/wg/-Writing General

[Anonymous No.17930765]

Any progress on your novels?

previous thread:>>17920446

For Prose:
>The Art of Fiction
>Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere)
>On Becoming A Novelist
>Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft
>How Fiction Works
>The Rhetoric of Fiction
>Steering the Craft
>On Writing, Borges

For Poetry:
>The Poetry Home Repair Manual
>Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry
>This Craft of Verse, Borges


Related Material:
>What Editors Do
>A Student's Introduction to English Grammar
>Garner's Modern English Usage

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

Suggested books on getting your fucking work done you lazy piece of shit:
>Deep Work
>Atomic Habits

Traditional publishing
> Formatting manuscript
https://blog.reedsy.com/manuscript-format/
> Write a query
https://www.janefriedman.com/query-letters/
> Track your query
https://querytracker.net/

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/
> Basic overview of the Screenplay format
https://screenwriting.info/

[Anonymous No.17930914]

-Fear and Trembling, The antichrist and.... what's this...?
-the title is in French
-yeah, 50 for each
-alright, here
-alright
-okay, thank you
-okay

On this yet another industrial morning in the high rise section of neo Tokyo, underneath an iceterine yellow sky, walking along the foglights placed along the asphalt highway, cars and people merged into matter behind his thick lens glasses and horns sounding from every other direction, lights flickering within matter, Kazuki is walking carefully, one foot infront of another, consciously, as to not come into contact with any matter and end up another number on NHK tonight.

-hey
-hey
-hows it going?
-oh nothing really
-whats that you got in the bag?
-stuff
-coming to school today?
-sure
-come with me for a sec
-hey, you can see better here
-do you wanna fuck?
-huh?
-look I'm serious, I wanna have sex and everyone else has got STDs or something and you're the only cute virgin I can trust, we've known each other so long and I do sometimes touch myself thinking of you Kazuki
-um.. I don't know.. really
-oh, I apologize
-hey wait Minako!

Is this a good start anons?

[Anonymous No.17930942]

>>17930914
I heard once that when writing dialogue, write it all out and then delete every other line. While I don't adhere directly to that, I do see how it would apply to something like what you wrote. There's a fine line between what is realistic dialogue and what is realistic to a reader. The back and forth of "hey"s and "okay"s and short, terse replies are too repetitive and constant to make for a pleasurable reading experience. If this is a script, it might be different, but if I'm reading this I'd want it to be smoother. As in
>hey, how's it goin?
>More of the same. Y'know?
>Nice. What cha' got in that bag?
>Oh, some stuff. Are you coming to school today?
>yeah, sure, but come with me for a sec.

Basically combining the call and response of a conversation into the same lines so that it flows. Everyone wants to talk and they are only answering the other person because they know when they are done it'll be their turn.

[Anonymous No.17931138]

>>17922121
>>17930849

First for the spirit of /crit/ lives on.

One of my next considerations is not very important, really, but speaks to a potential issue when you start to pick up the 20k other words of material. The second paragraph picks up
>He wanted to feel the heat in his cheeks, the upward motion of his stomach's butterflies...
This is in line with the closing thought of the first paragraph.
>Johnny just wanted to get drunk.
I don't think this is the appropriate place to position the paragraph break. I would position 'Johnny wanted to get drunk' as the start of the next paragraph. This begins the thought of Johnny's desire or motivation to visit the bar and removes the disjointed feeling of the standalone opening 'He wanted to feel the heat...'. Further I would edit the next paragraph to begin at 'This was why he liked sports bars close to home' in order to give this train of thought ownership of the following idea 'The lists of social obligations of going to a place like this were countless.' This is just as true of the final line of the second paragraph which begets the third's, opened, 'He wanted to know he could black out walk home and that no one there knew him. ... The lists of social...'
Essentially you want each paragraph to feel like the beginning of a new idea which logically completes itself and then moves into another. Even if you wanted to emulate a drunken and wandering mind at a later point in the story I would advise against it, in order to avoid pathetic fallacy.

Next I'd like to point out the diction and syntax of some of the writing you've done so far.
>The lists of social obligations of going to a place like this were countless.
Here you have the repeated 'of' and a consistent sibilant drone present in lists, social, obligations, place, this, and countless. Paired with the strange diction of 'social obligations' and the 'fluffish' non-literal meaning of the sentence it creates an odd effect. It is followed up by the grammatically incorrect sentence:
>The personal intricacies of every person there was as bad as going to a family reunion.
Here 'was' should be 'were' as 'intricacies' is plural and 'was' is singular past tense.

I was going to rewrite a sentence or two as an example but for that I might need to tweak some structural things to order the opening thoughts more coherently, so I'll do that as a separate post and that will be the last one, unless you ask for something specific.

3/4

Btw, anon, you're doing fine. Keep up the good work and thanks for the threadly contribution.

[Anonymous No.17931292]

>>17931138

I'm mainly rewriting this for coherence both between paragraphs and in sentence to sentence/word to word level. This is not a narrative rewrite or a character edit. I'll try to adhere to the general spirit of your excerpt.

He wanted to be in the sports bar four blocks from his apartment. Instead he was clinking six dollar beers that should have been four in front of a live band. Some new wave of post punk that should have been the free-select jukebox at Hut Hut Harry's. He never had a say where his friends were involved. They went places for 'moods': places that had dark cherry tables with hot blue lights. They wanted to feel like they were a part of 'something'.

Johnny wanted to feel drunk. He wanted heat in his cheeks, butterflies in his stomach, and the weight of his limbs and inhibitions off his shoulders.

At the sports bar he could black out, walk home, and then return the next day without being recognized once. In a place like this he needed an excel sheet to know the acquaintances from the friends' extended family or co-workers' gym partners. He didn't know the cute tomboy ordering a round, but he knew her boyfriend's brother who played bass in Phil's industrial nu-metal revival band. This run down bar filtered what felt like a million people through its slouching door every other hour and someone in that tide of faces would tap his shoulder and ask, "Do I know you?"

That's it for this one anon. But before I finished up I thought I should mention that I find it strange that Johnny seems to be in charge of hosting a party at this run down bar and, further, of supervising the party, actively engaging with a large group of people in order to negotiate conflicts or pre-empt them. Shouldn't his friend's (or the bar owner who they probably know) be doing that for him since he's on their turf and not the other way around? It feels this way, most likely, because of the line "Now he HAD to keep an eye..." and then the continual list of issues in the group dynamic, such as smoking and non.
This also sets up the narrative element or promise that Johnny is going to have difficulty managing the crowd and that he will either fail tragically or succeed, overcoming challenges in his way (in a way that forces his character to grow) before the night is out.

Good work anon. If you have any questions left just ask.

[Anonymous No.17931405]

>>17930849
>>17930649
>>17931138
>>17931292
Anon, I am deeply indebted to you for taking the time to write such a thorough and detailed criticism of my writing. I'll try to respond to your points, but I feel like I may not be able to articulate myself in the way that I want regarding all your points. Some seemed to hit nails on heads while others were more obvious pointing out things I would have done if I hadn't have rushed myself.

In your first post you point out the show don't tell elements I'm lacking. You are spot on with this depiction. The other 15k words are, for the most part, dialogue. I initially was trying to keep all information from the outside world only in dialogue, just as you would a story a person at a bar tells you. This paragraph was written after I had read infinite jest, and I suppose I was trying a more lofty and meandering contextualization, just to try that method out. I'm not sure if I was successful in the "snapping back into reality" bit that was so fun with IJ, but I tried.

Your second point of narrative intent is interesting. When I write I don't normally think that drilled down an idea of setting up the expectation of a character based on what they say, generally it's as if I'm channeling the flow of what a prospective conversation is like. BUT. Upon editing, I greatly admire that idea and I think I will try my best to emulate the "Joycean epiphany" you mention, as a way to make these small scenes total into something interesting over a one night period.

I did realize upon rereading that my tenses didn't match. I really should have given it a once over before posting. Now shame washes over me. I should put in just as much effort into my sample work as other anons have shown me. Sorry brah.

Your point of quickly introducing cast members is spot on. In a similar bit in the bulk of the work I have a character get ID'd by the door girl and have all these anxious inner thoughts before he meets up with his group of friends and acquaintances that slowly trickle in. Other scenes just start off with a group of characters already together. For some reason I really want to explain that anxiety of being alone in a place where it's expected that you are in a group. Like a child lost at a grocery store.

As far as paragraph breaks, you are right again. I wrote this in a note app before transferring it to my desktop, and as such I did the breaks after writing. Normally I'm better at finding that sweet spot of the next idea when I'm writing with a real keyboard. But I suppose this goes into an editing tip for me too. Maybe I really should be second guessing the flow of things I've already written.

Yes, that chunk about social obligations was a dumpster fire of grammatical issues. That seems to happen some times to me. Some little comparative concept just doesn't seem to want to work the way I want it so I end up deleting it or keeping it. But I think my problem is more so identifying those clusterfucks.

Ran out of chara

[Anonymous No.17931424]

>>17931405
>>17931292
I like some of the parts of your rewrite and it was a good showing of the concepts you were trying to impart. Thanks!

As far as johnny seeming to have more responsibility than he should that's just something people of a particular type do. Some people go to bars with friends and don't give a rats ass about anyone else there, others take a more managerial roll so that the terrible things that have happened at bars before doesn't happen this time around. It's something I and a few of my friends (read: not all because those autistic faggots need looking after) ended up doing. Sometimes we would even kinda rotate if one got too drunk. You keep care of your own and do your best to make sure everyone has a good time.

[Anonymous No.17931433]

>>17931424
Holy shit how did I grammatically fuck up that many times in a post that short? I think my brain just stopped working this week.

[Anonymous No.17931601]

I tried doing first person fantasy. How is it?
https://pastebin.com/fbSq8umZ

[Anonymous No.17931645]

What's /lit/'s opinion on framing devices? Based or cringe?

[Anonymous No.17931857]

>>17931433
>>17931424
>>17931405
>>17931292
Also I hate to be the blogging type, but I just want to say thanks again anon. After re-reading your posts I opened the old 15k word doc, read through some of it, tried to tally up the number of characters, looked through my note app notes from over the past few months, and then started a brand new fresh physical note book and started trying to plot everything out. My total number of characters with active speaking roles was probably around 12, with maybe 5 NPC types as you described before, background noise. Things I'm trying to plot out:
>What the major events in a night are at the top of the hour from open to close
>What are the different social groups that I have written or need to write
>What are the relationships between these social groups (i.e. one of the students knows the band which is why they went there, etc)
>What events happen to patrons that week to go out that Friday (finals, hires, birthdays, etc)
>how to gut and rework 15k words
The issue with that last one is that most of what I have is dialogue. It's rants, rambles, pleasantries, discussions, stories, etc. Most of which has no particular place in time or space that's important enough to keep. Some of it is relevant to the character who speaks it, but it all seems malleable enough to move around. I think once I figure out all the personas that would be interesting to see interact I can plot them out through time and from there attach the linear progression of particular characters.

[Anonymous No.17931880]

I'm looking for a suggestion I thought I saw on /lit/ a good few months back. It was a book or video about how to write fight scenes/better fight scenes.
Does anyone have an idea?

[Anonymous No.17931983]

Anons who have finished short stories or chapters of stories, I'm doing a reading of classic public domain literature, as well as submissions from writers.

The video I'm making will be 4+ hours and meant to be background noise for the most part.

