/wg/ writing general

[Anonymous No.16591286]

no more /crit/ edition

Last thread (over 300 posts):
>>16570396

Suggested books on story telling:
>The Weekend Novelist
>Aristotle's Poetics
>Hero With a Thousand Faces
>Save the Cat
>Romance the Beat

Suggested books on getting your fucking work done you lazy piece of shit:
>Deep Work
>Atomic Habits
> Other Resources
> General grammar/syntax/editing help
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/purdue_owl.html
> When/where/how should I write?
https://jamesclear.com/daily-routines-writers
> What software should I write with?
https://self-publishingschool.com/book-writing-software-best/
> Amazon Publishing to make that KDP monie
https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200635650
> Be like Charles Dickens and write serially
https://www.royalroad.com/

[Anonymous No.16591338]

I got 19 views on my last chapter on Royal Road :D

[Anonymous No.16591354]

>>16591338
happy for you anon, what's your story?

[Anonymous No.16591416]

not sure which general to post in edition
I'm making some headway into my style more. I practiced writing every day and got more fluid in structuring my writing but I realized I need to study more before I can start working on making my style fluid.

[Anonymous No.16591434]

>>16591354
It's Blackula. It's Dracula but everyone is black. I even came up with a black pen name: Jerekius Brooks Emerson

[Anonymous No.16591442]

>>16591286
Do those books on storytelling also apply to comics? (And why do I get the feeling that all of them, except Aristotle's, are pseudointellectual garbage?)

[Anonymous No.16591473]

>>16591434
I didn't think you were posting that online?

[Anonymous No.16591481]

>>16591416
Well, the other thread is just for prose crit. This one is for talking about writing, questions and shit. And crit if people really want to.

[Anonymous No.16591523]

>>16591473
Yeah, I'm going to simultaneously write and put out weekly chapters on Royal Road.

When I finish, I'm going to put it on Amazon. They have a program called KDP Select, which means Amazon gets exclusive distribution rights for 90 days, in exchange for being in their Kindle Unlimited program for 90 days. You can only have 10% of your work available online outside Amazon for those 90 days. I'll just lock or suspend the chapters that go over the 10% limit on Royal Road until the 90 day period is up. Once the 90 day period is over, I can also put it up on Google Play and Barnes and Noble Press

[Anonymous No.16591552]

>>16591523
The KDap Select program only applies to ebooks though. Print books can be sold anywhere and on any platform, so I'll have the paperback sold on all 3 major platforms

[Anonymous No.16591880]

>brother has been in quarantine for a new job for the past two weeks
>still hasn’t started reading my novella

[Anonymous No.16591985]

What is the point of describing places/landscape in detail? I see this a lot in literature where they just describe the narrators surroundings for multiple paragraphs. Is it to just set the mood or to explain something through it, like how the narrator sees a group of people trying to get on a bus. I always get the impression that a good bit of this is just filler that could be cut. I'm mainly asking to know how much of it I should write.

[Anonymous No.16592102]

>>16591985
I find multi paragraph descriptions not very useful. Its one thing if you're describing an entire city and the different parts and the history, etc. But then you just ask yourself, why put all that information there in a big block rather than giving a little here and a little there when the reader may actually give half a fuck about it.

[Anonymous No.16592185]

>>16592102
>>16591985
It depends.
Is the description of the place very relevant to the perception of the reader? or does it set a tone? Or is the location itself relevant to the plot ? I think its worth to dedicate a little to the description of it.
Is it just for scene building?
Then you just need to pass the most relevant information to the reader (ie. they are in a busy street/the city is big/the lights were blinding, etc)

[Anonymous No.16592311]

>>16591880
>having your family beta read

[Anonymous No.16592407]

>>16591985
It's kind of like illustration. Some people are struck by the beauty of nature, and want to establish a aesthetic background to complement the narrative foreground. Too much of it, however, becomes an empty exercise.
Sometimes nature descriptions can be used to incredible effect, especially if your story contains naturalistic elements. The first page or so of Grapes of Wrath is a classic example. It presents this impartial, God's Eye view of the dust bowl settling in, and marks it out to be this vast, all consuming entity of natural destruction. It's the perfect set up.

TO THE RED COUNTRY and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover. In the last part of May the sky grew pale and the clouds that had hung in high puffs for so long in the spring were dissipated. The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a while they did not try any more. The weeds grew darker green to protect themselves, and they did not spread any more. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country and white in the gray country.
In the water-cut gullies the earth dusted down in dry little streams. Gophers and ant lions started small avalanches. And as the sharp sun struck day after day, the leaves of the young corn became less stiff and erect; they bent in a curve at first, and then, as the central ribs of strength grew weak, each leaf tilted downward. Then it was June, and the sun shone more fiercely. The brown lines on the corn leaves widened and moved in on the central ribs. The weeds frayed and edged back toward their roots. The air was thin and the sky more pale; and every day the earth paled....

[Anonymous No.16592725]

How should I start on short stories? Any tips?

[Anonymous No.16593016]

Alright, what do you guys think of this novel I'm working on at night after I take my meds. The entire novel is the protagonist struggling to leave his house for work

[Anonymous No.16593022]

I've been stuck with plotting a story (I'm good at plotting and have finished stories before, so that's not the issue), and the primary factor that's motivating me to write the story is the aesthetic of the world. It's nostalgic in how it harkens back to movies made from the 70s-80s-90s. I really want to capture that celluloid film aesthetic world. The problem is wrangling it into a cohesive story is like trying to make sense of a dream.

[Anonymous No.16593131]

>>16593022
Sounds comfy, what's the world like? Got any characters that would be in it that you can spiral a plot from?

[Anonymous No.16593171]

Anyone else kinda hate the new dashboard on RR? I guess it's nice to see comments and reviews in one place, but now it takes more clicks to see individual stats for separate novels

[Anonymous No.16593186]

I received the highest score in the class on our first short story assignment.

[Anonymous No.16593191]

>>16593171
>Anyone else kinda hate the new dashboard on RR?
To be honest I just hate Retard Road altogether.

[Anonymous No.16593205]

>>16593191
It's not so bad, anon. It's a decent place to post stuff you're working on for practice

[Anonymous No.16593228]

>>16593186
Good job, anon!

[Anonymous No.16593229]

>>16593205
Do you ever get helpful feedback or is it not that kind of site?

[Anonymous No.16593245]

>>16593131
The world is a mix between nostalgic and comfy, and dark and nightmarish. The very basic idea is that people go into a simulated dream reality where everything is hyper-nostalgic 70s-90s aesthetic. The problem is I can't get the idea to work in the plot. It's strange to me since I have such a vivid idea of the mood and aesthetic, but making the plot make logical sense on a character level is very difficult. As it should be, because I want my story to be unique, and the harder it is to figure out, the less likely someone else has done it before, or as well as me.

[Anonymous No.16593253]

Guys, why does my third person writing always feel so... immature? There's just not weight to it, like some kid's book. Reread a short story I wrote about a guy contemplating suicide and it was just so hokey I spent the day rewriting it in first person because I know it'll have the gravitas that something like that needs to have.

Is there something I'm missing?

[Anonymous No.16593257]

>>16593205
You type in the same prissy way all isekaifags do.

[Anonymous No.16593259]

>>16593229
I do, actually. Just yesterday I had someone point out a few mistakes I had made in every chapter of my main project. They even sent me a nice PM saying that they loved my novel so much that they wanted to take the time to help make it a little better

[Anonymous No.16593393]

>>16593171
I was used to it since I opt into the beta months ago.

[Anonymous No.16593410]

I sometimes write these technical blog posts on this site that targets readers in my professional (day job) field. And I'm honestly disgusted by the childlike, low-substance, gif-laden content my posts get jumbled alongside. I feel like an outcast for writing serious, in depth, insightful stuff.

[Anonymous No.16593656]

>>16593253
Honestly, for something like suicide, I'd probably have gone for first person anyway. The benefit of first person is the emotion and though of your character.

Maybe try something really plot based in third person? Heavy on the scenery, things happening, genre trash, that kind of thing? Just to practice the perspective. I think you'd also benefit from some critique so that you know what to work on or just for confidence.

[Anonymous No.16593688]

>>16593656
The reason I went third person with it was because I wanted that tension of "is he going to kill himself or not" but I just hated how juvenile the whole thing felt. So during the first person rewrite I alluded to the fact it might be his suicide note.

>some critique
Honestly, I'd love some kind of feedback, but I haven't edited much of what I've written so far yet, and I don't really have anyone who's opinion I trust.

[Anonymous No.16593713]

Im getting worried about what I'm going to have to do in the editing process

>put greater emphasis on a bunch of plot mechanics
>give all the main characters a backstory
>Rewrite the entire 1st and 3rd acts
>Flesh out a bunch of characters that were underdeveloped or changed
>plot out all future books so I can get the timeline straight

[Anonymous No.16593720]

>>16593688
Post the third person version and we can tell you if it's as juvenile as you think. I suspect you're just not used to how it feels. Obviously you'll have to take anon feedback with a pinch of salt.

