/wg/-Writing General

[Anonymous No.18279931]

Any progress on your novels?

Previous thread:>>18266727

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.18279938]

First and I'm urging the retards from last thread who don't believe things can be original anymore to kill themselves

[Anonymous No.18279998]

>>18279938
Simpsons did it! Simpsons did it!

[Anonymous No.18280425]

How do I capture the feeling of paranoia and unreality that Philip k. Dick writes without having to actually go insane myself?

[Anonymous No.18280631]

My wrist is fucked so I'm learning to use my other hand.

[Anonymous No.18280712]

>>18279938
Riddle me this, then: The more original stories you consume, the less original they become. For a novice, the most unoriginal story is, in fact, somewhat original. If your novice self thought a book was original, but your current self thinks it is not, which of you is right?

[Anonymous No.18280753]

>>18279931
I am staring at that anime girl while thinking that this images are destroying my brain.

[Anonymous No.18280815]

>>18279938
Original as "never been made before" is easy, just come up with random shit that breaks logic and story structures. Or replace every third word with a Spanish one. Just what's the point?
>>18280425
You're on the perfect site for it. Check out boards like /pol/, /r9k/ and even /adv/ where most posters seems a varying level of paranoid.

[Anonymous No.18280838]

>>18280631
Actually pretty impressive for the non-dominant hand. Congrats

[Anonymous No.18280878]

>>18280631
Why not just use a keyboard? Even with one finger, you'd be faster. Shit, with some practice I bet typing with the nose or your feet is faster than writing stuff with a pen.

Though as the other anon mentioned, it's not half as bad for your other hand, mine would look closer to "learning patience" bits.

[Anonymous No.18280929]

>>18280838
Thanks!
>>18280878
I just wanted to see if I can. Typing's fine but it's frustrating trying to use a pen.

[Anonymous No.18280937]

>>18280815
>Check out boards like /pol/, /r9k/ and even /adv/ where most posters seems a varying level of paranoid.
That's actually great advice and I never would have thought of that. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.18280965]

>>18280425
You don't have to be insane to know what it's like to be paranoid. Do you know what it's like to be afraid? Suspicious? Use that. If someone is paranoid then they are probably terrified and it probably seems completely justifiable. Just takes a little imagination

[Anonymous No.18280982]

>>18280965
I don't think it's really the same. Someone paranoid isn't even aware that they are afraid, and a normal person can't exactly picture how it is to be suspicious of certain things but accept other stuff as the absolute truth without engaging with the paranoids for a good while. Tons of paranoid people tend to mistrust the "mainstream opinions/views" but firmly buy into shit that's much more absurd.

[Anonymous No.18280992]

>>18280965
Its not just paranoia, it's a step further than that even. Like sure there are people that believe the world is a simulation or Buddhists that call it an illusion. But like what if you couldn't tell your dreams from reality. Any second you could wake up and realize the last week of your life didn't happen and none of those people you talked to existed. Or worse, and it turns out this is reality but you're not even human so everything else is real and you're the only thing fake. A lot of PKD's writing really makes you feel like the world's non-existence is a real possibility and that you're insane for not worrying that the person dreaming this world could wake up.

[Anonymous No.18281010]

>>18280965
>>18280982
I feel like paranoia is not so much fear as certainty. You KNOW, without a doubt, the underlying truth behind the lies they've told you, and anything they say to the contrary either gets flat out denied or incorporated into your delusion.
It's motivated by a need for superiority and control more than fear.

[Anonymous No.18281014]

>>18280992
So, not paranoia but delusion?

>>18280982
I don't think it's exactly the same but it's a foundation. Like I said, you have to use your imagination too.

[Anonymous No.18281021]

>>18281010
Control maybe, but I don't agree about superiority. And fear wouldn't be the motivator but the result, in my opinion.

[Anonymous No.18281023]

>>18281014
All paranoia is, by definition, delusion.

[Anonymous No.18281026]

>>18281010
I mean, deep down the need for superiority and control comes from fear, it's just a layer behind it.
>>18281014
>So, not paranoia but delusion?
Isn't the line pretty thin?