>work has to be considered finished
>you're okay with someone on youtube reading your work
>can be poetry, a short story, or a (1st) chapter from your book

If interested message me at [e-mail]

Obviously don't send me stuff you want to see published one day.

[Anonymous No.17932302]

Critique, please?

[Anonymous No.17932344]

>>17931857
something's off with the last sentence in the third-to-last paragraph, about the vocalist. i can't quite put my finger on it but it screams unpolished.

[Anonymous No.17932396]

>>17932344
Yeah, there’s a bunch of awkward unfinished stuff in the 15k I have. Needs to be dismantled and put back together, for sure.

[Anonymous No.17932445]

>>17932396
as first drafts should be. the premise is interesting. the other guy's crit and rewrite was useful for sure but your original draft had >soul for lack of a better word. good luck, anon

[Anonymous No.17932452]

>>17932302
kys

[Anonymous No.17932560]

>>17931641
this is just 'show don't tell'. interesting examples though.

[Anonymous No.17932561]

A few threads ago someone posted a funny meme about deviantart storyline progressions, where the first chapter was super light-hearted and then it devolved into some kind of overblown story of betrayal and vengeance. I can't find it anywhere and I want to see it again.

[Anonymous No.17932581]

>>17930765
behead vtubers and their simpathizers

[Anonymous No.17932593]

Just finished the first draft of my novel today lads
Bit of a unique experience for me cause I was working with the guy who came up with the setting, so I guess it counts as fanfiction, but I'm still pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Also the first time I serialized something online; decent outcome, I guess. I wrote something like 210k words in 6 months or so, which is a decent amount of productivity, and I had to be very careful to make sure that everything was decently polished out the gate. I did a lot more outlining than I normally do and I think that's going to be a habit I carry forward, but it did get a little tiring at points.

All in all a decent experience. Too bad nobody is really ever going to read it but I do think it's probably the best thing I've written so far.

[Anonymous No.17932594]

>>17932452
What? What's wrong with it?

Fucking retarded pseuds ITT can't give actual critique. Just a bunch of fuckin incel insults.

[Anonymous No.17932606]

Why do I chose shitposting here over working on my transcendent masterpiece?

[Anonymous No.17932651]

>>17932561

[Anonymous No.17932682]

Bar Story Anon: the purpose of critique it to get an impression of how your story comes across to a fresh reader. It looks like "your writing isn't very forceful" or "there's so many characters I can't keep track". Line-editing is when an experienced grammarian restructures your work on a sentence-by-sentence level to enhance your work in line with your personal vision and goals.

This anon is line-editing your work. I do not think he has your personal vision in mind, because he doesn't seem to be making an effort to really meet you halfway on your goals.

His perceptions about your work are perfectly valid, but any "direct guidance" on how to improve a story should be offered with a caveat and taken with a massive grain of salt, unless it comes from a professional editor.

[Anonymous No.17932694]

>>17932651
That was quick. I wasted so much time googling different phrases. Thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.17932715]

>>17932651
Got anymore like this? Apparently it's only ever been posted once on the internet before, in a /v/ thread.

[Anonymous No.17932720]

another thread ruined.

[Anonymous No.17932749]

>>17932445
Thanks anon. Good luck to you too.
>>17932682
I know that much of his advice was tailored to something not quite aligned with what I have in mind, but there were some good bits in there, and I think I needed someone to engage with it seriously to get back into the project. It’s partly my fault because I didn’t edit before posting. People have a hard time engaging with the material aspects of an idea when there are procedural errors. Any insight to the ideas of the project now that you’ve read all the back and forth about it?
>>17932694
This is it. If I post one more meme for an anon, it’ll be the most useful to /wg/ I’ve ever been.

[Anonymous No.17932760]

>>17932720
How exactly do you envision the perfect /wg/?

[Anonymous No.17932771]

I want to write a story that features a highschool setting. But obviously any experience I have of it is pretty much worthless now. Should I set it in the past, a present where COVID-19 doesn't exist, or some undefined future that's effectively identical to the past? I could try to set it in, say, Florida, but even that has some funny business.

[Anonymous No.17932781]

>>17932749
>Any insight to the ideas of the project now that you’ve read all the back and forth about it?
Another anon mentioned the other version had more soul, and I was actually going to mention that it seemed like "something" was being drained out of the story as you posted revisions, but I didn't want to be snarky about the other anon who so nicely dedicated so much effort to helping. That's pretty much it, maybe let your mind run wild on a topic or two, just go freeform with no focus on grammar.

[Anonymous No.17932790]

>>17932771
>could try to set it in, say, Florida, but even that has some funny business.
Funny, I wrote a 120,000 word manuscript about a school in Florida which absolutely refuses to shut down, even as the air conditioner fails in the middle of a freak heatwave. The covid shutdown thing kinda undermined my premise, even though my novel was set in 2005.

[Anonymous No.17932808]

>>17932781
>just go freeform with no focus on grammar.
Funny enough, quite a bit of the content I have written is just my tldr posts from here on topics I casually ranted about because I wrote it in a conversational way, the same as I would do talking to someone at a bar about it. It does get a little dosto rambly in places, but I’ll fix that on the second run through. It’s really quite fascinating how I can pump out so many words on 4chan but struggle when the page is blank. Thanks for the feedback Anon!

[Anonymous No.17932846]

>>17932760
What's the point in telling? It'll never be are reality with people camping the thread. Do people think they own this thread or something? Wonder if they paid for it.

[FranxxRewrote No.17932848]

>>17932808
>It’s really quite fascinating how I can pump out so many words on 4chan but struggle when the page is blank.
The problem is that the page is blank. There is tons of material on 4chan you interact with. A mess of words you can play and test with.
The blank page is a world of nothing. A world of nothing can only provide nothing. Your job as a creator is creating a world with actual life residing on the plain. The life must be dragged from other living worlds. This board is among them.

[Anonymous No.17932876]

>>17932720
>>17932846
How was it ruined? What element or collection of elements has ruined it for you? We have 18 posters on a friday night, c'mon man.
>>17932771
Set it during the time period you went to highschool. At this point the time that passes us and once seemed like shame now turns all our experiences into time pieces. I went to highschool when flip and slide phones were a thing. I just watched some of better call saul and that's literally their time placement gimmick is that type of phone.

[Anonymous No.17932889]

>>17931601
Some quick opinions. I liked most of it. It reads a little amateurish, though it gets the imagery across just fine. I think you wanted to keep it present tense, but you've thrown in some past tense words.

I'd want to read more of it.

[Anonymous No.17932891]

Most writing advice is garbage. Where can I get some actually good theory about how stories are constructed? I've read John Gardner already

[Anonymous No.17932908]

>>17932876
>How was it ruined?
I think it's the anime in the image OP. But I think we've been openly hostile to animefags so much they'll be reluctant to come in here shilling their stories.

[Anonymous No.17932926]

Any writers working on stories should come hang out in our discord. No libtards!

https://discord.gg/qP2a38vh

[Anonymous No.17932929]

>>17932891
Books like save the cat, the weekend novelist, and romance the beat are all pretty detailed and explicit in their explanations on how to craft a story, but I think they do it so much it loses it's magic and explicitly becomes pulp YA type stuff. The video equivalent would probably be the Brandon Sanderson lectures on youtube.

Aristotle's poetics is pretty short and every book since then is just a footnote to it as far as literary critique and analysis. If you haven't read it already I highly suggest you do, even if just for the historical context of it all. The great runner up to that would be Hero with a thousand faces. I think those would be the two you would really want to read regarding "theory" as opposed to the previous "application".

I haven't really read any of the books in the OP under "for prose" but I'd assume they would be a mixed bag on all that stuff.

[Anonymous No.17932938]

>>17932926
This looks like a honeypot.

[Anonymous No.17932961]

>>17932938
No, honey pots look like this.

[Anonymous No.17932989]

>>17932908
They're annoying, the same guy that probably makes the /sffg/, the /ffa/, and the /QTDDTOT/ general, makes this one. Couple of the filenames in OP are the same, and all their images are off-topic.

[Anonymous No.17933014]

https://pastebin.com/r36WEKha

I've been working on a heroic fantasy. It's an adventure between a boy, his dad and sister. Their mission is to vanquish evil.

>>17920413
Thanks, anon. I only wanted to touch on the conflict of leaving home to let the reader know they exist. I figured it deserved an entire chapter to sort itself out before they start their adventure.

[Anonymous No.17933035]

>>17932889
Thanks anon. I’ve been writing in 3rd for a long time and told constantly I suck. It’s refreshing to see a change in the wind. I’ll post more if I can, though I hope not to rush, baby steps and all that.

[Anonymous No.17933044]

>>17932908
that's a picture of vtubers, they are unrelated to anime

[FranxxRewrote No.17933080]

>>17933014
You should look into how evil is defeated in the real world. Evil strives around manipulations and fakeness. Evil is threatened by power, truth, courage, and silver (the embodiment of true value).
Evil will abuse systems so much that they become completely fictional, such as our real-world economy. They have to bring in a world of fakeness because they lack strength in the light of truth.

[Anonymous No.17933091]

>>17930765
>Any progress on your novels?
Yes, I'm done now. I was never cut out for this but I hid behind the language barrier to avoid criticism for months, maintaining an illusion that was fun to live in while it lasted.
This will be my final post on /lit/. I've been humiliated and exposed as a fraud. My writing is pretentious, infantile, banal drivel. My observations are dull, my language grade school level. My tenses are mixed up, I use colloquialisms, ellipses and onomatopoeia.
I was never cut out for writing. I began writing my "book" on January 6th. Since then I've produced 62 thousand words for it. These words are a tide of garbage without value, without insight, without form. The themes of time, space, infinity, memory and pointless duelling are not present in my work. It was never real writing, it was anime and weebshit.
I have failed. Goodbye.

[Anonymous No.17933192]

>want to write historical lit about the medieval period
>want my OCs to actually do shit of substance that influences world events, instead of being in the shadow of real political figures
>don't want to write fucking fantasy and dragons and shit, but alt history seems like a dead genre
What do?

[Anonymous No.17933249]

>>17933192
Think extremely locally. Become the butterfly.

[Anonymous No.17933329]

How much can I write a story about a location? I wanted to write something like a character exploring a location with minimal, if no interaction with other human beings. How should I describe the environment in a situation like that?

[Anonymous No.17933332]

>>17933329
Well, as a slice of life, I guess? Or an endless adventure like Blame!.

[Anonymous No.17933334]

>>17933192
Ever heard of It's Hard to be a God?

[FranxxRewrote No.17933536]

>>17933329
The environment itself is a underrated and critical character in any story.
Your location, by having little to no people around, is either a lonely (perhaps a lost civilization) or one dominated by nature. Consider those features as your character begins to uncover more of the place and its character.

[Anonymous No.17933575]

>>17932989
They're less annoying than the guys who were spamming the board because they couldn't stand having an anime pic, and the guy who is the only anon who knows the difference between vtubers and anime ranting about nobody else being able to tell the difference. >>17933044 I'm looking at you.

To be honest, desu, the anons who essentially only care what the OPpic is aren't really going to be the strongest readers. They're probably only here because they can't use any social media with profile pictures without being endlessly triggered.

[Anonymous No.17933621]

>>17933575
stfu chud, just stop posting weeb shit.

[Anonymous No.17933656]

why did isekai genre become so popular? I know it's not a new thing but then japanese kindle is littered by thousands of light novels/manga of the same theme
wouldn't people get bored of it?