[Anonymous No.16593740]

>>16593720
>post the unedited version of something you hate
Nah, I'm good, senpai. lol I like the first person better anyway. It's 2000 words less, which means I cut a lot of fat. Thanks for the offer, tho.

[Anonymous No.16593937]

>>16593688
I don't understand your logic with first person or third person having anything to do with tension of a character killing himself. It can happen with either.

> He hung himself
Or
> I put my head into the noose and jumped
followed by change in point of view to character's friend or cut to his POV as a ghost

[Anonymous No.16593971]

>>16593937
And O Henry and Things Fall Apart nigger both wrote stories about men who hung themselves and they were in 3rd person. In Henry's case, it was a soldier being hung against his will though

[Anonymous No.16593973]

>>16593937
It's just an assumption people make that if someone is writing something, then they clearly live long enough to write it. If they're dead, how the fuck are they writing it? Obviously we can suspend our disbelief when we get there, but while you're reading it you're assuming the person lives.

[Anonymous No.16593998]

>>16593973
Maybe he's writing from heaven. Like the guy from American Beauty who shot himself in the head

[Anonymous No.16594011]

>>16593998
Like I said, we can suspend belief when we get to that part, but until we do, there's an unconscious assumption.

[Anonymous No.16594040]

>>16593973
This is a bit of a reach. But it depends on whether it's past tense or present. In past tense I tend to assume survival, in present tense I don't have the same expectation and anything could happen.

[Anonymous No.16594068]

>>16594040
>present tense
Anyone else have a hard time with this one? It just feels a little awkward to write every time I try it. I can handle it for a couple paragraphs, but then I start slipping into past tense. I really love how Woolf made use of it in The Waves, but it seems like such a hard thing to do effectively

[Anonymous No.16594075]

>>16594068
I'm the opposite, can't stand writing first person past tense. Can't stand writing third person present tense. Just one of those things.

[Anonymous No.16594120]

>>16594040
>>16594075
I think you're reading too much into tenses and POV and what they imply or actions they limit. I've seen porn stories written in second person present, so I'd rank that as worst POV

[Anonymous No.16594154]

>>16594120
I think you're reading too much into my personal feelings. That's how I feel when I read first person (though I don't often think about whether the character will die). I also don't like to write certain tenses in certain POVs. Ain't no big thing. I admit it isn't particularly rational.

[Anonymous No.16594205]

Alright, what's everyone working on today? You are at least meeting your daily quota, right?

[Anonymous No.16594234]

I might focus more while I'm writing if I'm listening to some melodies in the background, but I'm afraid that they'll end up influencing the text. Do you have any experience with writing while you listen to music?

[Anonymous No.16594255]

>>16594205
I wrote the first 1k words of my novella, and wrote up my plan for novel month next month, and I still got 12 hours left in the day. We're all gonna make it bros

[Anonymous No.16594292]

>>16594205
I'm working on a story about a child who grows up with worsening symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder that she attempts to hide from other people. She finally cracks when she gets obsessed with the idea that she made her grandmother sick and that's why the grandmother died. I hit my minimum quota for the day, though I typically work by time and not word count.

[Anonymous No.16594300]

>>16594234
Yeah, I prefer it, I don't find it seeps into the writing much but it's probably just about personal preferences. You might find it hard, you might not. Give it a go anon

[Anonymous No.16594303]

I am not a native English speaker. Can writing make me better at English?

[Anonymous No.16594335]

>>16594205
I tried to wake up early this morning to go into full gear but I wounded up sleeping in, and then I didn't get into the mood until now. This was a lousy week; I hoped to get several chapters out but I don't think I managed to accomplish much in that regard.

[Anonymous No.16594344]

>>16594303
Yes it will

[Anonymous No.16594371]

/wg/, I'm trying to come up with the plot for my second novel but I'm having a really tough time imagining how I can make it self-contained

my first book was an isekai adventure, but it ended with the characters failing to return home and making a new settlement in the magical realm.

the sequel has a few plot points to pick up: the first being that the main characters may have set off a war between non-human factions that humans are stuck in the middle of, and the second being that two of the main characters are looking for an artifact that can heal them.

I don't want this to simply be another adventure novel though because there are a lot of background characters I want to develop who I didn't get to the first time around and I don't want to push any existing characters into the background either

[Anonymous No.16594407]

>>16594205
1000 words over my standard minimum. Feels good

[Anonymous No.16594413]

>>16594255
>novel month next month
nanowrimofags get the rope

[Anonymous No.16594457]

>Sit back and listen to some music
>Suddenly hit with an overwhelming sense of inadequacy knowing that no matter how good my writing becomes, it can never compete with the raw emotion evoked by a single song
>No amount of purple prose can draw such vivid mental images as sound.
It's an interesting feel, but then I try to remind myself that music isn't conveying a world, it's just awakening what's already inside of you.

[Anonymous No.16594468]

>>16594371
> my first book was an isekai adventure
uh oh, don't let that one anon who splergs over isekai knows about this

[Anonymous No.16594482]

>>16594468
>that one
Nope.

[Anonymous No.16594516]

>>16593016
I audibly kek'd. Very funny desu

[Anonymous No.16594528]

>tfw just submitted a short story to a magazine for the first time
>tfw trying to stop myself from looking at the story, knowing I'll see how shitty it is and retract the submission

[Anonymous No.16594554]

>>16594528
Good job. Now forget you submitted it and write the next one.

[Anonymous No.16594557]

>>16594528
Just follow Stephen King's advice: forget about it and start working on other stuff. The man had hundreds of rejections for his short stories before he started to get them published

>>16594407
Good work, anon! Keep it up

>>16594335
Yeah, I haven't been as productive as I wanted to this week either. I'm starting to go back through the chapters I already published to clean them up a bit before I post more

>>16594292
Actually sounds like a pretty interesting story. I think working by time instead of word count is fine. Sometimes you just aren't going to hit a certain amount of words, but by keeping to a set amount of time to write, you're still enforcing the habit.

>>16594255
What's the novel you're going to work on for nanowrimo about?

[Anonymous No.16594563]

>>16594557
>>16594554
already ahead of you

[Anonymous No.16594572]

>>16594557
Im not going to submit it for nanowrimo but I like the idea of writing a certain amount every day and having a novel at the end. It's about an old librarian who gets lost in the woods and his estranged son who has to go rescue him. The novella I'm writing right now is just some scifi stuff, it's about people off earth having to confront nature again after a long time but I gave them space guns and space suits so I'm not really trying to tell to serious a story

[Anonymous No.16594595]

>>16594528

Congratz. Remember that even if they decide to publish it, it will most likely take months or weeks until they respond, so don't think about it too much.

Did you submit it to multiple magazines? They usually don't care if you do as long as you withdraw after someone else accepts.

[Anonymous No.16594618]

>>16594595
I didn't because every single magazine I looked at said that they didn't like simultaneous submissions, and writers on other sites said the same.

[Anonymous No.16594629]

>>16594618
*said the same as in other writers said most magazines don't like that sort of thing

[Anonymous No.16594642]

>selfpublish first book after a year of working
>disappointing sales, some reviews are unreasonably low
>three months away from shitting out another book and the fire us starting to dwindle, money is running out

why did i think i could make a career out of this

[Anonymous No.16594650]

>>16594642
Maybe the review aren’t unreasonably low.

[Anonymous No.16594654]

>>16594642
>fire is starting to dwindle
unironically the difference between people that make it and don't usually comes down to power through that point.

[Anonymous No.16594663]

>>16594642
Unless you get a wfh job, it's too dangerous to become a wagie now. You've got to keep going the course until a vaccine

> t. unemployed due to covid

[Anonymous No.16594670]

>>16594618

Sure you are not confusing it with multiple submissions? Every magazine I saw that mentioned this said that they didn't accept multiple submissions (sending more than one story at once) but they were fine with simultaneous submissions if you let them know when someone else accepts it.

[Anonymous No.16594695]

How do you get a book on philosophy published? Especially if you don't have a PhD? I'm personally writing the greatest work of philosophy of the 21st century, but I'm afraid it will never see the light of day because of purely arbitrary gatekeeping reasons.

[Anonymous No.16594721]

>>16594650
no

>>16594654
>>16594663
i know the usual advice is just to keep going with it, but it's kinda easy to get tired sometimes
sometimes it feels like i'm spinning my wheels endlessly and not gaining any traction, but i guess that's just the first test of character, huh
thanks anons

[Anonymous No.16594724]

>>16594618
I have never heard about this before. I'm pretty sure it's standard practice to submit to multiple publications, since the turnaround time is so long and different publications want different things depending on the month. If you could only submit to one place at a time, getting anything published would be even more of a nightmare since you'd have to wait months for each rejection

[Anonymous No.16594772]

>>16593016
>contempt for the audience to the point that you directly mock them for reading the book

I unironically keked, that's devilish

[Anonymous No.16594786]

Isekai is just the new fanfiction. A lot of the fanfiction authors of the 2000s have gone on to be published authors. Fanfiction was just a phase for them like isekai is to teenagers nowadays.

