about purple prose, killing off characters in meaningless ways, writing with inspiration vs not, all give me anxiety.

[Anonymous No.16068138]

>>16068097
These people are all in the same spot you are, don't worry

[Anonymous No.16068779]

I've been slacking. For months. Nearly a year.
I'm better than this.

>>16055140
>>16055426
Just email him so you can get your rejection confirmed quicker like I did.

>>16056061
I think not liking your own work is just natural even if it means you lack confidence. I always hate my own work when looking back at them after a few weeks. Even the ones that got praised or published.

[Anonymous No.16068834]

>>16068779
You can never write as well as it can be done. So most people'll keep looking back at work with more and more disdain, the more time passes and the more work they write. It's just the way of things sadly

[Anonymous No.16068953]

>>16068834
And that's for the best, no? At the very least you'll see how far you've come.

[Anonymous No.16068969]

>>16068953
I agree in the long run, the in-the-moment frustration is understandable though

[Anonymous No.16069717]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16070533]

>>16069717
7/10

[Anonymous No.16071591]

how do I live the /lit/ lifestyle

[Anonymous No.16072165]

How do I master the art of suspense? Like, writing line after line where nothing actually happens, characters talking page after page without saying anything, building up hype for when shit finally happens and the cool lines are delivered. Japanese writers in particular are masters of this skill. I just feel like readers will see through it straight away and call me out on my bullshit, and I don't want to waste anybody's time with words I know have no meaning and are just there for padding.

[Anonymous No.16072289]

I write on my phone lol

[Anonymous No.16072972]

How do you guys have the confidence to work on a full-length novel? How many short stories have you gotten published before you started on it?

[Anonymous No.16073125]

>>16072972
If you go in with the assumption your first novel isn't gonna be published, you can "just write" it

[Anonymous No.16073491]

I need some writing exercises for my fantasy writing group. Some of the people in the group write comics so it needs to be applicable to art as well

[Anonymous No.16073947]

>>16072165
Suspense is all in the buildup. You have to hint at something coming but never give it away completely, creating an expectation which may or may not be satisfied at any moment. Then deliver the coup de grace at some point once this feeling of vague anticipation has been induced.

[Anonymous No.16075219]

>>16062921
>You are either Chinese or have such deficient capacity for aesthetic appreciation that you will never create anything of value.
>NOOO WHY DON'T YOU LIKE JOYCE AS MUCH AS I DO?? WHY ARE PEOPLE ALLOWED TO HAVE DIFFERENT OPINIONS?

[Anonymous No.16075712]

>>16055072
Is this shit? It starts off saying that most books on how to write a filled with filler bullshit, which I agree. But then he goes on to talk about his childhood. Is this really a book that's gonna teach me how to write better or just a memoir?

btw, a little meta: the op of the general should include some resources tbqh.

[Anonymous No.16075911]

>>16055072
How do I tell if my writings are worth shit without ever getting any feedback or criticism?

[Anonymous No.16075942]

>>16075911
Either get some feedback and criticism or choose to believe in yourself.

[Anonymous No.16076009]

>>16073491
Look up John Gardner's exercises.

[Anonymous No.16076192]

>>16075911
Do you like it? SOME of it?

[Anonymous No.16076246]

I'm going to pretend to be trans to get a literary agent.

>we want black, latinx, LGBTQUEEF, etc. voices!
You get what you fucking deserve.

[Anonymous No.16076296]

>>16076246
If it would work, surely there would be more trans and non white, non hetero writers published.

[Anonymous No.16076329]

>>16076296
There's less of them because less of them exist. Publishers are just virtue signalling. Faking might get you attention but you'd just get "cancelled" if you got found out.

[Anonymous No.16076372]

>>16076329
Not that many works get published in the first place, and one could fill all the spots with minorities, if there was an actual push for it. In reality it's all virtue signaling indeed, at best some of the factors can be used for marketing campaign; if the rest works.

At best it gives the agent some motivation to give the work a second look as it's not just more drivel by some cracker – but if the rest of the query and work isn't tempting enough, it's not going anywhere.