[FranxxRewrote No.17933678]

>>17933656
Kikes and other satanic fucks made the world so shitty that people can't help themselves from reading escapisms, especially the ones that completely ditch our earth.

[Anonymous No.17933706]

>>17933656
Given how overworked, and often stressed, asians are, it's escapism. And they often don't have weekends or holiday day offs to unwind.

[Anonymous No.17933823]

Woohoo! 20 followers! Followers beget followers and who knows, this time next year I could have as many as 50!

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/37998/wish-mountain

Chapter Ten is out. Things are kicking off.

[Anonymous No.17933829]

>>17933329
Lovecraft does this very well in The Mountains of Madness, and his short story The Outsider.

[Anonymous No.17933832]

>>17933823
Great work, bud.

I had named one of my characters Vress and I kept thinking about how familiar it sounded then I remembered Wish Mountain. I’ll have to rename her.

[Anonymous No.17933833]

im going to write a fantasy adventure story then publish it as a serial on royal road just like my hero and inspiration Charles whatever tf his name was

[Anonymous No.17933847]

>>17933823
Don't read your story but I gave you the follow. Hope you make it to the big time.

[Anonymous No.17933921]

>>17933833
bayst

[Anonymous No.17934030]

>spent a lot of time trying to think of a good satisfying ending that ties everything together
>prioritized it over working out the minutiae of getting there because everyone says start with a good ending
>finally got one I'm satisfied with
>now have trouble going back and fleshing out the lead up because all I can think of is "what's the point if I know how it's ending"

For example at one point there's supposed to be a feeling of open ended mystery, like anything could happen, or that the characters could go anywhere, but now that I know what exactly is going to happen and where the characters are going to go, I can't help but make everything point to that, even the red herrings feel biased towards it. Don't fall for the "start with a good ending meme".

[Anonymous No.17934041]

>>17934030
I wrote like 30k before I decided to figure out where it was going, but the story was always about personal conflict of two characters, so the ending was less relevant.

[Anonymous No.17934042]

Anyone else can't stop dancing?

[Anonymous No.17934419]

>>17931857
Hey anon, sorry for not posting a bit sooner, but I was at the end of my rope yesterday and fell asleep just after finishing your critique.
One way to tackle full-story revision is to use the first draft as an idea repository instead of a master copy which embodies some kind of intangible essence of your 'story' (not the real story but the idea behind it, what it is in your head that you are trying to project on the page). This is what I think other people mean when they say the first draft had more 'soul'. It has soul because it is the touchstone for all other observances regarding the 'story', so it has a primacy which will, in contrast, make all other draft feel empty, lacking, or robbed of some ethereal thing which makes it it. Revision is a ship of Theseus problem.

What to do with 15k words of 'floating' dialogue? Keep it all intact somewhere. Transfer, tweak, or replace what you need when you need it to the next draft. If you want to plot it out or tie it into a plot you work up you should remember that plot is conflict and conflict is character. Your character is your conflict and the conflict is a reflection from your character. You shouldn't imagine obstacles that are physical and then imagine how your characters would react to them being introduced into your environment, but understand what your character needs to accomplish to change and grow in the ways you have set forth for them and then imagine a conflict that will help them do that. If your character is a barbarian he will probably need to be stronger in which case he needs things to hit, if your character is a college student they probably need to study or find a work/life balance that allows them to overcome their failing grades, etc.

As for this advice >>17932682
I am not just line-editing your work. I am offering a general smattering of writing advice that you would find in any good collegiate-level workshop. What I AM doing is workshopping your writing. Line-editing is a part of the workshop, and it is not reserved for "experienced grammarians" or "professional editors". The only salient thing this anon typed was that you should take SOME of my advice with a "grain of salt". I am not perfect, nor am I you or your entire reading audience. Advice like "show don't tell," and, "break thoughts and scenes into coherent paragraphs," is not opinion, neither is grammar advice. My rewrite is a suggestion of how to incorporate the existing thoughts into paragraphs, it is not a mandate for getting your story idea published and I disclaimed it as such.
Critique is not an impression. Critique is providing concrete examples of things which you can improve and suggestions as to how those things can be achieved. Notice that
>your writing isn't very forceful
Is not actionable nor specific advice. Neither can I have "your personal vision in mind" because it is yours, not mine. I don't know what that vision is. I can only offer you advice on how to achieve that vision.

[Anonymous No.17935250]

>>17933334
I have but that's sci-fi, not what I'm going for. I literally just want to write something about an OC medieval king with no genreshit elements.

[Anonymous No.17935378]

>>17933823
Good work, anon.

[Anonymous No.17935611]

What should be the ratio of transgendered characters to cis ones in order to appeal to normies?

[Anonymous No.17935641]

>>17935611
rent free

[Anonymous No.17935644]

>>17935611
No idea, I imagine that different western countries have different standards. Also, using those characters at all will probably cost you readers anywhere east of Germany.

[Anonymous No.17935661]

>>17935611
None. Trannies will make fanfic up for you.

[Anonymous No.17935700]

>>17935611
One in one hundred.

[Anonymous No.17935957]

>>17935611
Two. That way you have a defence against alleged - and entirely true - tokenism. Make them fuck each other to force multiply their appeal.

[Anonymous No.17935980]

>>17931601
Anyone else wish to handle this?

[Anonymous No.17936054]

>>17931601
>>17935980
I am going to make a bold recommendation that you read American Psycho and then write that chapter again. Your narrator lacks in voice, and American Psycho is a great place to learn how to write with an inhuman voice.

[Anonymous No.17936254]

>>17936054
Thanks man. I’ll check it out for sure

[Anonymous No.17936463]

>>17934419
I was being polite earlier. I think you're a jackass and you should shut the hell up.
>Advice like "show don't tell," and, "break thoughts and scenes into coherent paragraphs," is not opinion, neither is grammar advice.
Yes, they are. They absolutely fucking are. There has been over a hundred years worth of debate on the concept of "show, don't tell" which has reached the conclusion that it's utterly meaningless, because no matter how specific the level of detail you're describing, you're still "telling" the audience about the details. That advice came from Chekhov, and it is a paraphrasing of his personal system for describing a natural setting, not an iron-fisted dictation from The King of Writing that all actions and details must be forced into a sausage mold of dialogue and visual imagery until your reader is forced to wade through a fucking swamp of contrivances designed to serve the false God of immersion. Joseph Heller, Ray Bradbury, Michael Crichton and Ernest Hemingway are examples of three authors who I've read in the last week alone, who seem perfectly content not to follow this advice. Even established guidelines of grammar have been handily discarded by such authors as Cormac McCarthy and Kurt Vonnegut. And even if that weren't true, your demonstrated inability to stick to one coherent system of grammar in your posts should probably tip off anyone reading your advice that you're full of shit.

Collegiate-level anything is a fucking joke, and the advice you gave was nowhere near "collegiate-level" unless you got your degree in "Common Writing Mistakes" from the university of "First Page Google Results."

It is not very difficult to get a grasp on the bar story anon's personal vision. He made it perfectly clear in his first post. He wants to write a overview of a series of social interactions which occur overnight at a bar. He's not trying to send the reader off an adventure through the Land of Fantasy full of niggling details framed through contrived dialogue so that he can forget about his shitty life for a few hours.

As other anons have mentioned, you were draining the soul out of this anon's work.

[Anonymous No.17936489]

>>17936463
Based
Now call him a toad

[Anonymous No.17936593]

>>17936489
based toad anon

>>17936463
based stream of consciousness writing defender

[Anonymous No.17937127]

>>17936463
In addition, rewriting someone's work is almost never helpful as feedback and is usually just an ego trip.

[Anonymous No.17937137]

>>17934419
>>17936463
not him but what about this one
>>your writing isn't very forceful
>Is not actionable nor specific advice.

[Anonymous No.17937561]

>>17931601
Grammar leaves a lot to be desired. Biggest problem ot my tastes, though, is that your ideas and images don't flow into each other properly. Like, I know that the Princess you talk about in the second sentence is the "her" mentioned in the first one, but as I'm reading the second sentence it takes a second of thinking back to the first sentence to draw the connection between them. That's rarely if ever an effect you want to be having, and it could be avoided by simply making "the princess", and not "her", be the first mention you make of her:
>I desired the Princess, looked at her often. She was [...]

[Anonymous No.17937570]

>>17937137
It was a weak critique, sure, but it had the type of soul that only comes from thinking across the keyboard with your fingertips.

Anyway, it's Saturday afternoon. Spring is in the air. Let's move this thread in a comfier direction. Does anyone here actually have a writing nook? Do you feel as though having a dedicated space for writing might increase productivity? Or is just one of those twee little "#writerslife" concepts like dedicated word processors that people fuss over as a distraction from actually doing work?

[Anonymous No.17937592]

How the hell do you write a large permanent cast of characters while making everyone interesting, unique, relevant to the plot, believable, having individual relationships etc, it sounds so daunting

Should it even be attempted if you have social "autism" or is it futile

[Anonymous No.17937979]

I've finished my draft. Now all that's left to do is convince myself that editing won't take just as long as drafting did.

[Anonymous No.17938047]

>>17937570
I live with family and it's really nice to have a place I can go to avoid other people distracting me. It's really fucking minimalist though, basically just a desk and a chair.

[Anonymous No.17938271]

Is writing character bio's helpful?

[FranxxRewrote No.17938290]

>>17937592
You simply group them and give those groups a goal, a leader, and a purpose in the story line. Without any organization, there is no structure for them to fit into the storyline.

[Anonymous No.17938294]

>>17938271
Helpful to whom?

[Anonymous No.17938313]

>>17938294
To the writer.
As in, is it helpful to write out a characters personality, goals, etc. to better understand how they will fit into your story, or do you just make it all up as you go along?

[Anonymous No.17938317]

>>17938313
>To the writer.
Which one?

[Anonymous No.17938616]

>>17937592
>a large permanent cast of characters while making everyone interesting, unique, relevant to the plot, believable, having individual relationships etc

I have autism and I always attempt to do this, I don't know to what extent I succeed at it, but it's always my intention.

I think it is only manageable when observing real, existing people very closely, and immersing yourself deeply in them. You can look at people and try to grasp their depth, remove the surface, leave only the essence of their being and then use it in accordance with your narrative. For me it's never been possible to invent realistic characters without taking inspiration from living people because nothing is as sophisticated and unique as reality. I take real people and then I transfigure them and put them into my story, which is like a form of alchemy.

I think the most important thing to remember in order to create compelling characters is to never take inspiration from tropes and archetypes used within popular media, you should take inspiration from life.

[Anonymous No.17938628]

>>17938616
What's wrong with taking some inspiration from archetypes as long as you also keep life inspiration in mind? And how are you even supposed to understand life when you're an autist, and during COVID at that?

[Anonymous No.17938726]

>>17938628
Not the anon you’re replying to, but I feel like I can imagine being a person I’ve interacted with and I’ve met a lot of people. So I just kinda put their shoes on in my mind, as if an actor getting into character, but the character is someone I know.

[Anonymous No.17938763]

>>17938313
the problem with creating a very in depth character bio is that characters can and will change over the course of the story. better to have a general idea of a character and let them naturally develop rather than trying to stick to your script you created when you really didn't know the character

[Anonymous No.17938782]

>>17938628
>What's wrong with taking some inspiration from archetypes as long as you also keep life inspiration in mind?