[Anonymous No.18281051]

>>18281023
>>18281026
The line is thin but "not being able to tell dreams from reality" isn't really paranoia (for example). Paranoia being a subset of delusion I guess

[Anonymous No.18281063]

>>18281021
The superiority comes from having secret knowledge. You're not one of the sheeple mindlessly accepting the world as it's presented. You see the world as it really is.
A lot of paranoia is taking your fear and weakness and deciding that it's because the world itself is wrong. Believing that there are massive all-powerful forces at work keeping you down is more comforting than the idea that it's your own fault.

[Anonymous No.18281072]

Any recommended reads for writing short stories specifically?

[Anonymous No.18281079]

>>18281063
I do actually agree with what you're saying, I just probably wouldn't call it the motivator.

[Anonymous No.18281107]

>>18280982
>Someone paranoid isn't even aware that they are afraid
That's not true at all. paranoia doesn't mean someone has no self awareness

[Anonγmous No.18281122]

>>18279931
The journal that I've been writing in nearly every day now is much more exciting and compelling than the genreshit novels I've been attempting to write for years.
This is not a good feel.

[Anonymous No.18281256]

>>18281107
Have you ever talked closely to or been friends with an actual schizophrenic person?

[Anonymous No.18281303]

>>18281256
They're aware they're afraid or suspicious or angry or whatever. Suspicion is a normal emotion, fear is a normal emotion. They're in tune with how they feel. Probably overly so. But its the cause of those emotions that they misattribute, not the emotions themselves. Suspicion or fear of something due to irrational thoughts or conclusions is paranoia. Not suspicion or fear by itself.

[Anonymous No.18281492]

>>18281072
Dunsany,chekhov and stephen crane.

[Anonymous No.18281515]

>>18281072
I think the mediocre writers are also good for learning, perhaps even better than the masters; the good and the bad are side by side and contrast each other.

Blackwood, Lovecraft, Ligotti (I'm binging horror fiction, sorry)

[Anonymous No.18281522]

Wrote a short story last night about my childhood trauma in second person. It felt like it went well in the moment but reading back I think that was a horrible idea. Anyone got any second person successes that aren't CYOA?

[Anonymous No.18281547]

>>18281072
O. Henry. Here's his most famous story
https://dwcaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Henry_Red_Chief.pdf

[Anonymous No.18281965]

Oh hi.

Please read.

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

[Anonymous No.18282029]

Is it better to post a rough draft to Royal Road or an edited draft? The edited draft is superior, but takes longer.

[Anonymous No.18282064]

>>18281965
>The music, dancing, and splendidly dressed nobility, the ballroom gleaming in golden tones, the high ceiling sparkling with a dozen chandeliers. And the polished ballroom floor doubled the wondrous opulence, as if the ballroom were a pocket of some other world where famine and decay could not linger.

Your sentence structure is weird and your descriptions are sterile.

[Anonymous No.18282098]

>>18282064
Can you give an example from another author's work of a description that isn't sterile?

[Anonymous No.18282099]

>>18282029
Depends on how close it is to the audience's tastes. You can edit the early chapters, post rough draft and then post properly edited version to patreon paywall or wherever.

[Anonymous No.18282116]

>>18282099
The thing is my editor is taking too long. I can post my drafts to royal road and I think quality wise it can be readable and fine. I can then go back and update with a better draft when the editor gets round to it. Not perfect, but the idea is to build a readership with a consistent schedule. I guess I can give it a try because if something isn't working trying something new can at least have a chance of changing the game a bit.

[Anonymous No.18282207]

>>18282098
They stepped aside into the grass – that's what it is all about.

[Anonymous No.18282286]

>>18281965
>>18282064
>The music, dancing, and splendidly dressed nobility, the ballroom gleaming in golden tones, the high ceiling sparkling with a dozen chandeliers.

Dear Wishanon, here's my tip of the day for you. Look at this sentence structure. It's not really sentence, it's a list. It might as well say
>The potato, carrots, and green apples, tomatoes gleaming in red tones, the high kitchen ceiling with a bunch of lamps.