[Anonymous No.16076408]

>>16076246
>latinx
i enjoy the irony of prissy white kids thinking the entire spanish language is sexist
just speak english and eat mcdonalds like a normal person, lol

[Anonymous No.16077065]

>>16075712
As a how-to guide for writing, it's not very helpful. Just a list of "things I do" by someone who doesn't understand his own success. Stephen King's prose is mediocre, his books are popular because of the crazy scenarios he invents, which isn't something that can be taught. He's a bit like the original Twilight Zone, cinematography and acting just good enough to support the interesting plots.
The reason so many people recommend this book is because the memoir portions are somewhat reminiscent of a rags-to-riches fairytale. He spends most of his early life struggling, first as the child of a single mom, and then as a manual laborer. When things seem darkest for his writing career, he throws away his manuscript for Carrie and then his wife fishes it out of the trash and convinces him to continue working. Bear in mind that the character of Stephen King as presented in the memoir never changes his attitude towards writing, which just happens to reflect the attitude of many amateur writers (stories should entertain first, everything else is a hindrance to that goal, and therefore you need not study or develop advanced techniques beyond basic grammar and story structure). His fairy godmother (agent) manages to work a minor miracle, securing a lucrative contract for him which leads to world to realize that he was right all along and they were wrong. The reader gains hope that their big break is right around the corner, and they just need to keep hoping and trying (but not changing) and one day all of their hard work will pay off.

[Anonymous No.16077145]

>>16076192
I think I'm an okay writer, at best. I know my limits. I can come up with interesting premises, but I have trouble maintaining that interest at all times. I can't hit it out of the park with every single chapter, there's boring shit that happens but I have to put it down on paper or else it's just "And then the hero slays the dragon. Time passes. The hero is crowned king. Time passes...." I know for a fact the minimum number of characters needed in order to deliver the story, problem is that I can't make each and every fucking one of them interesting or unique. There's going to be boring characters, there's going to be clones. I can't work around this shit. I'm not good enough. I fucking suck at writing. I fucking hate myself for trying to become a writer.

[Anonymous No.16077162]

>>16060716
How are they writing in the 21st century?

[Anonymous No.16077283]

>>16077145
Being able to tell that something doesn't work, and even better, why it doesn't work is crucial to actually make stuff work.

And of course you can make any relevant character unique (and mostly importantly interesting), theoretically it doesn't really take that much. I'd start with their goal and what they do to achieve it. That instantly gives you a basis to flesh out how they even got their motivation, skills and approach to live beyond. And that shit will make the plot work better too. You could practice it by looking deeper into people you know. Even the most basic fucks have unique struggles they deal with and could be compelling characters if they made more active choices in their lives.

[Anonymous No.16077326]

>>16077162
The same way they speak. Just like they did back in the day, hence emulating the style is comical unless it's supposed to be historical fiction.

Unless you're talking to a supreme gentleman, no one would ever fucking say or write "Oh, but what a pig I was to you!" unironically but something closer to "Sorry for being a dick" or "I was rude"

[Anonymous No.16077335]

>>16077326
>"Oh, but what a pig I was to you!"
That's not really victorian either.

[Anonymous No.16077339]

>>16077145
I like the gradual evolution in this, nice job

[Anonymous No.16077351]

>>16077335
Yeah, sounds closer to 20th century which would fit to the usual Joyce-wank.

[Anonymous No.16078062]

>>16075712
>most books on how to write a filled with filler bullshit
>But then he goes on to talk about his childhood

Classic King. Zero self-awareness

[Anonymous No.16078118]

>>16078062
All the more reasons why "How NOT to write a novel" is so based. It's very on point and the writers don't push themselves into spotlight.

[Anonymous No.16078218]

First person or third person narration? I'm leaning towards first because of how closely it follows the MC, but 1st person feels so cheaty and exposition-esque. But I also fucking hate seeing a character's name ten times in one paragraph. It wears out the name.

[Anonymous No.16078230]

>>16078218
Just describe your MC as "that faggot" and everyone will understand.

[Anonymous No.16078247]

>>16078230
This faggot needs to fuck off back to his sissy dungeon.

[Anonymous No.16078314]

>>16078218
If the name of character is used THAT often, it's either a huge ass paragraph, or you're never using pronouns, or you're writing too many actions that follow up.

The lack of distance in first person seems to make it obvious for very character centric works when you want to withhold the wider perspective from the reader. Otherwise I'd just stick with limited third person.

[Anonymous No.16078395]

>>16078314
My problem with pronouns is that I always have too many characters with the same pronoun in on scene. I avoid ambiguity like the plague because seeing it in published works piss me right off.
2. Shit, by closely to "it" I meant the story closely follows the actions of the MC. I don't know what distance you're talking about.

[Anonymous No.16078414]

How do I write in third person omniscient while still following the show don't tell rule? I know it's not a hard rule but I have the habit of telling too often like she feels this, he thinks that, then that make that guy feels so and so. Too often I just resort to writing the actions without getting into inner thoughts. On that note, how do I write inner thoughts without "telling".