You can take some inspiration from "universal" archetypes, but I suggest not to use pop culture. Just don't go by what you think the rules are and what you think is expected of you, look at life the way it is. The only "new" thing you can bring to the table as a writer is your singular vision of reality, in my opinion. You cannot learn to see things the way they are if you don't unlearn to think in tropes.

I don't really have an answer to the second question, lol. Do you currently have a social circle? If not, have you ever had one in the past? If not, are there any historical or contemporary personalities and settings that inspire you? Maybe you could start from that?

[Anonymous No.17938796]

Anyone here write nonfiction?

[Anonymous No.17938841]

How do I do a timeline? I got to the point where I have made up several details in my mind, not to sound cocky, but I have a great memory, and I'm talking about 10 years or so of story. I have finally managed to make characters personalities well defined, through the scenes where they show through acts who they are, I have finally managed to decide how their relationships will be, in which order each event will happen, but now I need to start actually organizing these informations on paper, and there's just too much of it.

[Anonymous No.17938889]

>>17938841
I have a story that spans over ten years, with twenty-five or so characters. I have organised the timeline as such :

YEAR 1 (For example, 2013)
- Chronology for group of characters 1
- Chronology for group of characters 2
- Chronology for group of characters 3
- Etc.

YEAR 2 (For example, 2014)
- Chronology for group of characters 1
- Chronology for group of characters 2
- Chronology for group of characters 3
- Etc.

YEAR 3 .... ETC.

Like this, I can clearly see the timeline for each group of characters without getting subplots mixed up, but I also can see which events are happening at the same time from subplot to subplot. Maybe another method will be better for you, but for me it has been very useful.

[Anonymous No.17938902]

>>17938841
Try writing, my boy. It's much easier.

[Anonymous No.17938911]

>>17938889
The problem that I have is the sheer number of events. I want to do a visual, horizontal timeline. I'm thinking of using photoshop for it. Create one timeline, use several layers, one for each character and go from there. I need to visualize clearly where each even happens.

>>17938902
Not much time, I'm sick, so whenever I'm feeling well I usually have to deal with chores around the house.

[Anonymous No.17939005]

>>17938911
>whenever I'm feeling well I usually have to deal with chores around the house.
So you have time to fidget around with a timeline but not to actually write things? Or is it that you can work on the timeline in your head while engaged in mindless chores?

If it's the second, I have some bad news. You're not planning, you're engaged in maladaptive daydreaming. I'm going to guess that this particular story of yours has probably grown from a very straightforward tale into something loaded with character developments, plots twists, and subtle symbolism. I am going to guess that you have lifted entire plots/settings from other works of fiction, telling yourself that in your novel it would be an homage. I am going to guess that you have become so invested in this story that sometimes when you are imagining a scene, you become overwhelmed with emotion. I am going to guess that there was originally only one timeline, but after you grew bored of imagining the same scenes over and over again, you began expanding the story until it eventually encompassed every conceivable story/character/plot every committed to paper. One of your characters is a god, but he didn't know it at first. Probably the story was light and fun at first, but then became a dramatic story of revenge and the pathos of the human experience. You've never shared the details of this story with another human and you would be embarrassed to do so.

Chances are that if you ever get around to working on it, nothing you could ever type or paint or draw or sing would ever come close to capturing the image you have created in your head. Move on to something else. In time this story will fade from your head, and you will look back on it with the same sense of shameless nostalgia as your childhood toys.

[Anonymous No.17939021]

>>17939005
Not him, but how do I avoid that daydreaming? What if I want to see the story of SOME incarnation of those characters? Should I simply... get to writing?

[Anonymous No.17939091]

>>17939005
>So you have time to fidget around with a timeline but not to actually write things?
Creating a timeline is a way to concisely organize the vast informations I have in my head on a visual guide so that when I write a scene I know what happened, what needs to happen, and has yet to occur, it's a way to make writing organized, and it's a requirement for the way I want to write. Yes I didn't had time to write, but while I do chores I can keep my mind focused on creating more and refining what I have.

I can create very detailed scenes and dialogues in my mind, it's one of the few things I'm naturally good at, retaining a lot of information, as long as it's not visual.
>maladaptive daydreaming
And it sounds to me like you're an armchair psychologist projecting.
>I'm going to guess that this particular story of yours has probably grown from a very straightforward tale into something loaded with character developments, plots twists, and subtle symbolism
Nope, it was pretty complex since the beginning, none of the twists changed, none of the central plot points changed, so far I have just been adding details and filling gaps in the poor visual timeline I have in my brain. I have also been adding a lot of worldbuilding in the process.
>I am going to guess that you have lifted entire plots/settings from other works of fiction, telling yourself that in your novel it would be an homage
Wrong, there are very few elements that were lifted from other works, much less plots.
>I am going to guess that you have become so invested in this story that sometimes when you are imagining a scene, you become overwhelmed with emotion
Not really, which is unfortunate, an author SHOULD be able to feel emotional about his work. You could actually harm a writer by saying this kind of shit.

[Anonymous No.17939131]

>>17939021
I think it's unavoidable. We can't limit ourselves to thinking about our stories only when we've sat down at the computer to type, nor can we be 100% mindful when engaged in some repetitive chore. For me, at least, that's actually the perfect time for thinking, because it gets your blood pumping without requiring any focus or hard thought. The brain hits peak ability at minimum capacity.

I guess the main problem, for a writer who wants to develop their ideas into an actual story, is that this type of daydreaming takes the story beyond our abilities and simultaneously it grows with us, maturing as we mature, incorporating bits of life experience we pick it up, etc. until it actually becomes a part of us. Nothing short of absolute perfection would be acceptable to express this story. I know from experience, I have a two-season cartoon (with two Christmas specials) which I had been "developing" in my mind for over 15 years, before I decided it was just a fun game for myself to imagine in my head.

I guess the trick is to keep it from expanding. Focus on refinement. Make it tighter. Instead of throwing in more timelines (like the other anon) to accommodate your growing vision, instead ask how those other timelines can be collapsed into the first. So-and-so's dad was meek and unambitious, and so-and-so hated the life they lived, and now he's the opposite of his father but that brings it's own problems. Well, turns out dad had a father of his own, who was very bold and ambitious, thusly blah blah blah. But maybe instead of showing all that, there might be some way to express these issues concurrently.

[Anonymous No.17939136]

>>17939005
>I am going to guess that there was originally only one timeline, but after you grew bored of imagining the same scenes over and over again, you began expanding the story until it eventually encompassed every conceivable story/character/plot every committed to paper
The timeline is just one, I'm merely adding the details I can. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here.
>One of your characters is a god, but he didn't know it at first
Nope.
>Probably the story was light and fun at first, but then became a dramatic story of revenge and the pathos of the human experience
Nope, the first scenes I came up to high detail were the main 3 characters brutal death. Also nope again, there aren't humans.
>You've never shared the details of this story with another human and you would be embarrassed to do so.
I have, and I haven't received any negative review of it yet. Unfortunately.
>Chances are that if you ever get around to working on it, nothing you could ever type or paint or draw or sing would ever come close to capturing the image you have created in your head. Move on to something else. In time this story will fade from your head, and you will look back on it with the same sense of shameless nostalgia as your childhood toys
Again sounds to me like you are projecting.
>>17939021
Don't listen to this idiot, it's by daydreaming and coming up with different alternatives to each scenario BEFORE you commit to one that you can refine your story and consider how the elements interact in a deeper fashion. Plus imagination is like a muscle, the more you exercise it the more it'll improve. That being said you shouldn't do it aimlessly. When you have some time, think logically about something you need to work on in your story and then in a controlled release, let your imagination run wild.

[Anonymous No.17939146]

>>17939136
>When you have some time, think logically about something you need to work on in your story and then in a controlled release, let your imagination run wild.
Hmm. Could you give an example, if you don't mind? I think I already know what you mean, I need to give myself some ground to run on so I'm not floating around in space aimlessly, but I want to make sure I have this right.

[Anonymous No.17939155]

How do I stop myself from getting easily pressured by any pseud who talks like he knows what he's doing?

[FranxxRewrote No.17939178]

>>17938782
Aren't serotypes scientifically accurate for the most part? The vultures in the dark crystal are based on Jews and people really enjoy those league of villains. Ripping away the stereotypes actually makes the world feel far less alive and diverse. It's how we get these stupid bread trash stories where it's a crime to hate niggers and spics or space niggers and spics. Somehow, the humans are wrong about giant demonic-looking beast being giant demonic-looking beast because it's a stereotype. Therefore, the humans must be evil as shit.

[Anonymous No.17939183]

>>17939146
When you're daydreaming about your story, make sure you're daydreaming about something you need to know in order to continue writing it. For instance, if you need to flesh out a character that you're about to introduce in your next scene, spend some time imagining what their daily life might look like. Then once you feel you understand your character, sit down and write the scene.

[Anonymous No.17939227]

>>17937592
Not like pic related because I don't even care about the main ones in BnHA, let alone the side characters.

[Anonymous No.17939256]

>write characters based on real people
>make your story simple and straightforward
Why is this thread full of intentionally bad advice, literally no one cares about realistic characters or simple stories nowadays

[Anonymous No.17939263]

>>17939146
Let me give you an example. I spent most of my time developing the personality of only 2 of the 3 main characters. I knew their personality very well since the beginning, but personalities aren't just words, so if you know your character is kind, it's not enough that he'd do generic things like hold the door open for someone, you need to come up with scenes which display that characteristic well and in an interesting manner. This is the current problem I'm facing, for me kind characters are just boring, they just look weak, and if I'm having that reaction to the scenes I managed to cook up so far, then clearly it needs a lot more work.

What kinds of struggles and threats demonstrate and display the best and the worst of someone who is kind? Then of course you have to consider the rest of the character's personality, since a trait isn't isolated, usually. With my character, considering what I know about him, the situations where the trait is displayed at it's best is when other characters are easily able to trust on him to tell their troubles. The scenes where this trait is displayed at it's worst is when being too kind is an obstacle to being kind, so dealing with ultimately ill intentioned characters (rather than just troubled ones) will create scenes that will put the most strain on it.

At this point I consider which one of the two categories I want to plan on the day. In this case I will pick the first case because the second one requires considerations that I'm not inspired for. Which of the other characters that I know would have a good interaction with this one considering their troubles and personalities. At least a few of this type of interaction will be needed to show a motif to the main character. So it seems natural to have at least two positive interactions, one average and one negative. Since my other characters already have pretty defined personalities and problems, it isn't hard picking the right candidates for each case. Cont

[Anonymous No.17939271]

Now that I'm officially a published author ™ in a local magazine
I'd like to try writing something that is longer, not sure whether it'll be novel length but I'm hoping to reach close to if not actually three digit page counts
Since this is a much larger investment timewise I'd like an idea proofing
Would you folks read a short novel on the first few days (probably just the first day) after a revolution of a regime through the perspectives of the various people involved?
Not much will actually happen in the story I'm worried since it takes place after the rebellion and before its consequences materialize

[Anonymous No.17939275]

>>17939155
Become the pseud, anon. Here's a template:

1)State your opinion as fact.
>Spicy food is terrible.