Can you see how these items have practically nothing to do with each other? How the words have next to no information value? The whole string tells the reader nothing. I personally find lines like these absolutely abominable to read. Now consider how you might improve it.

[Anonymous No.18282305]

>>18282116
>The thing is my editor is taking too long.
Considering how your editor is just as awful as you are, you technically lose nothing.

[Anonymous No.18282314]

>>18282305
I'm not in the mood for people being this nasty online today. I'll see you all tomorrow.

[Anonymous No.18282335]

>>18282314
You first have to admit your leg's broken before you're able to go to hospital.

[Anonymous No.18282350]

>decide to give my protagonist a little orphan to take care of after she lost the person that inspired her to become better
>do this so she can have someone to nurture and inspire, a place to go back to after the story finishes, and an "excuse" to start a family with another character
>also decide that this orphan will grow up to be a pharmacist
>remember that my dad was a pharmacist
uuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
What is my subconscious trying to tell me?

[Anonymous No.18282384]

>>18282286
Not him but thank you, anon. The example really drives the point home about the half-assed scene-setting.

[Anonymous No.18282395]

>>18282350
You must want to have sex with your dad

[Anonymous No.18282423]

>>18282350
>make an extroverted character
>keeps the no attachments except for my dream lifestyle by bribing and leeching off others.
>make an introverted character
>would seclide before a pc screen in a dusty workshop if he wasn't bribed with promise to get close to his role model scientist. By trying to romance the scientist's daughter. By making more and more expensive gifts and expecting the romance to happen automatically..
>The scientist in question has plans for the child's future and usually just puts her before the fact. Which makes her feel like her own achievements hardly matter.

[Anonymous No.18282431]

>>18282423
>Would seclude*

[Anonymous No.18282439]

>>18282395
Go away, Freud. You're a hack.

[Anonymous No.18282455]

>>18282098
Pick one:
>It was a dark autumn night. The old banker was walking up and down his study and remembering how, fifteen years before, he had given a party one autumn evening. There had been many clever men there, and there had been interesting conversations. Among other things they had talked of capital punishment.
>The music, dancing, and splendidly dressed nobility, the ballroom gleaming in golden tones, the high ceiling sparkling with a dozen chandeliers. And the polished ballroom floor doubled the wondrous opulence, as if the ballroom were a pocket of some other world where famine and decay could not linger.

[Anonymous No.18282510]

>>18282455
One is a sort of soft flashback the other description of the setting.

[Anonymous No.18282514]

>>18282423
And the soldier that protag looks up to, reveals himself to be duty-first, execute enemies of the state to hide information, barely holding on physically from all the combat strain.
Am I thinking too bad about people here? Most of my characters are not good people even though intended to be.

[Anonymous No.18282566]

Would describing a character as carefree and calculating in the query create more confusion that curiosity?

[Anonymous No.18282579]

>>18282514
>Most of my characters are not good people
Which is good. Most people prefer flawed characters, if anything you should lean in more into them being far from perfect than trying to justify shit.

[Anonymous No.18282672]

>>18282510
Wrong. One is interesting from front to back, the other is interesting for three words.

[Anonymous No.18282770]

>>18282672
Well that too but they focus on totally different things. An example with another attempt to describe the setting would be better.

[Anonymous No.18283008]

Just hit 61k. Hoping to really ramp up my rate now though, and have it, if not finished, at least relatively close to finished by September. I'm aiming for around 200,000 words, but there's a reasonable chance it will end up longer.

[Anonymous No.18283074]

>>18282770
Look at it this way: This is not just about the question of how to write descriptions, but about the placement and pace of the descriptions. When you write: "The feast had been a golden triumph", then enough is said about the outward appearance of the feast. You can move on to the next part: "Count Bornholm sank wearily into one of the scattered chairs in the dining hall". That would be a rather tight, forward moving style. You don't have to go to quite that extreme. But when you present us with tedious enumerations and comparisons, without any real development, we yawn – who got time for that?