[Anonymous No.16078503]

>>16078395
Can you give an example paragraph? Outside of fight-scenes, I fail to picture when it could be a problem.
As for distance, the reader to MC. In first person one is stuck in the head of the character and is bound to experience the stuff more intense and closer. "I raped some bitch" doesn't distance reader from the actions of the character like "He raped some bitch" would, which makes the reader more of an observer.
>>16078414
Describe the action/reaction instead of feeling. Let the character yell, throw shit or at least clench their teeth. Avoid words describing emotions when you can. "He was afraid his writing sucked" isn't as good as "He'd never get published, nobody ever liked the shit he wrote."
"Thinking/feeling/hearing/etc" are filter words one ideally avoids. Instead of "He felt the dick in his mouth" something like "The dick entered his mouth." would do and instead of "She heard the sound of a fart" it'd be "X farted."

[Anonymous No.16078645]

wrote a short story i came up with in my sleep. would love to hear your thoughts

[Anonymous No.16078661]

A help when writing pulp novels: You treat the story like a series of quests. The basic scheme is: Task - Obstacle - Solution - New task. You repeat this a few times and come to an end.

"The job was easy. I was supposed to tail a guy named Guggenheim. I knew he wanted to travel to New York on board the Titania, so all I had to do was get a ticket and keep my eyes open on the ship." ---- This is the start quest, the first task.

As an obstacle you could take: Getting a ticket, finding Guggenheim on the ship, or whatever else comes to mind.

Theoretical side note: If you take a closer look, it's not a series, but rather an interlacing of quests. Task: Tailing Guggenheim. Obstacle: Getting a ticket (Task: Getting a ticket. Obstacle: All tickets already sold [Task: Stealing the ticket from the drunken gentleman with monocle. Obstacle: ...]). Metaphorically speaking, the story looks like a thick rope wound from threads. The story progress resembles a knife cutting into the rope, letting the threads jump off the main rope one by one.
It's easier to imagine the quest series, though.

[Anonymous No.16078667]

>>16078503
Most of what you said is just describing actions instead of inner thoughts though. But I get your point that inner thoughts should be elaborated instead of as mere adjectives

[Anonymous No.16078715]

Got my first ever beta critique back for the first short story where I really applied myself. I'm over the moon. I'm filled with confidence in myself and I'll remember this positive feedback for the rest of my life and career.

Just wanted to share it with you all because I have nowhere else to vent my happiness, and also to give you some hope. I abandoned two earlier short stories that were dire before really committing to writing. We're all gonna make it.

[Anonymous No.16078790]

>>16078715
Can you share some tips on pacing anon? And congrats

[Anonymous No.16078798]

>>16078790
Really the pacing isn't something I consciously planned. It seems natural to me to build up to a small crescendo, then cut away, then build to a larger one. I like to increase the tension to the end of the piece and end abruptly, like Joyce did in Dubliners, but it may be a bit of a gimmick.

[Anonymous No.16078811]

>>16078645
The weights are distributed wrongly, I think. In short stories, there are only a few places to put emphazisation on. You have to set them up correctly, like a mouse trap game, so that when the ball begins to roll down on the guided path, each turn activates something refreshingly unexpected, or builds towards a final explosive activation, the trap snapping shut on the mouse's throat. For example: The narrator has a project to do, but we don't know what or how important it is. Then, when he brushes it away for sex, this act of brushing away isn't very impactful. The project has no weight, so it is lightly forgotten. To put it another way: the complex "project", having to do something and brushing it away for something else, has no inner tention. It floats between the words, having nothing to do with its surroundings. The same is partly true for the relation between the narrator and the woman. My fingers are getting tired, I'll put it shortly: In some good short stories, there is a depth to things, relations. You read one sentence, but you dream about ten sentences that all come from the one sentence. In your text, one sentence gives birth to maybe two or three sentences. That's not enough. So the story feels flat. There is not enough content in it. You need more material. But do keep writing.

[Anonymous No.16079060]

>>16078811
im too stupid to understand what you meant. so youre saying the 'project' is a weak plot device? i only added it so the girl would have an excuse to visit and something for the character to work on.

[Anonymous No.16079199]

>>16079060
You are not too stupid, it is me who is too stupid to formulate sentences that adequately put into words what I feel. I will try to attack your piece from a broader angle, as I did at the end of my previous post, and be as clear as I can be. Do you know the famous Hemingway short short-story: "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn."? This short short-story, like many short stories, works the same way a joke does. There is a set-up (For Sale: Baby shoes,) and a punchline (never worn). You don't know where the set-up is leading you (and if you did know, the joke, or the story, wouldn't work) and suddenly, unexpectedly, the punchline hits you and makes you laugh, or cry, or gasp for air –– it puts what has come before it into a new perspective. The reader feels these punchlines like little explosions of meaning and emotion. A short story, equal to the length of your story, generally entails more than one set-up and punchline "joke", sometimes two, sometimes even three, four, or even five. I feel a distinct lack of strong punchlines in your story, and therefore the story feels flat to me. The explosions are what create the depth of the story. For example, compare "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn." with (please excuse my poor summary): "I have to work tonight, but my girlfriend wants to have sex. I will have sex with her, but make her help me do the work tomorrow. And that is what I did." If you comb through your story, do you see strong set-ups and punchlines? In really tight stories, every sentence is setting something up, everything has a definite purpose, and this purpose is sharp like a knife's edge.