This is why I'm hard on isekai writers. It's best to get them out of the phase as soon as possible so they can develop proper storytelling skills. Once they start writing novels with word counts expected of their genre is when they'll start improving, instead of framing it like a light novel volume or anime arc. Isekai isn't a step toward publication, or even successful self-publishing.

Yes, I'm a bit overzealous in this thread, but I really wish the best for them, and they'll only achieve that by me drilling into their head that isekai is worthless.

[Anonymous No.16594851]

>>16594786
I wouldn't say that Isekai is inherently worthless. Narnia is essentially Isekai, and that series is a classic of children's lit. It's just that most of the people who write it are low quality writers who don't do much to improve their skills. A lot of the tropes in the genre also lead to very lazy and uninspired writing

[Anonymous No.16594910]

I cannot write dialogue for the life of me.

[Anonymous No.16594927]

>>16591286
Guys, I wrote the first chapter of my story. Please read and give feedback.

I saw this girl passing by on the street. She had great big honkers. Nice.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.16594946]

>>16594910

Kinda same but I don’t go for realism, do ya think realistic dialogue is needed for your style ?

[Anonymous No.16594961]

>>16594642
When it comes to self publishing the formula is generally getting out books pretty quickly. The first book may have done poorly, but keep at it for a few more books. If it doesn't work, start a new series under a new pseudonym and then rerelease your work later.

[Anonymous No.16594980]

>>16594946
My style is solipsistic verbiage governed by whichever author I am currently reading. I loathe realistic dialogue and find it unbecoming of proper prose. But you do you, fren.

[Anonymous No.16595192]

>write 10k words
>feel good
>check RR to see how much some successful works have
>500k
I'm going to write a serial length story, and then start releasing it while I write the next one. I don't care if that means I have to write 50k a day, I'm gonna build up to it
Please tell me im gonna make it bros

[Anonymous No.16595221]

>>16595192
you'll make it bro, i believe in you
your determination and suffering will all be worth it in the end

[Anonymous No.16595244]

>>16595192
There are some stories on RR with millions of words. People just keep successful stories going on forever so they can keep making patreon bucks off of it. I think the longest one is at around 4 million now

[Anonymous No.16595352]

>>16594721
>sometimes it feels like i'm spinning my wheels endlessly and not gaining any traction
You were Wile E. Coyote and you looked down. What did you expect to happen?

[Anonymous No.16595368]

>>16594724
Not him, but clearly you've never looked into this. Literally every mag I've looked at says they don't like having the same story out at different publications. The real key is to write as much as you can and have different stories out all at the same time and cycle them around to different mags as they get rejected.

[Anonymous No.16595389]

>>16595192
>>16595244
>mfw stories are basically becoming day time soap operas
Idk how I feel about this, but I can say I enjoy General Hospital. Don't judge me, I was raised by three women who watched it religiously.

[Anonymous No.16595392]

>>16595244
One day this will be me. RR is going to fund my novels.

[Anonymous No.16595398]

>>16595368
Some mags accept reprints, they aren't as uncommon as you think.

[Anonymous No.16595409]

/lit/ someone wants to commission me to write a story with rape in it but I am not really comfortable. Should I do it?

[Anonymous No.16595431]

>>16595409
Do you need the money?
Is your ideological predisposition and will stronger than the other determining factors?
Can you ask them to not have that in it?

[Anonymous No.16595445]

>>16595409
In the erotica community, it's called noncon or dubcon. In any case, you deserve this for stooping to such degeneracy

[Anonymous No.16595504]

>>16595409
No? Why would you want to write something you're not comfortable with? If you need the money that badly, I'd say you have more serious problems than just a dilemma over what kind of degenerate garbage you're willing to write

[Anonymous No.16595515]

Does anyone have any ideas for where to publish a story that is longer than a short story but shorter than a novella? I have a 20,000 word (45 page) fiction story that I want to try and get published. It is part of a larger work (a book of short stories with a central theme), but I'd like to try and get it published separately from the other stories.

[Anonymous No.16595520]

>>16595409
stop being a faggot

[Anonymous No.16595535]

traditional publishing: you get 10% to 25% of sales
self-publishing: you get 30% to 70% of sales
OnlyFans: you get 80% of sales

[Anonymous No.16595554]

>>16595535
Being a decently attractive girl with big bazingas and a lack of Christian morals is pretty lucrative in the current year

[Anonymous No.16595631]

>>16595431
>>16595504
I don't need the money exactly but I like writing erotica and am trying to figure out how to make money doing it. Oh well.

[Anonymous No.16595762]

Stories coming along nicely anons. Had a nice night out, and have just finished the first draft for another chapter. Gonna work on it a few more hours, just me, hot chocolate, and some good music.

>>16595192
Been having the same thoughts recently. No matter how many words I write it never seems to be an "acceptable" word count.
>>16594724
every time i've been published I had the story out to 5+ pubs at the same time. Just keep track of who you send it to, and if you get accepted tell the others you've dropped them.
>>16595368
If you had no prior agreement with them, they shouldn't have a say in how you distribute. No loyalty to corporate. It is best to cycle multiple stories though.

[Anonymous No.16596067]

I have an idea for a portal fantasy but I don't want it to stray into isekai faggotry. Tips on how to avoid this?

[Anonymous No.16596085]

>>16596067
Just make it a regular fantasy.

[Anonymous No.16596097]

>>16596067
No video game shit, no harem stuff, no anime tropes. It's hopeless though because animebrains will still call it an isekai anyway.

[Anonymous No.16596213]

>>16596097
>no harem stuff
but that's the best part of anime literature

[Anonymous No.16596290]

has a single individual from /lit/ ever made it

[Anonymous No.16596294]

>>16594371

seems like you haven't quite figured out what you want to do: develop characters or write about a possible war. Figure that out first.

[Anonymous No.16596299]

>>16596290

dude we made it... to here.

[Anonymous No.16596305]

>>16596290
I've made $0.66 cents selling my book on Amazon

[Anonymous No.16596306]

>>16596290
I'm working on it, anon. I imagine that a lot of us are quite young

[Anonymous No.16596312]

>>16596290
Yes but as soon as they do they turn their backs on us like Prince Hal turned his back to Falstaff

[Anonymous No.16596314]

>>16596305
Wait, I guess I only need to say $0.66, no need to add cents

[Anonymous No.16596353]

>>16595515
why doesn't this bitch write Harry Potter sequels? She'd become a trillionaire

[Anonymous No.16596361]

>>16596290
I believe I made it. If I can make it, so can you, anon. Never give up. We WILL make it bros, and even if we don't then just remember that this truly was a /wg/ writing general no more /crit/ edition.

[Anonymous No.16596376]

>>16596361
But make it where?

[Anonymous No.16596379]

>>16596376
It's like fabled American Dream—it's what you make of it, or whatever they used to teach us in school. I don't know. That was my attempt at sounding sage.

[Anonymous No.16596388]

>>16596353
She's trying to prove that she's a good writer by working on other successful series, hence her writing under a pseudonym for a while. It's not like she needs anymore money. Burning through a billion dollars would be pretty damn hard unless you're buying high-end military fighter jets

[Anonymous No.16596497]

>>16594642
The first book I self-published got 0 reviews in three years after publishing. You should consider yourself fortunate, really.

[Anonymous No.16596591]

>>16594786

>back in 2015
>isekai is still relatively fresh
>get an idea to write a satirical novel series about a character in another world
>contrast modern self-obsessed hedonism with the romance of classical chivalry
>want to tackle some immortal questions like the duality of man, nature of evil, and altruism while exploring a huge world I designed from scratch
>put all my time and effort into making it as good and fun as I possibly can
>do tons of research, reading, and planning
>the isekai boom hits
>the internet is flooded with countless low-effort wish-fulfilment/parody stories
>in five years, isekai has become a swear word to all serious readers/writers
>if I ever mention my story to anyone, they only look at the tags and laugh in my face without even giving it a try, despite the good reviews
>five years of work, drowned in shit
I'll just finish this story and then kill myself

[Anonymous No.16596641]

>>16596591
Should have just gone with a classic genre instead of a fad

[Anonymous No.16596644]

>>16596591
imagine the guy in 1996 who wrote a story about a boy wizard in a wizard boarding school, but decided not to publish it

[Anonymous No.16596722]

I fell in love with my character again

[Anonymous No.16596791]

I'm reading the original Dracula and it's already clear a 1:1 rewrite with black characters isn't going to work.

> original Van Helsing is a retard
He knows that there's a fucking vampire flying around in his neighborhood, but he does ........ nothing. He sees a bite mark with 2 indentions on Lucy's neck and says
> whoaaa weird. Ok, you, secondary character, stay here. I'm going to leave for a couple of days. Bye!
then he repeats this, page after page. Comes in, notes the classic turning into vampire symptoms, goes traveling for a couple of days, comes back, notes some more symptoms, goes traveling again, until the person turns into a vampire.

Additionally, while Van Helsing is away, the 3 simps are teeheeing about all giving coy """blood transfusions""" to Lucy. Actually, even Van Helsing participates in the teeheeing. This must have been like watching a gang bang for Victorians.