[Anonymous No.18283108]

>>18280937
There is actually a huge amount of shit here just waiting to be explored. I use greentext stories frequently for inspiration. The weirder, the more esoteric, the better. My dream is that someday anon will pick up my book and realize that I stole his story about letting the shit dry on his ass so he can pick it off and save it.

[Anonymous No.18283111]

>>18283074
>When you write: "The feast had been a golden triumph", then enough is said about the outward appearance of the feast.
It really isn't. Obviously it depends on his goals and what he is trying to write, but there is a difference between writing concisely and not writing enough.

[Anonymous No.18283115]

>>18282455
I think the first sounded much better, though it still could use some cleaning up. The second sentence ran a little long and should be broken up.
The last two could also use some cutting. For example;
>There had been many clever men there, and there had been interesting conversations. Among other things they had talked of capital punishment.
could be written as;
>There had been many clever men there, and many equally interesting conversations. One of them concerned capital punishment.
That isn't perfect, but hopefully gives you an idea what I mean.
>>18281965
I would try varying some of your vocabulary. In the first paragraph you use "wall" and "rock" in two consecutive sentences and it reads a little awkward. Same thing with "forestation" in the next paragraph.
This,
>could make a sloped road like this occur
sounds a little strange. I would phrase it like;
>that could form a sloped road this clean
I would also try and come up with a different way of varying your dialogue besides, "said Hress" "said the Red-haired woman" "said Hress." Maybe something like, "Hress-answered."
You should also find another way of referring to your characters besides their names.
>Initially Hress and the Red-haired woman walked in tandem, but after an hour Hress lagged behind. The Red-haired woman stopped at intervals to wait for him to catch up.
Using "Hress" and "Red-haired woman," two times in such a small passage felt awkward.
Hope this helps anon, glad to see you continuing your story.

[Anonymous No.18283167]

>>18282064
Yeah I don't like this much either. It's a list of traits and physical objects with their locations. It's not something that lives and breathes. The authorial tone I hear is smug and self-satisfied. You're also doing a bit too much telling. Don't exposit to your reader that there is """"wondrous opulence""" (in fact, don't write that or imply it or ever attach those words to one another again), describe your scene such that the only possible impression your reader could have is wonder at how rich the rich fags are or whatever. Everything is always more powerful when you are guided organically to a realization rather than being told what to realize. For example, I grew up with money before my family pissed it all away. As such, I actually hate the fuck out of high society because it holds no mystery and beneath that mystery-gone is knowledge of what those people are actually like when they let the facade slip. As such, you have completely and irrevocably lost me as a reader when you tell me a bunch of pompous fags are "wondrously opulent," and that's even before I put my critic hat on.

Just saying. Hopefully some of this is useful.

[Anonymous No.18283181]

I recently revised the intro to my short story based on comments I got from another thread. If anyone has the time, I'd love to hear any feedback on the new draft.
Link to the original, if you're interested;
>>18263584

[Anonymous No.18283229]

>>18283111
Of course there are a thousand ways to write. I'll try to explain what bothers me in another way. It was about these sentences:
>The music, dancing, and splendidly dressed nobility, the ballroom gleaming in golden tones, the high ceiling sparkling with a dozen chandeliers. And the polished ballroom floor doubled the wondrous opulence, as if the ballroom were a pocket of some other world where famine and decay could not linger.
Here someone is pointing the finger at various details. At the end of the section I have a rough idea of the scenery. So far so good. What could have been done better? The impression of the festival could have been described in fewer words: "The nobles partied hard and did not give a fudge about the poor". The impression of the festival could have been described in fewer words. If you tell me that the music festival was great, you don't have to tell me that there was good music, I already thought so – what would ... ah fuck it.

[Anonymous No.18283235]

Where do you guys learn to write?

[Anonymous No.18283271]

>>18283235
I was self taught and actually got D's in high school English because I was a goth boy that was too cool to do his homework.
I basically just kept trying my hand at writing, messed up a bunch and learned from my mistakes. Eventually things got readable.
I also played a lot of rpgs growing up so I got into their lore and storytelling and I enjoy games more if their plots make sense.