2)Establish a logical trap that makes it seem like anyone who disagrees with you is only confirming your point.
>I can see why people like spicy food, because it seems like a shortcut to adding depth and intensity to the flavor profile of your cooking. But in the hands of an inexperienced cook, it becomes a security blanket which drowns out all other flavors.
Or...
>Is there anything more annoying than listening to some soiboy go on and on about how "manly" he is because he only likes the most intense ASS-BLASTER GHOST PEPPER HABANERO TONGUE-PUNCHER hot sauce and he puts it on everything? And then you gotta watch the snot dribbling out of his nose while he gasps for breath between every bite?
The first one is good because it makes you seem fair and charitable, and anyone who calls you out on your obvious bullshit will be forced to adopt your tone of good faith or they will seem like they're just lashing out in frustration. This will leave them open to snarkery, which will make them look foolish. The second example is good because it's incredibly unfair, and it will provoke those who disagree with you to actually lash out in frustration, making them seem foolish and immature.

3)Finish off with more of your opinions.
>So what does the amateur cook do to enhance his cooking? Good cooking is savory. You should add salt.
At this point you've established yourself as an authority because you successfully undercut the opposition before they said a word. If you are successful at one thing, people will naturally assume you know your own abilities and will gladly believe you are successful at other things. Their image of success will shift to within the scope of your abilities, and they will take your word at face value.

Whereas the intellectual studies the world and strives to communicate truth to advance our understanding of the world and our place in it, the pseud just studies the intellectuals and adopts their language while simultaneously using the tactics of the anti-intellectuals (who wish to make sport of truth) to adjust our understanding of the world and bring in it more in line with his beliefs and abilities. He seeks to warp values of society to adjust the definition of success, shifting the target to one which, coincidentally, he has already hit.

[Anonymous No.17939285]

>>17939178
You will never be a writer

[FranxxRewrote No.17939394]

>>17939285
Trannies are mentally ill. Faggots are pedos. Jews are evil.
That is more true to life than anything you write in your delusional fantasy.

[Anonymous No.17939443]

>>17939146
Cont.

This is also a great opportunity to think how the OTHER characters would display their personalities through these interactions and it further allows me to think about the general relationships between them. In many stories, you usually have a main character, and then an entourage of secondary characters that follow each one, but never seem to interact much with the other main characters or the other secondary chartacters. That causes several problems because it restricts how well their personalities can be shown, if a greedy character and a trickster only ever interact with each other the outcomes will always be similar for example.

At this point I have pretty specific things to work out, four specific characters interacting with the main character, in scene that helps demonstrate the how the main character's kindness earns others trust. From the plot points I have already come up with in the past I consider what are the most natural situations where this would happen, with extra positive aspect that in the future, once these current interactions are fully developed I can then use them as plot points that serve as a base for further planning.

First who approaches who, or is it fate that pushes them together into the interaction? Is it a calm situation, a tense one or there's action happening? If there's action, then deeper dialogue is harder to develop, both calm and tense situations will help display a different facet of the characters. I know that I want this character to be good with his words, so I need to limit action to only one of the interactions.

With these questions I have already defined how most of each one of those 4 situations will happen and through that I have learned a lot about who each one of those characters involved are and what's important to them.

Then it just a matter of defining the finer details, like how to make the dialogue serve it's purpose. That means thinking on the information each character will pass to one another, the proper order to do that, how to make it distinguishable from other characters voice, think of the vocabulary used, the tone, to make them, like I said, distinguishable.

The last point is to think about the environment where that happens. In some cases, like the scene which I picked to be the action oriented one, it's pretty obvious, but in others I have to consider if there isn't a way in which the environment could aid the scene and how impactful it is. Sometimes if the environment makes a prominent effect on the characters (such as an hospital, or a cemetery) I even have to rethink the tone of the dialogue because of it, but it usually only ends up helping make the scene more natural and vivid.

cont

[Anonymous No.17939458]

>>17939146
cont

By the end of this I have the 4 scenes, the development, the way the characters will act, precisely what they will say, what they will do
and how they will be affected by the encounter. Once it comes to writing, it's just a matter of connecting the dialogues through prose that depicts the action in the most proper fashion.

I have about 50 or so of these in my mind at the very least. But I need to see them visually on a horizontal timeline to organize things.

[Anonymous No.17939641]

>wrote first book in a distinct first person voice
>edited it for several months
>my writing style completely changed by the time I wrote the second
>now trying to edit the second to resemble the first more

[Anonymous No.17939653]

>>17937561
Right, gotcha. Thanks anon.
Speaking of grammar, only if you have the time, can you point out any specifics?

[Anonymous No.17939662]

>>17939641
>first person
ngmi weeb energy.

[Anonymous No.17939672]

>write science fiction
>scene relies on new technology
>readers say they got confused by the jargon
>I didn't use any jargon

How do I tell the difference between me writing badly and my readers being idiots? It was a hologram conference call

[Anonymous No.17939680]

>>17939672
>hologram conference call
What is this? Sounds like sciency jargon to me.

[Anonymous No.17939771]

Today I actually sat down and drafted the last scene of my children's fantasy novel. I had intended to skip doing that, but I wanted to not have to say "I finished a draft, but..." in my own mind.

Now I am attempting, by studying other books, to develop some guiding principles to use while editing my own. I have a few for the plot, and there are many books about those principles. What I am more interested in is developing principles about writing specifically fantasy for children, which means that a lot of it has to be about whimsical worldbuilding. Here are some examples:

>Made-up words should not need to be understood to be funny.
>There should be a mechanism by which fantasy is accessible, but hidden, such as by going through brick walls to a hidden world, or by going beneath trees to find treasure, and it should be shown to work more than once.
>Evil things should be spooky, not scary, before the climax. (Spooky in the sense of "the vague notion of scariness," such as ghosts coming out on Halloween, or a Dark Side that corrupts in a way which is not well-explained.)

If any of you have an interest in children's storytelling, would you mind telling me any thoughts you have on the subject which could help me create more of these principles? Thanks!

[Anonymous No.17939803]

>Simple farm boy gets tormented by a demon
>Finds a living Scarecrow that takes him on a journey through the boys mind and helps him resist the demons temptations and ultimately beat him
What do you guys think?

[Anonymous No.17939820]

>>17939803
only what you think matters.

[Anonymous No.17939850]

>>17939662
I am writing a designated YOUNG ADULT NOVEL, not a light novel, which makes it non-weeb despite any anime influence which seeped in.

[Anonymous No.17939891]

>>17939271
i would, but your last sentence gives me some reservation desu. still, a lot could happen.

[Anonymous No.17939931]

>>17930765
Paul Fussell's "Poetic Meter and Poetic Form" should be recommended in the sticky for poetry

[Anonymous No.17939939]

I think I have a problem with how I brainstorm/plan out my narratives. Usually I'll begin with a general premise, and start coming up with ideas for plot points or events that sound interesting based on that premise, oftentimes coming up with ideas for the ending long before I nail down any specific details. Then, I attempt to organize all these plot points into a coherent narrative, filling in the gaps between the major events and coming up with the finer details like character development and whatnot. However, I feel like this gives my narratives an inorganic feeling, like most of the story is just artificial filler leading up to the major plot points I came up with at the very beginning. How do I make my narratives more cohesive and "flowing" from one event to the next?

[Anonymous No.17939960]

>>17939653
Reading it over, I think much of what I found "wrong" with your grammar is really just you and I having a preference for different types of punctuation. If I were to rewrite it without seriously changing up the sentence structures you're using, I would slap a few semicolons and em-dashes on it, but not change much aside from that.
Reading some more of your story, however, I'm noticing that you change the tense your story is written in on more than one occasion, for no rhyme or reason. In these three consecutive lines:
>Overall I was stuck up here wether I liked it or not.
>And by Grom is it a nightmare.
>Up here there was no ceilings,
you go from past-tense, to present-tense, to past-tense again. (Also, in that third line, you wrote "was" when you should have used "were")

[Anonymous No.17940013]

>>17939939
From my experience, when you're figuring out how a story will go, you will make use of what you might consider two distinct mental functions.
The first is imagination. With this you let your mind breathe life into the plot, characters, setting, and what have you and show you how all these factors behave, or could behave, when combined together under specific scenarios. A story written purely with this function will be "alive", but it might not lead to anything interesting.
The second function is planning. It is the function by which you say to yourself, "I want to write a story in which this happens and then this happens and then that happens." A story written purely with this function might go to interesting places, but it won't be "alive".

[Anonymous No.17940044]

>>17940013
I probably have a combination of slight autism + overexposure to media that causes me to view characters and plot elements as components within a system rather than living, breathing people and events.

[FranxxRewrote No.17940304]

>>17939680
Because it is.
Hey writer, show me the scene.

[FranxxRewrote No.17940341]

>>17940013
I find it quite bizarre you didn't mention anything about goals. Without a point b, there is literally no path to reach the end of the story because the end doesn't exist. Either the ending is made up on the spot or the story becomes increasingly worse as it struggles to come up with more "plot". I bet this is the reason why tv shows, sequels, and additional content tends to be far worse than what has came before. Even episodic series needs a good end point, see SpongeBob and the Simpsons.

[Anonymous No.17940455]

>>17939680
>What is this? Sounds like sciency jargon to me.
have you never been in a conference call before?
It sounds like it's just that but with holograms.
Similar to pic related.

[Anonymous No.17940466]

>>17940341
I didn't bring it up because I didn't, and still don't, see any relevance to what that anon was talking about.
It can be good to have a goal in mind, but you shouldn't try to force a story towards a goal you've set up when the story doesn't want to go there. Sometimes the story comes to a point that feels like an appropriate ending without you ever having consciously aimed towards it, and sometimes it just wanders around aimlessly unless you herd it towards a specific point. You gotta have a feel for your story—for where its naturally headed, and for where you can and cannot try to guide it.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.17940470]

>>17940455
>Penishead
Hate that guy

[FranxxRewrote No.17940473]

>>17940466
And how many animes and mangas went to shit because of that specific story mentality?

[Anonymous No.17940488]

>>17940473
What makes you think I consume jap trash?

[Anonymous No.17940555]

>>17939960
Thanks for the eyes, anon. I’ll redouble my efforts to keep present tense.
Also not a bad idea using em dashes and semi colons. I just wanted to play it safe with this piece since I’m not all good with grammar.

[FranxxRewrote No.17940559]

>>17940488
You sound aware. That's all I need to know to help you make the realization.
Short stories can work in the way you described them. I just don't see it as good in any long-hauls.

[FranxxRewrote No.17940773]

>>17940555
Present is hell in story telling. It's far easier to keep it in dialogue exclusively.

[Anonymous No.17940794]

>>17940773
I’ll see what happens. Present tense also puts you in the moment, you know? At least for 1st person. Keeps you engaged, I say.

[Anonymous No.17940975]

>I finally have a decent outline brewing up after months of writer's block

[Anonymous No.17940983]

>>17940975
that's great anon! you've been working hard so it's time to take a break and get back to work tomorrow.

[Anonymous No.17941065]

Does knowing how to write poetry help with dialogue?

[FranxxRewrote No.17941096]

>>17940794
I know it puts the reader into the moment. That's why it is better to use it for character thoughts, dialogue, and sounds effects. The audience will immediately notice the sharp contrast between them and the narrator.
>>17940559
By 'them'. I meant the 'the way you described your story process'. I hope that wasn't too vague and confusing.

[Anonymous No.17941167]

>>17941096
Goblin anon here. I’ll think about it. Thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.17941170]

>>17930765
Ito-san pointed, laughing, at gaping hole of light to say,

Let us all jump in! And fly! And he did.

So Haruka-chan jumped.

I'm next! She said. With reckless abandon she drove. And flew!

Weeeeeee!

And they followed. They followed! One by one, to jump in hole of light.

Unaware of gaping maw of impending doom to await below.