My ideas for new plot in Blackula
> reduce Blackula's newly purchased properties from 3 to 1
In Blackula, Blackula bought 1 house in Yorkshire. Next to his house is house, which Mina and Lucy are renting while taking a girl vacation together. After Dracula/Blackula moves in, Lucy mysteriously becomes more pale.

> Absorb the 3 simp male suitors into the Mina character (main female character)
Mina can be the one transfusing blood into Lucy because she and Lucy are best female friends. As long as she transfuses blood, Lucy can stay human, although Mina just knows that Lucy feels better when she gets blood transfusions. But when Mina gets a telegram from a hospital in Europe that says that Johnathan is ill, she rushes away. This means that Mina no longer has a supply of fresh blood. The local doctor tries his best, but Lucy she grows weaker.

> Van Helsing is an active, unretarded character
After many days of Lucy getting worse, the local doctor calls Van Helsing. He sees the bite marks on her neck and realizes there's a vampire around. He rushes back to his country to get vampire-killing equipment like silver stakes and bottles of holy water. While he's gone, Lucy turns into a vampiress.

> Mina reunites with husband Johnathan and he isn't a cuck
John tells Mina about how Dracula is a monster and he's heading toward Yorkshire. But John's been in a coma for a month. Mina realizes that Dracula has already been in Yorkshire this whole time. That's where she and Lucy were vacationing. She and John hurry back to England.

> Mina, John, and Van Helsing work together
Mina and John get back to Yorkshire at the same time as Van Helsing. They see that Mina is now a sassy black vampiress. Van Helsing kills her and Mina says, "Nooooo."

Ideas for blackification:
> Instead of silver stake, an onyx stake?
> Instead of holy water, witch doctor water?
> Instead of vacationing together, they're attending a Swahili language conference?
> The doctor graduated from Howard Medical School, which is why he's able to perform the tricky procedure of blood transfusions. All schools are HBCUs

[Anonymous No.16596801]

>>16596791
>Comes in, notes the classic turning into vampire symptoms, goes traveling for a couple of days
It was this story that made the symptoms classic, it wasn't exactly the fantasy flu then that it is today. Not that I expected intellect or education from you.

[Anonymous No.16596820]

>>16596801
There's a reason that the original novel is regarded as a lesser classic. It is famous because originated the vampire trope, or at least Bram collected the folklore of the vampire tropes of central Europe and introduced them to an English audience, but the novel itself has significant flaws

[Anonymous No.16596829]

Didn't find the crit thread.

The sodium gates open, rushing to flood the tunnels with ions. Once conduits for free movements, the roads are taken over by primal restraint. A once proud, tall, broad shouldered thought is hit with fatal blow of doubt. The thought grows a hunch.
It is pain. The thought lives. It's being taken over. Continuing to succumb, the tallness shrinks. Everything falls over and with no where else to go, it closes in on itself. Cradling itself like a fetus.
The re-birth of the thought. Fortified by tired ignorance and arrogance, the thought's strength comes from its resolutions against the dogma that tried to keep it down. Once the primal restraints wear off and thought can be free again.

[Anonymous No.16596965]

>>16596829
Nice...a real tour de force

[Anonymous No.16597144]

>>16594642
Self-publishing is only financially viable for erotica, romance, urban fantasy, military science fiction, litrpg, cozy mystery. There are exceptions but it's difficult enough to gain traction in one of those genres. As others said, publishing fast is essential.

[Anonymous No.16597373]

>>16596290
I'll be on this site until either it or I die, so I'll let you know when I do ;)

[Anonymous No.16597378]

>>16596722
Wait... so it's not just me?

[Anonymous No.16597389]

>>16596791
>> Absorb the 3 simp male suitors into the Mina character (main female character)
The reason it took 3 simps was because draining that much blood from 1 person would make them die, and you want to have a fucking itty bitty give up the same amount of blood as 3 bulked up dudes?

[Anonymous No.16597407]

>>16593191
Yeah, it's for a very specific kind of writer and reader. There are generally no pretensions of actual literary merit, which I'm sure for a specific audience is great. It just strikes me as too blatantly reactionary towards anime, which isn't exactly a significant cultural touchstone in terms of artistic merit itself. I'm not trying to say that this is the objectively correct way of looking at it and that anyone who likes it is dumb. But I do actively dislike it on a personal level.

[Anonymous No.16597922]

>>16596722
>>16597378

>fall in love with a character
>wanted to write her as the MC's love interest
>get scared readers will see my personal attachment and accuse me of writing low-brow wish-fulfilment
>write the character out of the story
>I'm miserable
>the characters are miserable

[Anonymous No.16598024]

>>16597922
Do we all do this? Seriously though, I do find it annoying to read a book and the author clearly has a favourite character and all other characters love him for no reason. This happens in any and every genre, why do we all play favourites?

[Anonymous No.16598088]

>>16597389
They did it on separate days, not one after another. If the little miss eats lots of juice and cookies in between blood donations, she'll be fine. Probably. I'll calculate a reasonable timeline from Blackula entering town to when Mina needs to leave

[Anonymous No.16598231]

I'm writing a sci-fi where people are put into a virtual simulation that is like a sport/game show. In this setting people can't remember what they experience in the simulated reality, and they are put into cryostasis during their week-long stay.

So you experience the virtual reality scenario first hand, but you can't remember it once you're out. The only memento you get is a movie recording edited together of what occurred in the simulation.

This is the hard limitation of the concept. The reason people don't remember is the tech can't have them experience the simulation and remember it at the same time. Maybe that can happen in the future of the setting, but for now they technologically can't move beyond this.

Does this sound reasonable? I'm struggling with making the character motivations and worldbuilding work. It's a sport that gets funded like esports, so that's the kind of world the story is set in.

[Anonymous No.16598239]

I have this idea for a little story. A superpowered psychic escapes a secret facility and embarks on a quest for revenge against those who turned her into a "monster".
On the way, the psychic meets a girl, who ends up following along in an effort to keep her from killing absolutely everyone she comes across.

But I'm having trouble deciding what kind of a character this "sidekick" should be.
1. Another escapee from the facility, who has some kind of abilities of her own.
2. An average nobody who sees this as an opportunity to get away from aimless everyday life.
3. An agent sent to apprehend the psychic.
4. Something else.
What do you think? This one character's identity has a pretty huge impact on what kind of a story it's going to be.

[Anonymous No.16598254]

>>16598231
Is there some particular storytelling reason why they can't remember, or why they should remember? How does it factor into the plot? It sounds kinda contrived and unnecessary.

[Anonymous No.16598268]

>>16598231
Ben Affleck did a movie like this called Paycheck

[Anonymous No.16598273]

>>16598254
Basically the psychological trauma would drive people mad and/or give them PTSD. Maybe I've been dumb and should factor that into the story? I also think it would lead to people in society never coming out of the simulation, which would be an issue.

>>16598268
Dumb but fun movie I guess.

[Anonymous No.16598286]

>>16598273
It's also kinda questionable what would motivate people to enter the simulation at all, if they can remember nothing about it afterwards.

Accel World does a more interesting variation of this, where the players forget everything about the game if they lose, but so long as they keep on winning, they get stronger and obtain real life perks.

[Anonymous No.16598298]

>>16598286
Right. I guess it would be like a boxer not getting older and punch drunk after a career of boxing. Maybe I messed up my story by trying to avoid the psychological trauma. Might be the very thing that the story should centre around.

[Anonymous No.16598316]

>>16598298
But forgetting about their games would also mean the athlete never learns or gets better.

[Anonymous No.16598320]

I haven’t written anything for days. I just get drunk and sleep.

[Anonymous No.16598384]

>>16598239
Option 2 seems a little pointless but either of the others would do well.
I actually wrote something very similar last year, it was option 3 but where the agent comes around and starts to actually help the psychic, psychic finds out, they fight, they come around because they've fallen in love. Super gay.

[Anonymous No.16598400]

>>16598316
They would gain a kind of muscle memory. Like sleeper agents they bring their learned experience in without remembering their training.

[Anonymous No.16598467]

I have an idea for a story that's very similar to John Wick, but it's a guy's wife that was kidnapped. It's a sci-fi romance story where he gets the gang back together to save his wife and there's a lot of bromance, probably some excessive murder, maybe some whore killing because the protagonist is an asshole sometimes, but it's all to get back to his wife.

[Anonymous No.16598475]

>>16598384
Yeah, gayness is unavoidable with this setup. But there's supposed to be a twist in the end. The present day setting is fake. The story takes place 30,000 years in the future where mankind is extinct. All the people in the world are artificial. The psychic is not an engineered weapon, but the only real, organic human they managed to resurrect from a salvaged DNA sample. ie. misunderstandings.

[Anonymous No.16598525]

>>16598467
Sounds generic as fuck. Just the kind of mindless a dime a dozen movies I would expect on tv on a weekday when tv was still a thing

[Anonymous No.16598532]

>>16598467
>>16598525
Minus the sci fi part of course. But you can just slap the sci fi setting on a generic setting and call it a day

[Anonymous No.16598536]

>>16598532
*can't

[Anonymous No.16598617]

>>16598475
Well, I'd read it anon, will you be publishing it when you're done?