[Anonymous No.18283283]

>>18283181
First two sentences basically say the same thing, I'd cut the second. The third sentence sounds a bit off with the double "had" and generally feels clunky.

Then it gets confusing with the digging ... there are three travelers, one stood in the ditch, digging, the other watched, apparently the third is the creature but it being labeled as a traveler earlier just seems weird.

[Anonymous No.18283285]

>>18283235
Reading good books and text-based forum roleplays. I started "roleplaying" when I was about 13.

[Anonymous No.18283300]

>>18283229
IMO the bigger issue with all of these description is the relation to the POV character. The second sentence does it better since it hints the character doesn't approve but it could be done earlier.

[Anonymous No.18283306]

>>18283271
ok sanderson if you say so

[Anonymous No.18283319]

>>18283235
Elementary/middle/high school. Some knowledge was lost to the passage of time while some were practically nailed into us. Other times it might be relearning via some simple google searches if I'm not search about grammar.

After HS ended I probably just digested whatever reading material it is and subconsciously learned from those experiences. I had a small stint in those roleplay forums between like 2007-2010, and again for a while from 2012 to 2014 before I lost interest for a while. For the most part, it's doing what I feel is right/googling, hardwired knowledge from school, and reading fictions on the side here and there.

[Anonymous No.18283341]

>>18283306
Pff no. That dudes married.
But really what would you rather do, homework or sit there and listen to Avril Lavigne and Evanesence all day?
Life is pain. Hair flick.

[Anonymous No.18283359]

>>18283271
>I was self taught and actually got D's in high school English
Based. Similar story here (well, got As in English but Cs in my "native" language) and never cared too much about following instructions in school. Though my teachers did usually note my writing skills.

[Anonymous No.18283372]

>>18283235
On 4chan. I dropped out of high school. This machine runs on talent alone :^)

[Anonymous No.18283388]

>>18283359
Yeah I was that guy that despite playing the role of loner was on good terms with all groups but I went home and played games and listened to music and helped the schools baseball team with their practice and stuff but didn't actually play.
So I skipped homework and got 100 on my tests. I just couldn't be bothered. Teachers were like hey. After high school grades don't matter. A diploma is a diploma. Work with us and we'll pass you.
So I did. Now I'm in my 30s writing books and doing work. Parents hated it though BUT I don't regret not going to college and falling in the debt pit.
Deathauthoranon is out carving his own path. (Suits are pretty cool though.)

[Anonymous No.18283443]

Trying out an idea. Thoughts?

>>18283388
Out of curiosity are you satisfied with your life choices? I know a lot of degrees are useless money pits but do your research and getting into a field like CS can be a great financial decision, specially if you do something like community college for your first two years.

[Anonymous No.18283479]

>>18283443
>heretical concoction
>endless cockpot of space
In paragraph 3 there's a really awkward usage of past tense. I don't know how to resolve it. For the first two paragraphs it sounds like you're actively recounting a story which has happened already or is in the process of happening, but by the third you make it sound like the distant past. This is one of the problems with first person narrative, you've gotta work out awkward kinks like this.

You spend too much time describing inconsequential things. The turns of phrase don't fit with the overall style.

[Anonymous No.18283480]

>>18283235
By reading and absorbing what other writers did at a young age. I don't mean that I was particularly literary as a kid (I read stuff like Harry Potter, Narnia, and Unfortunate Events). I could just absorb what other writers were doing and apply it to my own work. By the time I was in middle school, I was writing at the same level that students at my college now do. Won awards in middle school that convinced me to pursue writing further.

Like others in this thread are saying about themselves, I was a terrible student. I graduated bottom of my class in high school and dropped out of college after my first semester. Went back to college and applied effort instead of just trying to pass. Since then I've received straight A's, obtained employment as an English tutor, and won writing contests.

Basically, it's just something I was born with. I could copy writing techniques much easier than my peers. I had the talent and I honed it through extensive reading and practice.