[Anonymous No.17941421]

storylet here. i can't come up with plot for shit so i'm going to trace an outline of a book i recently read. at the very least i'll get a better idea of how a story progresses and interweaves. any of you done this before?

[Anonymous No.17941578]

>>17940044
Not the anon you’re replying to, but I also have autism. Living, breathing people as well as real events are also - always - components within a system. You and me are components within systems. One does not exclude the other. You can show real life as a system, whilst keeping it «real».

[Anonymous No.17941916]

>>17940044
>view characters and plot elements as components within a system
Everyone does that

[Anonymous No.17941979]

Why are meteor plots always so kino?

[Anonymous No.17942047]

Reminder: don't put any effort into your writing. The less effort you put in, the more popular it will be. That's how all the pros do it and they're all rich and famous.

[Anonymous No.17942235]

>>17931880
>>17931880
someone elp pls

[Anonymous No.17942324]

>>17940304
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FH2ALkOpdvBeMIhXEoBPBF9XZjn_tlHgZ3vTXF-a72M/edit?usp=sharing

Man something is fucky with my computer tonight. Auto update is broken.

[Anonymous No.17942376]

are books on writing useful or useless?

[Anonymous No.17942385]

>>17942376
Jesus said that it's better for a man to never have been born than to learn a craft by reading about it

[Anonymous No.17942401]

>>17942235
Just go read a few you like and breakdown the components

[Anonymous No.17942427]

>It's X (and Y), but Z
So what's your book's premise in terms of hollywood pitching?

[Anonymous No.17942527]

>>17942427
It's like the first half of Fullmetal Jacket meets Catcher in the Rye

[Anonymous No.17942533]

How's this segment of my bike tour book?

>https://justpaste.me/T2Cc

[Anonymous No.17942647]

>>17932929
>Brandon Sanderson lectures on youtube.
I tried to watch one of those and I quit after 2 minutes. Holy cringe, no surprise the literary equivalent of shounen anime is written by that obese autist

[Anonymous No.17942660]

>>17942647
He's successful, well-liked and happy. You will never be any of those things until you embrace anime.

[Anonymous No.17942692]

>>17942660
https://youtu.be/yPptuJYSf4E
Watch the first 10 seconds of this and tell me if being succesful is worth the price of looking like him

[Anonymous No.17942700]

>>17942692
Yes

I'd much rather be a fat writer than a fit desk slave

[Anonymous No.17942705]

>>17942692
I've seen all of his lectures anon. His pet parrot Magellan is pretty cool too.

[Anonymous No.17942744]

>>17942692
Brandon 'how deep is your magic system' Sanderson

[Anonymous No.17943389]

>>17942533
i don't have anything to say but i read it and i liked it. what's the big story, though?

[Anonymous No.17943564]

so light novels just mean novels with illustrations?

[Anonymous No.17943594]

>>17943564
From what I can gather, they're "light" in the sense that they don't really strive for complexity of prose or theme. Sort of like young adult novels. Someone offered some examples in the last thread that seemed worse than most American YA, but I think it was just something was getting lost in translation

[Anonymous No.17943613]

>>17943564
No, it means novels that are written without complex kanji

[Anonymous No.17943682]

>>17932302
The words "Jim" and "Bhim" repeat too much.

"Yo-o-o-o-ou" is a bad choice.

"See now," sudden interruption. Addressing the reader directly breaks immersion.

"ejaculated" "ejaculated" "ejaculated" "ejaculated." that's a lot of ejaculations and repetition. You can do better.

Send the full story.

[Anonymous No.17943825]

>>17942700
The beauty is that the two aren't mutually exclusive.

[Anonymous No.17943843]

>>17942533
>https://justpaste.me/T2Cc
It seemed to shift tone between noir to fantasy adventure, and it was as if the tone was attempting to cover for a lack of genuine depth. Never been a big fan of first-person, present tense. I think that's just because it seems to be the go-to for YA, and makes whatever I'm reading seem immature.
>When the last of the sticks burn through and the fire dies we walk to the beach. We stand in the darkness, our toes sunken in the cold sand. The distant headlights of a speedboat rise and fall in concert with the undulations of the wake.
Bit-nitpicky, I think the headlights on a boat are called running lights. I feel bad even pointing that out, because I think it might spoil what I have to say next. This was the only line that I genuinely liked. And not just "I need to be polite and find one thing to compliment in my critique" liked, but actually like-liked. It had an a Hemingwayesque sparseness and impact of sensation to it. But then...
>In its on-again, off-again glow I feel less together, more unseen; more as one, less witnessed.
It's like you sensed you had something really good in the previous line and tried to double-down on it. It might be because I just woke up, but I'm having a really hard time parsing this one out and getting your meaning, so it comes across as pretentious. It seems especially hollow when compared to the preceding line. It's like you were trying to elevate a scene which was already elevated, and essentially burst the balloon with too much helium.

But anyway, I haven't read a lot of travelogues. I don't know what people look for in them. I can only go back to that one line about the cold sand and tell you that was the only line which made me feel like it would be nice to take a bike trip. The stilted dialogue between friends, the false drama of the woodbin plunge, the complaining about money. These are all things I would hope to leave behind if I were to go biketripping. To get lost in the sensory details and find myself tinkering with problems easily fixed, like flat tires.

And the ending line JUNE 6 - ROSSPORT - 90 KM almost feels like a perfect summation of what I liked in the cold sand line. Direct details, stated plainly, without interpretation.

[Anonymous No.17943886]

>>17943825
Yes, a fit writer is optimal, but the question was his ohysique for his success

[Anonymous No.17943935]

>>17943886
This is true. Sanderson's writing has many dislikable qualities, but his physique is pretty irrelevant.
But it does speak much about popular authors when I google a name on the cover of a book to keep on seeing skinnyfats. Statistically there has to be at least one author that can bench 3 plates.

[Anonymous No.17943964]

>>17943935
The Mishima's of the world are pretty rare

[Anonymous No.17944003]

>>17943935

[Anonymous No.17944025]

>>17944003
If that dude can bench 3 plate, why the fuck am I at 1 plate with the same body

[Anonymous No.17944073]

>>17944025
What's a plate in this context? I'm not a native English speaker. I bench 110kg

[Anonymous No.17944076]

>>17943389

Thanks. It's about a bike trip across Canada I did with my buddy a couple of summers ago. It chronicles the journey day by day, though somewhat dramatized. It's too early to really drive any core themes from it, but it involves themes such as mental health, modern alienation, estrangement, and the importance of purpose and togetherness in deriving meaning from existence. My first novel never got picked up by any agents - though I got a nibble of interest - so I'm really hoping this one appeals to the contemporary 20-something, particularly male crowd that make need to read something that speaks to their condition. It's also somewhat of a platonic love story.

>>17943843
Thanks for the write-up. I agree with what you said about the last line being forced into the beach scene. I'm going to recompose and rework it into another segment.

I also like how you're a fan of the barebones descriptions without interpretation. That was my original intention with the project, but my early readers have all told me that I need to inject my perspective into it and essentially tell the reader how I'm feeling as opposed to having them do that guesswork. I'm glad at least someone appreciates the minimalist approach. That's where I want to take this.

[Anonymous No.17944198]

>>17944073
One plate refers to the plate-shaped weights which are used in conjunction with standard barbells and weight benches. The heaviest ones are 45 lbs, and you use two at once (one on each end of the barbell), so to say you bench 1 plate means you're actually benching 90 lbs + barbell. You don't count bar weight when calculating plates, and you don't do partial plates. So if I was benching 145 lbs, I would subtract my barbell (mine is 20 lbs), and get 120 lbs, which is expressed as 1 plate, not 1.3 plates.

It's basically bodybuilder macho slang. We subtract bar weight and round down in an attempt to minimize our accomplishments to seem humble.

[Anonymous No.17944212]

>>17944073
1 plate is referring to 45 lb plates, one on either side of an olympic bench press bar

1plate = 135 lbs ~ 55 kg
2plate = 225 lbs ~ 100 kg
3plate = 315 lbs ~ 145 kg

[Anonymous No.17944285]

>>17944025
You don't have the same body

[Anonymous No.17944318]

>>17944076
>That was my original intention with the project, but my early readers have all told me that I need to inject my perspective into it and essentially tell the reader how I'm feeling as opposed to having them do that guesswork.
"If I would have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." -Henry Ford

Sometimes it can be difficult to figure out what a reader is really saying, especially if they aren't writers themselves. You might be able to effectively communicate your feelings about a given moment through use of subtext in language, without compromising the impact of the image.
>I woke up and left my tent. The air was clear and the sunlight was intense. It made me feel cleaner.
Vs.
>I unzipped my tent and stepped outside, plunging into the crisp morning air. I closed my eyes and tilted my face towards the sun, feeling the warmth stream over me.
In the second one I tried to copy first the feeling of jumping into a cold lake, followed by the sensation of stepping into a warm shower. It could be done better but I think it demonstrates my point. I believe my first example, although more direct, actually creates distance between the reader and the image. Perhaps that is what your readers want to see.

[Anonymous No.17944346]

>>17944212
>>17944198
I see. I've got a long way to go.

[Anonymous No.17944370]

>>17944318
Thank you. You're right. This is reassuring. My beta readers are writers themselves, though much older and neither my intended audience nor contemporaries stylistically. Even on 4chan I found some of the guys here saying the same, though. But, yeah, fuck it, I'm looking to write something you'd read from Tyrant Books, not a Penguin Classic. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.17944391]

>>17942427
Legend of the Galactic Heroes meets UC Gundam, probably.

[Anonymous No.17944622]

I'm waging a holy war against dialogue tags.
What are some ways I can spruce up the dialog for my characters so the readers are well aware of who's talking?

[Anonymous No.17944693]

>>17944622
>I'm waging a holy war against dialogue tags.
Why?

[Anonymous No.17944774]

>>17944622
give averyone one of those dumb fucking "speaking quirks" like the japanese give their characters sometimes. take some short nonsense word like "didu" or "poki" and make sure you tack it on to the end of every fucking sentence and a bunch of other words completely at random

[Anonymous No.17944807]

it seems that writing books always emphasize themes, the points you are trying to make and how every story needs to have at least one
which makes me wonder what would a theme-less story look like?

[Anonymous No.17944859]

>>17944622
I never used them. If your characters talk differently, which they should if they came from different walks of life, you don't even need them.

[Anonymous No.17944953]

>>17944807
It would look like low-effort shit.
And in the postmodern age it would be lauded if you just claim that it's "meant to inspire discussion"

[Anonymous No.17944970]

>>17944859
t. author trying to create the first American """"light novel""""

[Anonymous No.17945064]

>>17944622
Read highly stylized prose like that from Cormac McCarthy and Bret Easton Ellis and copy what they do.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17945122]

Wrote a 3 page story, first attempt at a romance/romantic focus.

https://pastebin.com/GbbtBTY9

[Anonymous No.17945142]

>>17945122
I do not like this it’s pseud

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17945190]

>>17945142
Ah apologies. A friend asked me to write a romantic filled story so I figure I’d have fun and just write the prose as I would my poetry. I was going for a final fantasy feel.

[Anonymous No.17945695]

>>17945190
That should be your final fantasy

[Anonymous No.17945831]

>>17945122
Yeah, this isn't good

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17945852]

>>17945831
>>17945695
Any particular problems? Like what should I do more of, less of. That sort of thing.