[Anonymous No.16598784]

>>16598617
Glad to hear that. It's still in the planning stages, though. I'm publishing other stories at the moment. There are still a few key details I gotta figure out in addition to the sidekick's role, before I can get to actually writing.

For example, the psychic starts out with this vague goal of revenge, but the actual goal needs to be more concrete than that. I'm thinking of there being something like a big skyscraper, or a space elevator, or a big satellite, visible from afar, which would give the cast an obvious physical target to aim for. Something suitably over the top.

[Anonymous No.16598806]

>>16598475
Are you actively avoiding similarities to the Matrix? Touching any philosophical themes?

[Anonymous No.16598870]

>>16598806
Yeah, it's not at all about questioning what we consider real, like the Matrix. Tonally, I'm going for something like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. And specifically the book, not Blade Runner. I'd like to explore something like how far you can stray from the parameters of humanity and still remain "human".

[Anonymous No.16598896]

>>16597407
I am kind of liking it for what I'm doing. It does seem to be mostly for lowbrow shit, but that's what I'm writing, so it works. I have gotten a lot more feedback and readers than I ever did trying to grind it out with self promotion and getting on mailing lists and shit, what a waste of time.

[Anonymous No.16598960]

>can't get the basic plot to make sense
>attempt #99231

[Anonymous No.16598989]

https://pastebin.com/1YpEM3DP

[Anonymous No.16598990]

>>16598784
piss on the moon

[Anonymous No.16599174]

>>16598989
I didn't like the first part from the dad's perspective, I don't think it added much and was a little boring/immature. Slightly curious about where the second part is going but it's also pretty edgy. Would keep reading though.

[Anonymous No.16599622]

>>16597407
I just use it for feedback and a place to post writing that would otherwise just sit on my HD. Yes, the site in general likes low quality writing with anime tropes--but if you write something decent, regardless of the genre, you will find a few people that enjoy it. There's some decent writing on the site; it's just not on the top of the list

[Anonymous No.16599731]

one stop short
of the last
get your seats and your tickets out, fast
nod falls
on an old friend slitting sleeves in his shirt
with a tall glass
such a gas
in the coupé of laughs

had a talk
with a girl, lost her things
on the rails
closed a favor with hard labour
been a pleasure miss
but you're in the wrong place
get your head on
i didn't sell my soul,
threw it down a drain
ain't no room on this train for jokers
closed call for the damned and the smokers

shiny black steam
all a dream
close your eyes,
we were never here

[Anonymous No.16599806]

>>16598989
>I accidentally rub his crotch as I leave to let him know I’m sorry.
wot?

[Anonymous No.16599861]

>>16599806
I'm sorry I was unclear *unzips your pants*

[Anonymous No.16600133]

What's everyone working on tonight? Hitting those Saturday goals I hope

[Anonymous No.16600136]

>spent all of yesterday editing a chapter
>didn't actually get any new writing done
Hopefully today is a little more productive

[Anonymous No.16600184]

/wg/, which premise should I go with for the sequel to my fantasy adventure novel?

>after the youngest member of the main cast finds a fallen star, she gets pulled into the courtly politics of an inhuman mastermind who started grooming her for a purpose in the previous book
>in the process of searching for a cure for a curse on her, the love interest from the previous book finds a magical tome prophesying the end of the world that leads her on an archaeological expedition into ancient temples
>an eldritch fog surrounds the main cast's home town, separating them into different mysterious worlds
>two or more of the above in the same book

[Anonymous No.16600235]

>>16600133
Spent the day so far doing some small edits for dialogue and readjusted some paragraphs so they had a bit of better flow. Hopefully, I want to speed through this chapter and start work on the next one. Two of my protagonists are going to meet in a chapter or two from now. I'm excited.

[Anonymous No.16600381]

>>16596353
she lost her chance. Between the Cursed Child, the Newt Scamander Movies, and the whole "wizards shit on the floor" thing she'd already lost most of her credibility even before the transphobia, and now that her transphobia's out many other issues are being raised with her books.

I've got to be honest. As much as I disagree with Rowling, it's depressing to see that a cornerstone of my childhood that I thought would one day be considered a classic lose everything because shifting political tides left it behind

[Anonymous No.16600523]

>>16600184
The third one sounds the most interesting to me, since there's a lot of cool ways you could write it

[Anonymous No.16600549]

>>16600184
>an eldrich frog surrounds the castle

Stumbling to his feet, hands slick with the mud of the gutter he awoke in, Rudolph could not believe his eyes. Something green was covering the skies. Calling to his big fat oaf of a friend, he sought reassurance that he was not mad.

>Hark Geoffrys! What in heaven's name could that green veil over the azure heavens so familiar to me be? Why I do believe it to be an amphibian. But from whence could such an abomination of damp spongy green flesh have risen? Oh I say, I'll never forget this day.

>Ribbit ribbit motherfucker
Oh shit the frog speaks

[Anonymous No.16600558]

>>16595515
Post it on pastebin then give us the link. its not like anyone ever makes money from books anyways

[Anonymous No.16600596]

>>16600523
I agree 3 sounds the most interesting, but. I'm on the fence about a lot of this because I'm caught between three needs

>the need to tell a self-contained story
>the need to move an ongoing plot along
>the need to write something that doesn't feel soulless

If I go with idea 1 I know not only what the plot will look like but what all the future books in the series will look like, but unfortunately the idea feels kind of hollow to me, like it's missing the magic

Idea 2 is a good middle ground in that I still know where the big picture story is going even if I don't know the details, and it feels like it has more soul to it.

Idea 3 has the most soul but I have no idea where it would go. It's completely and utterly out of left field and I'm not even sure it's compatible with the long-term story I have planned out

[Anonymous No.16600731]

>>16600381
>her transphobia's out

A man can never become a woman and a woman can never become a man. A man who cuts his penis off and takes hormones is simply a mutilated man. The fact that people refuse to understand something this simple shows how detached they are from reality.

>>16600558
I may put it online somewhere. Though it's part of a short story collection, it is a bit incongruous with the other stories as it has a bit of a speculative fiction aspect to it and the other stories do not despite the stories all taking place in the same time and place.

[Anonymous No.16600747]

>>16600731
I'll follow whatever the science says.

Pluto isn't a planet anymore.

[Anonymous No.16600819]

>keep falling into past tense when writing in present tense

[Anonymous No.16600836]

>>16600819
I have that same problem, but in reverse. I find that it happens to me far more often when writing in first person than third

[Anonymous No.16600846]

>>16600836
Interestingly I'm the exact opposite, this chapter is in third person and I have to stop what I'm doing to fix it since I keep going back and rereading it and dying a little on the inside every time I see something in past tense. I usually don't have that problem when writing first-person chapters though.

[Anonymous No.16600862]

>>16600747
>I'll follow whatever the science says.

If that's what the science say it's because scientists and academics are being pressured into conforming to a collective delusion in order to save their own skins. I'm sorry that your teachers and parents failed you and that you've been raised by Twitter.

[Anonymous No.16600863]

Does the publishing industry work more or less the same regardless of country, or are there differences that would imply that the advice given to an American on how to get published wouldn't work for someone who lived in France, for example?

[Anonymous No.16600864]

I hate everything I write even though everyone tells me it's good. I even almost got published in my universities paper on my English professors recommendation, a published author, but I didn't follow through because I didn't like that piece. I will start a story one day and then hate it the next. How fix?

[Anonymous No.16600987]

>>16600863
Well, one difference is that America has a lot more people than countries like France. It could be easier to be published in many European countries since you have less competition. I think things like affirmative action are present in most of the western world though, so you may run into some of the same issues

[Anonymous No.16600997]

>>16600864
Stop thinking that everything needs to be perfect. It's almost a certainty that there's something about your work that could be better, but that has never stopped someone from being published. Trust other people when they say that something about your writing is good

[Anonymous No.16601023]

How should screenwriting be different from literature?

[Anonymous No.16601070]

>>16601023
Hell if I know. I know that screenwriting is much more dialogue focused, but it's not something I've studied into too much

[Anonymous No.16601085]

>>16600864
>I hate everything I write even though everyone tells me it's good
I don't get this. I mean, you've read other books right? Maybe you only read the greats and nothing else? Get some perspective, do yourself a favor and read some popular fantasy or romance trash. Come back and reread your work and you'll think you're a goddamn genius.

[Anonymous No.16601094]

>>16601023
A much stricter formula because film/tv have much less freedom in terms of structure. Books can be as long as they want, have short and lengthy chapters, etc. You cant have tv episode that's 25 minutes and the next one that's 60.

[Anonymous No.16601098]

>>16601085
>come back and reread your work and you'll think you're a goddamn genius
You know the feeling when you get out of the hot tub and jump into the frigid cold pool, and vice versa? That's how I feel every time I go from something like Joyce to web-fiction. It's downright enlightening

[Anonymous No.16601159]

>>16600987
Affirmative action like favoring locals over foreigners?
I only know that term in America and it refers to racial equality or minority equality.