Atleast, this is how I understand short stories, some kinds of short stories. There are many kinds, of course.

[Anonymous No.16079276]

>>16079199
i see. i was thinking of making the joke at the end that she will trick him and wont help him. she would try to run away but the door is locked and so she would be forced on it.

[Anonymous No.16079512]

>>16078645
I want all normalfags to die in a fire. Those are my thoughts.

[Anonymous No.16079539]

>>16078715
Did you change the thing about the brother, or did you keep it as it was? Anyway, congrats

[Anonymous No.16079656]

>>16079539
Yes, I edited that first draft a fair bit in red pen, including the opening paragraphs. The editor also commented they thought the story hooked straight away, so thank you for guiding me onto that, that's what these threads are for. Submitted it for publication, now.

[Anonymous No.16079699]

>>16079656
Great, glad if it helped at all. Good luck with your future projects

[Anonymous No.16079872]

>>16078715
Could you post your story? I would really like to read it.

[Anonymous No.16079966]

>>16079872
That's very kind. I'm reluctant to post any more until I hear back from where it's been submitted, but I'll be sure to shill it here if it does get published.

[Anonymous No.16080088]

>>16079966
Could you post it in the writing general thread, if there should be one then. That way I will find your story most likely.

[Anonymous No.16080353]

>>16079512
im happy i evoke some emotion from you anon

[Anonymous No.16080900]

My biggest fear is being mediocre or someone like Yvor Winters.

[Anonymous No.16081408]

>>16076408
I've seen "@" being used to represent both -o and -a, so I can't really figure out what -x is supposed to stand for. Maybe they're trying to suggest that Spanish should go back to its Latin roots and adopt the neuter gender?

[Anonymous No.16082081]

writing about a skeleton

[Anonymous No.16082293]

>>16072972
Go into it knowing you're not going to write one novel but many. One stone on the path. Sooner you step on it the sooner you move forward.

[Anonymous No.16082322]

>>16078715
I remember this story. Congrats!

[Anonymous No.16083424]

bumpp

[Anonymous No.16083753]

When do you use a semicolon?

[Anonymous No.16083818]

how do you guys mystically write? I've been lsitening to bladee for 16 horus high out of my mind

[Anonymous No.16083844]

I love worldbuilding way too much. My book is theorically ending, yet I'm still dumping pages of stuff that's only useful for the immersion.

I've gone past caring about my potential readers by this point.

[Anonymous No.16083867]

>>16083844
why are you writing a book without knowing the ending?

[Anonymous No.16083910]

>>16083844
World building without story doesn't help immersion though. Just get the shit out of your system and have some extra file with all the details, and then edit the crap out of the actual novel.

[Anonymous No.16083918]

>>16083753
When you're unsure between a comma and period.

[Anonymous No.16083995]

>>16083867
It doesn't matter. There are a lot of plot points in my book, and they do not necessarily come down at the end or at all.
>>16083910
My world is massive. I can't feel good about my work if I don't hammer it down with details.

[Anonymous No.16084183]

>>16058313
Self editing is hell.

[Anonymous No.16084204]

>>16084183
Not that anon, and I prefer it to first draft, since there is at least stuff to work with while one still has the freedom to add completely new stuff.

[Anonymous No.16085341]

Bumpity

[Anonymous No.16086169]

>>16084183
Editing is wonderful. Like, look at THAT scene, which you always felt was kinda awkward and boring and shit? Well, you have the power to completely tear that scene apart and reconstruct it and baam, it's suddenly good! It's like reading a book, but instead of just taking it passively in and coping with the author's retardation, lamenting the money wasted, you can get directly involved at any moment, and fix EVERYTHING.

Getting the first draft to that stage, now that's the bitch

[Anonymous No.16086233]

>>16086169
>Well, you have the power to completely tear that scene apart and reconstruct it
And baam, you spent weeks tweaking a paragraph which is still going nowhere, give up all hopes to improve it, spend more time on it anyway, then cut it out and feel like an idiot due muh lost cost fallacy.

[Anonymous No.16086246]

>>16086233
That's why, you use your brain before you start chopping necks, instead of relying on the Force alone to guide you

[Anonymous No.16086283]

>>16086246
Tbqh I'm not even that mad about stuff like that. Learning by doing is fun. In the end it was writing practice too and maybe, possibly, hopefully, some of the cut stuff can be reused later in one form or another.

[Anonymous No.16087673]

>>16083995
okay, mr doesn't want readers