[Anonymous No.17945898]

>>17945852
Read more, and see what's considered good, then apply what you've learned in your own writing. I remember writing my first poems / short fiction in my late teens, early twenties and some of it resembled this kind of pseud stuff you're writing. I'd get called out for it, check myself, then retry. Eventually you'll get it. You're reading guys like Joyce and your writing ends up being derivative of them. You're not Joyce, or whoever the fuck you look up to. Write authentically. Write with concrete descriptions and clear emotions laid bare on the page.

>Without illusion, all things perish; illusion is itself illumination. I have only ever seen the heavens clearly when I have stared into them and became lost in some fantasy, at night if I see clouds of blood red they fade into faces of those who I have not known yet I desire to remember.

This reads like a tryhard forcing something romantic into the text. Don't. EIther explain / fully flesh out the obscure point you're trying to make, or rethink what you're saying. Point blank: Have something to say. Don't contrive something to say from loose, fleeting, whimsical abstractions floating around in your head cause you read Joyce or some modernist and thing you can hang with them. Communicate meaningfully, and carefully.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17945984]

>>17945898
Eh I’m more reading the decadents and romantics and so forth, the above was me trying to write a romantic piece(a friend wanted me to try a love story) and basically trying to just play around. So I decided to write it as jam-packed as I would a poem.

The portion you posted is more or less just general description of maya/samsara and the whole faces line does have a latter meaning. While I thank you for the critique, to me it was all attempts at meaningful lines/sentences, just trying to put them into very sensational or very odd conceptual ways. But again usually I don’t write in such a flashy style.

Thanks again for the critique though.

[Anonymous No.17946154]

I want to write about a protagonist who forgot something really important that would change the entire story if he remembered.
What should I keep in mind as I design this secret?

[Anonymous No.17946157]

Any good whimsy eastern folk tales or epics out there to rip off the way Toriyama did Journey to the West?

[Anonymous No.17946225]

Another thread for my screenplay because i wanted to

>>17945998

[Anonymous No.17946277]

>>17946157
East of where?

[Anonymous No.17946285]

>>17946277
east of the west you silly boy!

[Anonymous No.17946340]

Any ESL here who got any success with their writing as far as getting it published anywhere or earning money for writing (even if it's erotica)? Please give me tips and tell me something about how you started. My English level is C1 but I really feel like I struggle to find the right word way too often in every day situations when a native speaker would instantly know it.

[Anonymous No.17946387]

>>17946285
Does the west stop at Turkey? I was thinking that there can never be enough Baba Yaga stories.

[Anonymous No.17946771]

>>17946340
ESL, I live in India. About to be published next year. I have secured a literary agent and we are working through drafts and stuff.

Here is an excerpt sort of?

"The red leaves shone through the spyglass in the waning amber light causing his eyes a sharp pain when he tried to look beyond into the white marble mansion's left bay window. He tightened his shoelaces and looked at the half mile journey he would have to make now. The road was paved with dead leaves that cracked under your tight shoes. Badious barks looked onto him as if they had eyes. As he started walking, he whispered to himself "maybe plants have consciousness after all, Katie was right". The ominous stares that he could now feel made him shudder with a bleak nervousness and his hair on his arms stood up and he broke into something resembling almost a run. He was halfway there under the shade of the largest maple tree in all of Herte. Sun was down. There were no more shadows and as he looked on to the mansion again, he saw what he was sure were candlelights coming on behind the curtains. He felt the glee. Happiness pervaded his dread and made him laugh that special laugh you laugh after doing something you thought you could never do, a laugh caused by satisfaction and self pride. Well, he was here at last and there were no ghosts after all."

[Anonymous No.17946864]

>>17946771
>I have secured a literary agent and we are working through drafts and stuff.
What do you mean by this? As far as I'm aware, it's the agent's job to refer you to publishers and help negotiate the contract. Agents in America won't work with you if you've got a draft that you're still editing. In short, I think you're being taken for a ride. Also, your dialogue formatting is fucked up. This whole line:
>As he started walking, he whispered to himself "maybe plants have consciousness after all, Katie was right".
has a lot of problems.

[Anonymous No.17946905]

>>17946864
>As far as I'm aware,
And it's not far enough. Sure, you may have gone through 3-6 drafts on your own before querying, but once you submit it to an agency, they'll definitely put it through a couple more. They're not going to send something to a publisher with errors in it.

[Anonymous No.17946919]

>>17946864
Well basically, you submit your draft to the agency and they look at it and if they like your idea, they will help you publish. This agency I'm with is actually supremely reputed and has published multiple best sellers. And of course, that isn't how it's gonna be in print, I'm just giving you a rough idea of what the quality of writing is like. Of course that sentence has changed now and the words have bene tweaked to improve the flow, this is from a very early draft. I'm not allowed to share newer ones.

[Anonymous No.17946936]

>>17946905
Agents aren't editors. They let publishers dictate the changes that need to be made before a novel will be accepted. The bar is high enough in America that they can pretty much afford to discard people who submit with errors, anyhow. Maybe some of them would require changes themselves, but that's not standard.

>>17946919
Well then, I'm looking very forward to reading your direct book, sir.

[Anonymous No.17947031]

>>17946936
Holy fuck how are you this misinformed. Stop talking authoritatively when you only have half the facts.

>Agents aren't editors.
Agencies HAVE editors working for them. Do you think agents are the only ones working at agencies?

>They let publishers dictate the changes that need to be made before a novel will be accepted.
It's not a guarantee that just because you have an agent, you're going to get a publisher. An agency's editors will give your manuscript a glow-up so there's a higher chance it gets approved.

[Anonymous No.17947037]

>Write paragraph
>Spend 30-45 minutes agonising over word choice and its structure
Is this good practice?

[Anonymous No.17947072]

>>17947037
No, just finish the story first. Then do all of that. I used to do this all the time and in the end I'd cut everything out because I felt like it sounded cringe.

[Anonymous No.17947323]

>>17946340
Currently making above minimum wage for my country by writing fetish porn. I learned English by going to school in the US up to the 6th grade and made sure it was fresh in my mind my reading a fuckton.
Only advice I can give is practice and immersion.

[Anonymous No.17947467]

How do I start making money by selling things?
Like, what bank accounts do I need to open so amazon can give me a few pennies for my e-books?

[Anonymous No.17947486]

>>17947467
A daytime 9-5 job. If you're incredibly desperate to sell your dignity, consider something among the lines of isekai or litrpg. Good luck.

[Anonymous No.17947525]

>>17947467
I suggest waiting till you're out of high school. No one is going to line up to read your shitty anime.

[Anonymous No.17947535]

>>17947486
How is that supposed to help me when I don't have a bank account for them to send money to? A check is meaningless to me.

[Anonymous No.17947905]

I'd like someone to read a quick vignette about child abuse I just wrote.

[Anonymous No.17947908]

Where can I find some writing prompts to hash out a short story to get me out of my funk?

[Anonymous No.17947932]

would like feedback on this:
https://pastebin.com/UqXy4aC2

[Anonymous No.17947943]

>>17947932
that looks like a virus dude, post a screen cap.

[Anonymous No.17947952]

>>17947943
>>17947932

[Anonymous No.17947995]

>>17947952
>she sells her body for sex
lolol, I thought they did it for money. Anyways, it's a snooze fest for me. I lol'd at the part where the girl says she feels like a big fresh salad, I know what you mean to write but still, lol.

It needs work, keep trying, 3.5/10

[Anonymous No.17948010]

>>17947995
>I know what you mean to write
the words of the adult character are all verbatim from a real event, so I didn't change them. Should I have?

[Anonymous No.17948019]

>>17947952
Why does present tense make me want to bash my skull in, every time?

[Anonymous No.17948026]

>>17947952
>SHE SELLS HER BODY FOR SEX
Sounds strange, change the wording. Does an eight year old even know what sex is?

>The memory has a second part.
Also sounds strange, you can just skip this part. It's already clear from the context that the memory continues. Same with "the third part of the memory".

Btw, I'm sorry that your mom is a whore anon.

[Anonymous No.17948037]

>>17948010
>the words of the adult character are all verbatim from a real event
Ok, then don't change it. >>17948026

[Anonymous No.17948042]

>>17935611
About 2%. About 10% are gay and lesbian, exclusively. Another 80% varying degrees of bi.

[Anonymous No.17948046]

>>17948010
>>17948010
Not if you don't want to. All I'm saying is that I thought of it as if she said she feels like a "big fresh salad" lol. She means she feels like eating a big fresh salad, right? That's what I found funny.

This is the most hilarious child abuse I've ever read.

[Anonymous No.17948047]

>>17948026
>SHE SELLS HER BODY FOR SEX
The adult character says this, not the child. Is that not clear? Damn. Always writing "she said" feels awkward so I left some of those out.
>>17948037
Okay thanks for the help.

[Anonymous No.17948054]

>>17947952
>using the present tense
>even worse, during a flashback

[Anonymous No.17948061]

>>17948054
IT'S YOUNG ADULT YOU FUCKING PSEUD. NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO WRITE CLASSICAL TRASH.

[Anonymous No.17948069]

>>17948047
>The adult character says this, not the child. Is that not clear?
No, it's clear. It just sounded strange, but if it's from a real event then it's ok.

[Anonymous No.17948085]

>>17948046
I didn't even realize that, anon. Thanks. It should say something about "feel like eating" not "feel like". I feel dumb now, whoops.
>>17948061
this reply is not by me, jsyk

[Anonymous No.17948113]

>>17948061
another different anon but i just dont like present tense. it's uncomfortable to write and cringy to read.

[Anonymous No.17948120]

>>17947905
Who wants to read about child abuse?

[Anonymous No.17948128]

>>17948113
okay, I will change it then. It was a stylistic choice, but if it causes a visceral negative reaction in most readers so far then obviously it was unsuccessful.

[Anonymous No.17948138]

>>17948128
no you go with your own style if you feel like that's what you're best at and it's what your audience wants. i just don't like it.

[Anonymous No.17948163]

>>17948128
It's a thing in writing, if that's how you want to write it then go for it! Don't let /wg/ discourage you, they trash ready player one (a master piece) and it's written in present tense. Just an fyi, this general is infested with weebs, so if writing doesn't meet their ridiculous standards, they hate it.

[Anonymous No.17948169]

Continue?

They had gotten past the “are we there yets,” and the “I’m boreds,” and the “I hafta potties!” The kids had even put away their cell phones, Alex because he had grown tired of his little platform game, Kaylee because she’d grown tired of texting her friend. That conversation had simply grown too boring to continue, much like the conversation of those actually present in the vehicle had long ago grown stale.
The SUV had been quiet even before they had turned off the freeway, heading into the forested foothills of the larger Cascade range. Kaylee was absently glancing out the window, and as it was night, there was nothing to see at night but the occasional mercury light of a barn or farmhouse. Alex wasn’t focused in any particular direction, his mind completely absorbed on another video game, back home on his console. The ‘baby’ of the family, Charlie, had been fast asleep in her carseat for a solid hour. Megan, mom, in the front passenger seat, was almost as sleepy as Charlie, but still had her eyes weakly opened and focused on the road before them. Only Dad, Tom, was entirely alert, properly focused and happily driving, despite the hundreds of miles already traveled.
Few in his position would have been so comfortable. It couldn’t have been darker, the last streetlight had been left miles behind. The country road wound its way through a valley, rising and falling as much as it swung left and right. There was apparently a storm, a rough one that continued to build, though it was hard to tell, forest and the hills offered a sort of shelter. The heavy, driving rain fell as large heavy drops on the windshield, having gathered on tree limbs before falling again to the ground.. It was only during the rare occasional open patch that Tom could notice the gusting wind, rocking the SUV on his suspension.
Perhaps because of comfort, Tom was quick to pound his foot on the brake pedal. All of the where pressed forward against their restraints. Megan let out a small squeak of surprise, Tom only gritted his teeth, hoping they could stop in time. The anti-lock brakes did their job, and brought their SUV to a halt only inches before the shaking outer most branches of the downed tree laying across the road.