[Anonymous No.16601168]

>>16601159
Yeah I meant it in the racial way. In America it's quite a bit easier to be published if you're a minority. Not sure how it is in other countries

[Anonymous No.16601178]

/wg/, I've got it! I know what my sequel is going to be about.

it's going to be a story about an autistic girl trying to figure out how to stop the apocalypse that will end up using asymmetries in the laws of physics as a metaphor for asperger's syndrome

With that concept in mind. I have to start snowflaking and setting goal posts for where I want the story to go

[Anonymous No.16601218]

Is it possible to only introduce the villain or antagonist towards the end of the story and still have it flow well? What are some books that do this?

[Anonymous No.16601251]

>>16601218
what have your protagonists been doing this whole time if the antagonist only shows up at the end? fighting his henchmen? well they're basically an extension of the antagonist so no big deal. picking flowers and doing teambuilding exercises? why do you even have an antagonist then. you antagonist in that case may as well be nature or God

[Anonymous No.16601264]

How do I practice a genre I am not comfortable with if I can't even write 3 lines?

[Anonymous No.16601282]

So I thought about a premise
Sci-fi, Adult.
Field Shooting, but in ludicrous distances, I'm talking 500km targets.
The protagonist is someone who enters a competition in order to pay the bills for some sort of treatment for a family member (maybe niece), he has to deal with players cheating, corrupt judges and etc.
What you think? shit premise?

[Anonymous No.16601294]

>>16601251
You misunderstand, my antagonist is present throughout the story but the character just isn't introduced. I'm wondering if it's possible to introduce the character towards the end of the story without it fucking up the flow and feeling rushed

[Anonymous No.16601310]

>>16601294
Fuck me I'll just make a new thread asking for recommendations

[Anonymous No.16601320]

>20 views on royalroad
>no reviews

[Anonymous No.16601334]

>>16601320
get your shilling sock on and head over to rebbit
or post the link here you colossal faggot
its more than a couple chapters right, don't waste your time drumming up views if it isn't at least like 10k words posted so far

[Anonymous No.16601375]

>>16601320
The ratio of views to reviews is very low, even for the most popular novels on the site. You shouldn't really expect any until you have a lot of chapters posted and a decent amount of views. You also always have the option to do review swaps, but you need to at least have 10k words published before you're allowed to do that

[Anonymous No.16601442]

>>16601320
L13k views, over 80 followers
>40+ chaps out
>5 reviews
You simply live with the pain. I like to think readers are waiting for me to get to a good stopping point to drop reviews... haha.

[Anonymous No.16601526]

>>16601294
Yeah that's doable, but you need to leave hints about them all throughout the story. Make it a mystery who/what exactly el badguy is and slowly drop hints so the reader doesn't get board and off fucsker

[Anonymous No.16601608]

>>16601282
There's not really a lot to go on there, to be honest. Cross-country (literally) shooting like that could be interesting, but what's the story going to be like? It would help to know how they accomplish such long shots, since that could set up a lot of story elements; but I can't say how interesting it is at the moment with so little information to go off of.

[Anonymous No.16601646]

>>16599174
Thank you for the feedback. Yeah, the dad pov was just to get the juices flowing. Not staying on the page for sure.

[Anonymous No.16601648]

can someone recommend me places to submit prose, particularly with a theme or guideline in mind? I write fiction and non fiction, but I keep getting stuck on my own stuff, and usually doing writing prompts and the like helps me unjam, but I'm a little tired of doing image prompts and the like for the void. There is no doubt that they are bad, but if I could have the knowledge at least one schmuck has to look at it, well maybe I'd sleep easier at night

[Anonymous No.16601659]

>>16601648
There's always reddit

[Anonymous No.16601719]

>>16599174
https://pastebin.com/WusxM98V

Not in chronological continuation. I'm thinking to make a series of therapy visits in abstract order to go with the theme of mental illness. Any advice from anyone who reads would be appreciated.

[Anonymous No.16601721]

>>16601659
I've moved on from reddit but thats where I started off anyway, I think it makes bad habits to try and write for a reddit audience, I was thinking contests and mags and the like

[Anonymous No.16602129]

I have this idea for a short story or a novella that I want to write, but I'm struggling in the planning process. Some details keep bothering me and I'm not sure what to do with them. Here's the deal.
A man has an argument with his wife, to cool himself down and to get out of the house. He ends up going rabbit hunting during a light snowstorm knowing full well its entirely fruitless endevour tracking the rabbits down during the storm. Throughout this would be retrospection on having to cut loose bad friendships and situations throughout his life.
I can't decide if I want to start the story in the middle of the argument or maybe I should have something before that to get the reader familiar with the characters first.
The ending is escaping me as well, the man getting lost and dying in the snowstorm would probably be a cliché, can't visualize an entirely happy ending with the kind of mood I'm going for either way. Maybe something bittersweet.

[Anonymous No.16602157]

>>16602129
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1987/06/08/helping-2

Read all the way to the end.

[Anonymous No.16602160]

>>16591286
Alright you fags. I've been writing for a long time as a hobby and only now decided to take it seriously, after reading books on story telling (not the ones in the OP except for Poetics and Monomyth). However I'm lacking in the writing department, i.e. rhythm, paragraph/sentence structure/yadda yadda yadda, what book should I read to git gud at writing? Answer me or I'll personally kill a thread.

[Anonymous No.16602162]

>>16591286
does it have to be fiction?
I’ve just recently started writing a bunch of essays.
I’m actually up to more than 200 of them so far.

[Anonymous No.16602168]

>>16602162
Holy fuck congratulations my nigga care to share one with us?
And no, it doesn't have to be fiction. I guess

[Anonymous No.16602193]

>>16602162
How long are they?
Are they just notes?
Are you saving long shit posts?
Is this your manifesto revisions?

[Anonymous No.16602314]

>>16602160
Elements of style

[Anonymous No.16602320]

>>16601442

>1,150 pages
>160 followers
>60,000 views
>2 reviews
I guess it's not easy to say anything about it

[Anonymous No.16602331]

>>16600381
>it's depressing to see that a cornerstone of my childhood that I thought would one day be considered a classic
Dude, even as a kid, I thought the books were pretty damn shit. Funny shit, but just shit. Now I don't even find them funny anymore.

[Anonymous No.16602351]

>>16602320
The one review of burgerpunk is a James Joyce copypasta but with burgers. And I find immense solace in that.

[Anonymous No.16602440]

>>16602168
thanks, I’ve surprised the shit out of myself. I have a BA in English Lit, but for some reason I never felt motivated to write anything at all. and now I can’t stop. I’ve been walking like 6-9 miles a day (for the first time ever) and I am typing pretty much the whole time I walk.
even when I say to myself “today I just want to listen to music or a podcast”, I still end up getting sucked in by a random thought that I want to write down before I forget it, and that just gets me going again.

it really almost feels like my brain has been hacked, and the hacker is beaming the words directly into my head, like a sort of remote mind control.
I’ll look for one to post in the morning.

>>16602193
they vary in length. a handful are undeveloped blurbs for me to expand on, but most of them are pretty good length. some of them are revisions of older chapters or repetitive in their overlapping subjects. the whole thing needs to be edited down a bunch.
I’m still not even sure what I’m actually writing, it feels like 6 or 7 books at once, all jumbled together and emerging at random.
I’ll start writing about something and by the end of my walk I’ll think to myself “How did I go from writing about how ‘search engines are like Reverse Dictionaries’ all the way to why I dislike communism and why I’m not crazy?”
some of them are actually based on posts I’ve made over the years.

it is somewhat of a manifesto I suppose, but that has become a dirty word and my philosophy is 100% non-violent.
I even have a chapter titled “Violence: Good or Bad? A Retard’s Guide to Politics” in which I make fun of Extremists for being Partisan Hacks and for hurting their own causes.

[Anonymous No.16602787]

>>16601721
This gave me my latest conspiracy. Reddit was becoming too popular so they ruined the comment section and force their audience to fit a certain mold. Its 2020 wholesomification is like a Frankenstein monster.

[Anonymous No.16602938]

>>16602787
I just can't handle it when I try to be creative, but all the 20000 upvote wholesome 1000 responses are just regurgitated anime cliches. I guess thats amateur writing on the internet in general though. I could feel myself writing worse to fit into the algorithm and went cold turkey immediately

[Anonymous No.16603002]

>>16601648
Wattpad is always holding writing contests, although their contests are things like, write a story about a LGBT, female, trans, black, curly haired protagonist

[Anonymous No.16603069]

>>16602440
How do you type and walk at the same time? Aren't you worried about tripping over a rock and falling on your face

[Anonymous No.16603128]

How can I make my writing more funny? (Ideally, laugh out loud funny.)

[Anonymous No.16603286]

>>16594695
Learn Premiere Pro, record yourself reading it, and edit it together as multiple video essays that are pleasing to look at. Only way to do philosophy these days.

[Anonymous No.16603387]

>>16603286
How do you get videos that look bright and sharp instead of the yellowy gray look of home videos

[Anonymous No.16603448]

>>16603387
I would have thought that it's more about the lighting of the room than any kind of effect but should be easy enough to find advice for.

[Anonymous No.16603665]

>>16598088
You've clearly never donated blood before

[Anonymous No.16603716]

>>16603128
I really don’t know, I just write and it’s funny. When I try to write serious it just comes out funny. It’s almost like I’m telling myself the most retarded story ever and I giggle all the way through. I think it’s a frame of mind I can’t get out of because it’s not like I set up jokes or plan them out. Have you read all the majorly funny books? Catch 22, confederacy, candide?

I say all this always questioning whether anything I write is even actually funny. It’s horrible.

[Anonymous No.16603729]

>He thought about what was waiting for him back home, a cup of roobois tea and two shots of Jack Daniel’s with a sugar cube for the thirst, oats for hunger and the soul.

this is a terrible sentence right? How would you rewrite it?

[Anonymous No.16603859]

>>16603069
I walked into a low-hanging tree branch the other day. but luckily no one was around to laugh at me. I laughed at myself though.
I do a lot of looking up, mostly to make sure I’m not going to crash into anyone else. I’m on a paved path, so there isn’t much to trip over.

[Anonymous No.16603873]

>>16603729
It raises a lot of questions. Does he have one premade cup of tea waiting for him at home? Then it must've gone cold while he was away. Or does it mean there are only enough tea bags left for one cup? But even if there's only one bag, you'd normally get more than one cup out of that too. Or does he buy loose-leaf and there's actually well more tea than one cup's worth and we've been misled by a poor choice of words? What about the whiskey? Does he mix it in the tea, or is it like a dessert or something? Does he put the sugar in the tea or in the whiskey? Roobois is so sweet, most people probably wouldn't put sugar in it. But who would put sugar in whiskey either? Is he sixteen? And are oats some kind of soul food now? What does that mean? Is he low on MP? Wouldn't you normally have oats only for breakfast? But he's only just going home, so it must be evening. Unless he's working night shift, of course. But you wouldn't have whiskey in the morning, unless you've lost control of your life. Are the food items actually not related at all, and he just randomly listed everything that's in the closet? But why? This is strange.

[Anonymous No.16603887]

>>16603729
>He thought about what was waiting for him
That's a lot of words to introduce what the actual sentence is going to be about. There's also too many filler words.

Why is he thinking about his home? Is this giving backstory into his life? Is he struggling to get home?

Maybe try something like
>Home. A cup of roobois tea, two shots of Jack Daniels with a sugar cube. Oats for hunger and the soul.

[Anonymous No.16603896]

>>16603873
I was thinking he would make the tea, he's got a fucked up sleep schedule, driving home at 2am, the sugar would be for the whisky, the soul thing is because oats are a very christian and puritan food, idk.

[Anonymous No.16603930]

>>16598239
Option 3 with their own sinister motives

[Anonymous No.16604004]

>>16603930
3 is probably the most convenient option. It doesn't take a lot of effort then to explain how she comes in contact with the escapee. That's fairly common for this kind of stories, I guess. But then the problem is, why won't the psychic just kill her? This character should appear rather harmless.

I'm personally veering more towards option 2, after all. Because a normal character would help me distract the audience from the ending twist.

[Anonymous No.16604013]

>>16598239
4. A down-on-their-luck huckster who tries to start a fake religion using the girl's powers as a Ponzi scheme or something to that effect.
Ideally this character wouldn't be a girl but an older person of either sex.

[Anonymous No.16604110]

>>16603873
If someone said they'll have a cup of tea when they get home I wouldn't think they only have enough tea for one cup. Very literal interpretation. But you're right about the whiskey and sugar.

>>16603729
It's just a little long with too many words, to many details that don't add much.
>He thought of home. Of the rooibos tea, the whiskey and sugar, the oats. Oats were good for the soul.
Not perfect but cuts out the unnecessary.

[Anonymous No.16604132]

>>16604110
>If someone said they'll have a cup of tea when they get home I wouldn't think they only have enough tea for one cup.
Neither would I, but that's not how it was said.

[Anonymous No.16604188]

Might be better to ask on /his/ but I thought I’d try here. I’m reading the Master and Commander series. In book three, they keep referring to a convoy as containing “six million of moneys.” They don’t use any currency term or anything like that. Was that actually common parlance of the day? I ask here because I’m also writing a seafaring book and want to get at least some parlance right.

[Anonymous No.16604206]

>>16591442
/co/ here. They would apply to comics in the general story structure, plot, and pacing sense but wouldn’t help you much with individual pages or dialogue. First you need to decide if your comic will have narration or just dialogue. If the latter, you will absolutely be served better by looking at how to make movies or plays or tv shows.

[Anonymous No.16604213]

>>16604132
It wasn't said how you made out though. "A cup of tea waits at home" is pretty much what was said. Which doesn't imply anything about how much tea he has or can make.

[Anonymous No.16604229]

>>16604213
Also, I was just trying to be funny

[Anonymous No.16604430]

>>16603665
I did donate blood once in college, but never did it again. I felt fine but that was when I a /fit/izen and unironically doing GOMAD. I have heard of people passing out and shitting themselves during the donation process though

[Anonymous No.16604508]

>>16591286
>Suggested books on story telling
John Truby's is the best.

[Anonymous No.16604566]

>>16591985
I'm giving up Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra because of this. It's beautiful at first, but gets boring really fast!

[Anonymous No.16604832]

>>16591985
A skilled writer will often use the surroundings as an a way to expose the internal state of the pov character without telling the reader explicitly. So instead of saying "Alice was sad" you might describe the way the shadows of the bare sycamores fell on the concrete sidewalk, or how it was snowing even in spring and the flakes were piling up faster than the sun could melt them, or how the playground was completely empty save for a single child sitting by herself on the swings etc. Basically you can use it to render an emotion (usually something more complex than "sad' and often tied to some plot situation) in concrete terms. You can imagine how different each of those three descriptions would be from the pov of a man who's heading to the hospital for the birth of his newborn son.

[Anonymous No.16605021]

>>16604832
>A skilled writer

Funny way to spell "pretentious pseud"

[Anonymous No.16605394]

>>16605021
Maybe my examples were trash but the technique is a pretty common one in literature. Here's one from "The Enormous Radio" by John Cheever that I read recently:

"It was very early. All the lights in the neighborhood were extinguished, and from the boy’s window she could see the empty street."

[Anonymous No.16605546]

>stayed up until 4am writing last night
Well, time to do it again today. Hope you guys are being productive as well

[Anonymous No.16605606]

Anons, I wrote a poem.
>Doggies are great
>Doggies are fun
>Doggies are for everyone!

[Anonymous No.16605677]

>>16604188
>I ask here because I’m also writing a seafaring book and want to get at least some parlance right.
Sometimes it's better to be wrong in a way that people will understand than right in some obscure method that will confuse them.

[Anonymous No.16605689]

>>16603873
Have you ever been tested for autism?

[Anonymous No.16605697]

>>16603873
I...I don't feel like a normal reader would have any of these questions, anon

[Anonymous No.16606021]

>>16605606
it doesn't quite flow, syllabically

[Anonymous No.16606237]

>>16606021
I thought it worked when I said it out loud.

[Anonymous No.16606288]

People always say "write about what you know" but what if I don't know anything?

[Anonymous No.16606298]

>>16606288
Look, I don't know anything about an O'Neil Cylinder's space harbor getting overrun by space SS soldiers, so basically, just be yourself.

[Anonymous No.16606304]

>>16591286
I have to prepare a eulogy for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and present it for my public speaking class. Any writers here want to take a shot at it?

[Anonymous No.16606347]

>>16606304
The notorious RBG. A woman who graduated top of her class while taking care of her sick husband and having a child. A woman who used men's own egos and rules to find routes to equality for women when no one else wanted to do it. A woman who fought of cancer multiple times and continued to work into her dying days. A thoughtful and intelligent woman. It's such a shame that her entire career will be besmirched by the simple fact that she did not step down in 2014 during a time when another liberal justice could be properly appointed and that this one selfish choice will lead to preposterous and horrendous decisions over the next 40 years while we watch our republic collapse around us by a thousand cuts. Her single choice, the fact that so much power could be in the hands of a woman who knew she could die at any moment. What a fucking shame. Pour one out for RBG, cause in 60 years everyone is going to revile her name when they have to shoot their neighbors for food.

[Anonymous No.16606359]

>>16606347
excellent anon

[Anonymous No.16606385]

>>16606347
A thoughtful and intelligent woman who allowed millions of unborn babies to be murdered*

[Anonymous No.16606415]

>>16606385
You are a complete fucking idiot. But in a funny way.

[Anonymous No.16606417]

>>16606347
>>16606359
Imagine actually thinking that this horrific goblin of a woman - a woman who was responsible for the murdering of children, wanted to break apart the traditional family, and supported pedophilia - was a hero.
This world is in utter darkness.

[Anonymous No.16606424]

>>16606417
Imagine being this simple minded regarding the horrible intricacies of the US judicial system.

[Anonymous No.16606429]

>>16606347
Based jew. Got rid of more dindus than the KKK.