[Anonymous No.17948181]

>>17948061
>telling a story
>the story happened before so you write it in past tense
>this means it is classical literature
bros I finally made it. I'm part of the cannon now.

[Anonymous No.17948202]

>>17948138
>>17948163
thanks anons. Pic rel is the past tense version. I do think I like it better. Not being delusional about it or anything, I know it's not good but it's a beginner's practice exercise for me.

[Anonymous No.17948237]

>>17948138
>>17948163
thanks anons. Pic rel is the past tense version. I do think I like it better. Not being delusional about it or anything, I know it's not good but it's a beginner's practice exercise for me.

[Anonymous No.17948369]

>>17948163
>ready player one
>present tense
Only a portion of the prologue is.

[Anonymous No.17948382]

>>17948054
>>17948128
Using present-tense to describe something that happened in the past is normal. If you actually pay attention to how people talk, you hear it all the time.

>Do you want to know how I got these scars? My father was a drinker, and a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. He turns to me, and he says, "Why so serious?" He comes at me with the knife, "Why so serious?" He sticks the blade in my mouth, "Let's put a smile on that face!"

[Anonymous No.17948392]

>>17948382
Flashbacks bro

[Anonymous No.17948410]

>>17948237
You don't need to worry about hitting a home run first time. Editing and potentially starting over in places comes after. You have to write from and for yourself first imo.

[Anonymous No.17948411]

>>17948382
>describing something that happened in the past is normal.
>quotes the joker
We live in a society.

[(OP) No.17948418]

Made a dedicated thread at >>17947820 and was told to post here. Again, any feedback appreciated.

Anyone wanna read this bit I wrote? Any comments appreciated:)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D_S5sWO-RGy13IkQC2jFzVmsfR_Ad4MXZNxjR5adStI/edit?usp=sharing

[Anonymous No.17948492]

>>17948410
>comes after
after what?

[Anonymous No.17948519]

Hope questions like these are fine with /wg/. Help me real quick: what is the common phrase to express when one experiences a sudden, unbearable pain? For some reason, I thought it was "to rile in pain" but that doesn't sound right. I think I'm confusing "rile" with a similar sounding word.

[Anonymous No.17948532]

>>17948519
smarting?

[FranxxRewrote No.17948534]

>>17947072
Understandable. Trying to make each paragraph perfect without aligning them all to flow in the beginning is a huge ass mistake. It's kinda like trying to draw the set pieces perfectly before you have the set up.

[Anonymous No.17948557]

>>17948532
Not what I was thinking of. "Reeled in pain" maybe? Either way, smarting is a real good word.

[Anonymous No.17948565]

>>17948418
Lot of description, not much happening. You're painting a good picture of a town devoid of interest, which, it might not surprise you, is not very interesting. Perhaps we could demonstrate the utter lack of conflict by showing conflicts that didn't happen. A young man, perhaps a tourist, seeking the famous cheap prostitutes of Mexico, goes strolling down the street. But none of the men he solicits are willing to put their penis in his mouth for money. They always tell him to keep it after they are done. He is outraged: these people should be starving, they should be tripping over themselves to have sex for his american dollars. How dare they show dignity? He gave his youth for American dollars! He goes on a dick-sucking rampage, one dick after another, meeting no resistance and never slowing down. He has sucked every dick in town and still has all his money. Such is life in a dying port town.

That's it for your boy Jack Burton today. Smash that reply and drop a (you) for more of my hard-hitting critiques, filled with personal life experiences.

[Anonymous No.17948567]

I want to write a bildungsroman about a sadist. Not something like American Psycho, but just an average young man with a healthy set of Christian morals who discovers that he can't cum to anything or love anything that doesn't involve murder or brutality, and his subsequent struggles. Does this sound kino or shit?

[Anonymous No.17948568]

>>17948519
writhe

[Anonymous No.17948573]

>>17948519
Writhe. "Smarting" makes it sound like he just got an anvil dropped on his head and now he's seeing tweety birds and stars.

[Anonymous No.17948612]

>>17948568
>>17948573
thanks. based /wg/

[Anonymous No.17948630]

>>17948418
Did you purposefully make it so we could edit the file or was that an accident?

[17948418 No.17948654]

>>17948565
Thanks! I'll try to include a narrative next time

>>17948630
I meant for the permission to be "comment" oops

[Anonymous No.17948719]

I keep trying, and failing, to describe a really good orgasm in a way that's actually interesting and not just derivative schlock written for women.

[Anonymous No.17948785]

>>17948719
Write about the orgasm as if it's a completely new experience. Like, the woman thought she knew what an orgasm was like, but now in retrospect, all those other orgasms made her feel like a virgin. She's had sex many times in the past, but it was only 'now' that she felt she lost her 'real' virginity.

[Anonymous No.17948789]

>>17948719
Have you tried focusing on the physical sensations?

[Anonymous No.17948824]

I can't fucking plot a story

I have an idea of character arcs and villain motivations and even some facets of the climax but I can't twist them together in a way where I can take the slow steps through the story. Once I get a decent length from the beginning I lose my way even if I have a goal to work towards

It's like a mental block

[Anonymous No.17948851]

>finally remove all obstructions to me getting my writing done
>don't write anyway

I feel like a jackass

[Anonymous No.17948932]

>>17948719
>"im guna...im gunaaaaa...I'M GUNA COOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!"

that's how you do it.

[FranxxRewrote No.17949035]

>>17948719
You fucking Coomer.

[Anonymous No.17949233]

I have a lot of dies. But I want to make an illustrated book, so I also need to practice drawing.

What is a good way to expose your work internationally? I would like my work to be known everywhere. Maybe it would get an anime or movie adaptation!

Honestly I want to write a light novel because I want to see my work turned into an anime

[Anonymous No.17949272]

>>17949233
Do you know japanese? Then post it on syosetsu, japanese publishers are known for using its webnovels as a source for LN and other adaptations.

[Anonymous No.17949341]

>writing a story
>hate doing the research for it to be good.

Gotta do what I gotta do right?

[Anonymous No.17949380]

>>17944807
A story about nothing?

[Anonymous No.17949391]

>>17949341
Better than the alternative. Spending endless hours researching minutiae as procrastination to avoid actually writing anything.

[Anonymous No.17949412]

>>17949391
It's not the act of researching, it's what I'm researching. I can't say because I'm not finished yet, but I need to understand the mentality of a type of person I'm writing about, and it's hard for me. For example, a racist white person writing about a person of color or vice versa.

[Anonymous No.17949471]

>>17949341
Write about something you already know well so research is not necessary.

[Anonymous No.17949472]

How do you know when your writing gets better? Is it positive reaction from your readers? Like if you write something and you get a positive or sincere response, does that mean you're improving?

[Anonymous No.17949475]

>>17949412
I'm a racist white person, AMA

[Anonymous No.17949793]

>>17933192
Do what K.J Parker does. He writes "fantasy", because he wanted to write historical fiction but he coudnt change the big events. His world is rome with different names. No need to put magic or dragons.

[Anonymous No.17949876]

>>17949472
>Like if you write something and you get a positive or sincere response, does that mean you're improving?
No, why would you think that?

[Anonymous No.17949925]

>>17949472
Every piece of garbage out there gets some positive reactions. All it means is that people don't know better.

[Anonymous No.17949940]

>>17949876
>>17949925
How do you know you're getting better then?

[Anonymous No.17949989]

>>17949940
You don't.

[Anonymous No.17950065]

63k words. Feels good famalamatachi

[Anonymous No.17950078]

>>17950065
Congrats on your effort, anon.

[Anonymous No.17950093]

>>17950078
I'm going to keep trying hard.

[Anonymous No.17950155]

>>17948824
>where I can take the slow steps through the story
Bleh. If you ask me "huge, unexplained time skips" are an underrated part of any writer's toolbox.

[Anonymous No.17950168]

>>17950155
>"huge, unexplained time skips" are an underrated part of any writer's toolbox.
The issue, is how do you utilize them? That's the problem I'm having.

[Anonymous No.17950272]

At about 8k words after like a week of writing. My target is anywhere between 200,000 and 300,000 so that would be like, what, 25 - 38 weeks of writing if I keep this pace up. That's probably a good target for a first draft.

[Anonymous No.17950294]

>>17950272
Take small breaks so you won't be burned out.

[Anonymous No.17950331]

>>17949380
More like a slice of life.

[Anonymous No.17950408]

New Thread
>>17950398
>>17950398
>>17950398

[Anonymous No.17950424]

>>17950408
stupid faggot

[Anonymous No.17950432]

>>17950408
Why did you made a new thread before the bump limit?

[Anonymous No.17950461]

I'd appreciate any comments on this start to a short story I'm working on.

I'm not sure if it's all too vague and abstract, hopefully there's some kind of consistent current running through it.

https://pastebin.com/SeAsLEwt

[Anonymous No.17950462]

>>17950408
>Thread Challenge
>Write a passage while drunk and post for critique
Why the fuck would people waste their time on this shit then work on their novel?

And you got the name wrong and previous thread wrong as well. Were you that fucking desperate to beat the animefags?

[Anonymous No.17950473]

Posting this again in here since apparently that other thread was made too early and will be left disused.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393316548

Is this any good? I'm trying to take my poetry more seriously but I'm looking for a reference for the mechanics poets use and how to use them effectively.

[Anonymous No.17950479]

>>17950473
The strengths of the book are its suggestions for enhancing the language employed by the poet and the many exercises it suggests as idea generators for new poems. Its greatest weakness is it age. The sections on word-processing, Internet use, and publishing are hopelessly (but understandably) out of date. I suspect the bibliography is likewise pretty dated. Things move so quickly in our electronic world. I think, though, for a beginning poet at least, the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. There is a lot to learn here about the structures of poetry and the way one can manipulate those structures to make one's poems stand out in the crowd.

[Anonymous No.17950480]

>>17942324
I'd like to throw a bump here. If my description of technology is driving people off in chapter 1, I need to know.

Is there a stigma against google drive links? I am new to /wg/

[Anonymous No.17950488]

>>17950480
>Is there a stigma against google drive links? I am new to /wg/
No, but people here just like to shit on other people for not using the things they used. But make backups.

[Anonymous No.17950495]

So, should we make a new thread?

[Anonymous No.17950511]

>>17950479
Thank you. Tech/market advice in these books is always outdated if the book is more than a couple of years old so I wasn't very concerned with that. It sounds good. I'll look into it.

[Anonymous No.17950513]

>>17950488
I suppose I should make some downloads. I'm used to this idea that Google's capability and reliability is so far beyond what I ask of it that it simply can't fail.

And well, if Google tries to steal and publish my story, there will be hell to pay

[Anonymous No.17950519]

>>17950511
>>17950513
Here, post your work or question into this new thread.

>>17950518

[Anonymous No.17951784]

>>17950462
I've noticed a common pattern in generals that have anime OPs in "competition" with non-anime OPs. The anime haters are always troglodytes who are so desperate to beat them to the punch that they forget numerous details that the anime appreciator always includes.