[Anonymous No.16606436]

>>16606415
You know that the facts are not on your side so you resort to profanity in a poor attempt to defend your evil, Satanic ideology. Leftism is a disease.

[Anonymous No.16606452]

>>16606347
This is surely pasta from reddit

[Anonymous No.16606462]

>>16606436
I agree she was a cunt, but in a completely different way furry Jesus poster. I’m not going to derail /wg/ anymore than to just tell you how fucking stupid and ignorant you are. I really want you know know that was sincere. I sincerely think you have a low IQ and resort to COPE.

[Anonymous No.16606479]

>>16606415
Perhaps, but I can at least take solace in the fact that a gang of demons are having a riot of a time torturing RBG in Hell right now

[Anonymous No.16606491]

>>16593016
Woah thats le epic xDXd
Updoot

[Anonymous No.16606524]

>>16595515
Almost 500 words a page?

[Anonymous No.16606537]

>>16596791
Is this a joke?

[Anonymous No.16606543]

>>16606462
That putrid, disgusting witch burns in hell, and so will you if you do not turn to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
https://youtu.be/2h5YBrcbEHY

[Anonymous No.16606551]

>>16600184
I'm not going to lie, those are some of the dullest premises I've ever read

[Anonymous No.16606559]

>>16606237
pretend you're a cheerleader
> Doggies are GREAT
> Doggies are FUN
> Doggies are _____ for evRYONE

[Anonymous No.16606573]

>>16598273
What if the simulation is forced onto political dissidents to demonstrate that their ideologies are romanticized and incorrect? Like a high tech 1984-style brainwashing program. Reason for the authoritarian government doing these experiments is to eventually subject the general public to these types of simulations but on a more "hey plebs look how cool VR is" campaign of indoctrination. The subjects are brought out of the simulations from time to time and probed/monitored. And you can have different protagonists spanning different romantic ideological views and consequently subjected to different simulations (or different 'parts' of the same simulation). These characters could perhaps interact with one another while 'awake' in the gulag together. Then they realize that their simulations are interconnected across the 'time-space' of the simulation and they end up succeeding in revolution by 'inheriting' the benefits of each-other's disparate ideological revolutions across simulated history. But in the end all the 'success' is within the simulation. This probably isnt at all what you have in mind, but its what I've got. Hopefully SOMEthing of this helps.

[Anonymous No.16606578]

>>16606304
You were a cunt
And tried to violate the constitution
Traitors should hang
Rest in piss kike

[Anonymous No.16606599]

>>16606578
Wunderbar

[Anonymous No.16606627]

>>16606573
I mean to reply this^ to you. Wrong reply.
>>16593022

[Anonymous No.16606638]

>>16606479
Yes, hello? I'm trying to reach the based department.

[Anonymous No.16606701]

>>16606524
>Almost 500 words a page?

My working draft is type size 11 with single spacing, so I suppose it would be longer once that's changed. It also has some denser paragraphs because the story involves necessary technical descriptions (the story is about an IPO-style roll out of a crypto currency by a fictitious tech company and a group which attempts to subvert this effort through collective action). I think it's a decent enough story, but I'm not sure what to do with it aside from including it as part of a larger collection, since it is probably too long for most short fiction publications.

[Anonymous No.16606789]

>>16603729
I’d probably just end the sentence at “Jack Daniel’s.”

[Anonymous No.16606806]

100 pages written. Finished the part where Blackula arrives in England.

Who needs NaNoWriMo?

[Anonymous No.16606840]

>>16606806
Oh no, not the heckin doggerino!

[Anonymous No.16606913]

>>16606806
>Black Naval Academy

[Anonymous No.16606921]

>>16606806
>And as the villagers searched the town, they realized all the bicycles were missing.

[Anonymous No.16606955]

Why arent you writing a visual novel or an animated video or a videogame?

Words by themselves are such a poor vehicle of conveying information, specially fiction meant for entertainment.

[Anonymous No.16606959]

>>16606955
can't draw, make a cgi, or code a game

[Anonymous No.16606982]

>>16606959
You weren't born knowing how to write. Those are all skills that have to be learned.

[Anonymous No.16606995]

>>16606955
I am actually. I learned to draw first and then I realized I liked that more than coding so I'm just doing a comic.

[Anonymous No.16607012]

>>16606982
can't be arsed

[Anonymous No.16607028]

>>16606955
I am thinking about writing an epic poem on the rise and fall of Gwyn from Dark Souls

[Anonymous No.16607030]

What's the formula for writing television episodes?

[Anonymous No.16607053]

>>16606959
To be fair, visual novels don't take too much drawing. All you need is each character in a few poses, and a few different setting backdrops. The writing part of it is the bulk of the work. And I guess BGM could take a little work too, but nothing insurmountable with some music theory study

[Anonymous No.16607066]

>>16607053
> visual novels don't take too much drawing
as someone who draws, you are full of shit. Even a single picture, from sketch to passable jpg takes 10x as much as writing the accompanying text. One could finish 3 text novels in the time you could draw one short graphic novel

[Anonymous No.16607085]

>>16607066
Art takes longer, yes; but low-medium budget VNs don't use a ton of art. They have events happen in just a few settings to cut down the amount of drawing required. Hell, I've played some that take place in a single room

[Anonymous No.16607099]

>>16607085
you can't make the comparison: a reasonably good novel takes the same amount of time as the world's shittiest laziest visual novel, so effort is equal. You have to compare equal end results. In both, good novels and shitty novels take far less effort than their visual counterparts

[Anonymous No.16607116]

How can I squeeze a plot out of a constructed fictional world I've been developing?

[Anonymous No.16607117]

>>16606955
my laptop died and I don’t have the money to replace it right now (or to buy a camera, mic, or editing software).
otherwise I probably would be making videos of my stuff

[Anonymous No.16607161]

>>16606955
Brainlet

[Anonymous No.16607203]

>>16607099
not them, and I agree with you overall. I am staunchly Pro-Book, but the problem is that most people are retards who don’t read because it hurts their tiny brains.
so instead, they need to get spoonfed words through their ears. or they can only read in short bursts like tweets or, at most, speech bubble next to pictures.

don’t get me wrong, I enjoy all of those things too, but there is a common attitude that I have noticed over the years, of “Intentional Ignorance as a Virtue” when it comes to books.

I used to work at a book store and there were many times where I was at the cash register, ringing someone up, and I said “oh that’s a pretty good book, you’ll enjoy it.” and they would chuckle and say “uhhh no haha, this is a present for my nerdy loser friend (or this is mandatory reading for my kids school), I don’t read books hahaha”, like they were proud of it.

that was just one of many things that drove me crazy while working there (literally. I ended up in a psych ward during Christmastime, because the neverending line that wrapped around the whole store, mixed with the same handful of Christmas songs on an endless loop, eventually broke me).

[Anonymous No.16607208]

>>16607116
Populate the world with countries and people. If your world is worth writing about, something will happen.

[Anonymous No.16607217]

>>16607203
Was it a Barnes and Nobles? Sounds like the kinda thing I imagine taking place there very often

[Anonymous No.16607273]

>>16607217
Coincidentally, I drove by my Barnes and Noble today. There were only 6 cars in the parking lot in front. The Starbucks inside was dark and empty. The chairs were stacked on the tables. Usually the cafe is so packed, you have to fight for a seat and mothers are always taking their kids to hang out on the sofas and browse books. It was sad

[Anonymous No.16607277]

>>16607203
How long ago was this? I work in a book store currently and every third customer or so is just ecstatic to see a physical book story. Granted, I don't read much contemporary stuff, but people buy plenty of books and ask for suggestions all the time.

[Anonymous No.16607292]

>>16607273
I won't be too surprised if they go bankrupt, or at least close many of their physical locations to just sell stuff on their website. I imagine that many people are questioning why they ever went to the store to begin with when they can just order any book they want online in about two seconds

[Anonymous No.16607296]

I know semicolons can be used as in place of commas to separate list elements already containing them, but what if some elements do and some don't? Would city, state; city, state; stateless city; stateless city; city, state be correct? I would think it's confusing to return to commas for the stateless elements; putting a comma between the two risks making them look like another city, state pair to those who don't recognize their names.

[Anonymous No.16607310]

>>16607292
:( I never went to either one, but B&N did host a monthly book club and a board game club. I was once in the shop while the board game was going on. It was the employee and one mom who brought her kids to be babysat

desu I just want to be able be around other humans and not be scared that I'll contract lung AIDS

[Anonymous No.16607313]

>>16607296
Just keep it consistent all the way through. You don't really need to think that deeply into it

[Anonymous No.16607322]

>>16607310
oh, and once I was in the shop while they were hosting a Harry Potter club. That day, the store was packed. I wonder why JK Rowling even bothers with trannies. She should've continued to write HP books

[Anonymous No.16607536]

What's the best natural disaster to use in a story? As in the one with the most dramatic storytelling potential.

[Anonymous No.16607604]

New thread
>>16607603
>>16607603
>>16607603

[Anonymous No.16607675]

>>16593016
Got me good, but I'm retarded