[Anonymous No.18283487]

>>18283480
Fucking christ anon are you done jerking yourself off yet?

[Anonymous No.18283491]

>>18283479
Noted. It's unrevised so I'll work on it. I typically do third person omniscient so this is a newish way of writing for me, was thinking about just going back to that.
More importantly though is whether you're interested by the end of the first few paragraphs. A 1-10 rating would be nice.

[Anonymous No.18283493]

>>18283443
Honestly I feel like I need to do more. Like I'm turning 35 in a week and I still have like, 30 years til retirement.
I'm still a gothic loner type in a situation where I need to rely on other people.
I need to find someone to marry. I need to step out of the shadows and talk to traditional publishers. Need to talk to the Authors guild.
Thanks to my investments I could technically throw the sword down and just retire (It's not a ton of cash but it's enough) but if I start earning a lot of cash off my book series one day I wanna get into robotics and build whatever my imagination comes up with at the time.
I paint too on canvas but while other people like them I'm too shy to send them off to auction.
There's so much to do but I'm stuck in my shadows. I need to go back to Japan for personal reasons too which means I need to translate my books for an author visa.
The part that gets me is it's all doable. I'm working hard every day but it can be done. All of my goals can be accomplished.
It's a fight only I can take on...but damn. There's no rest for the wicked.

[Anonymous No.18283516]

>>18283487
What should I have said, that I had to work super hard to learn where to place a comma?

No. I was effectively born with that knowledge and am going to state that if someone asks me where I learned to write.

[Anonymous No.18283535]

>>18283487
If you aren't a self-absorbed twat, why would you even write? It takes quite some self-belief to demand money from people to read your thoughts.

[Anonymous No.18283557]

>>18283535
I actually really like this take on writing.

[Anonymous No.18283574]

>>18283535
Hey. If you got royalties every time some busybody talked about you behind your back you know you'd take it.
We're just more upfront.

[Anonymous No.18283581]

>>18283535
people spend time and money to pay attention to all sorts of nonsense, asking for a bit of theirs for your carefully chosen words is only a small ask really

[Anonymous No.18283585]

>>18283535
Money money money. You fags are so fucking boring.

[Anonymous No.18283591]

>>18283516
You should have had some fucking humility instead of typing out a droning enumeration on your strengths.

[Anonymous No.18283603]

>>18283491
I'm gonna give it a 1 because you're probably one of the blogposters above and it just wasn't that good.

[Anonymous No.18283627]

>>18283585
I probably dislike the capitalist aspect of it more than you, mate. In the end money is just a tool to allocate time thought. Is the idea of demanding people to spend their time to read your thoughts any less self-absorbed?
>>18283581
You still operate with the presumption that your carefully chosen words are better than the billions of stuff out there.

[Anonymous No.18283641]

>>18283627
>Is the idea of demanding people to spend their time to read your thoughts any less self-absorbed?
I'm pretty bored but I'm not bored enough to play logic games with you. I don't expect anyone to ever read anything I write. If they do, great. If they don't, I've lost nothing by engaging in something I genuinely enjoy.

[Anonymous No.18283647]

>>18283603
I don't blogpost but okay.

[Anonymous No.18283652]

>>18283647
In that case, congratulations. You get a perfect 10 out of 10.

[Anonymous No.18283723]

>>18283652
Writers gonna write anon.

[Anonymous No.18283863]

Is there a program other than Google Docs that will allow me to access my writing from multiple devices and share viewing links to it?

Google is rolling out a newspeak word filter

[Anonymous No.18283901]

>>18283863
I use Microsoft's One drive. Its free version is pretty text file friendly.
I back up my books on it once a week since 2016 I think and never have had an issue.

[Anonymous No.18283919]

>>18283901
What has microsoft's track record been like on the Orwell front?

[Anonymous No.18283978]

>>18283115
About the red-haired woman thing. That would have been cut immediately by my editor. I went back to that chapter and took out every 'red-haired'. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Anonymous No.18283981]

>>18283919
Well. Bill Gates ran it for a while if that's any indication. It's useful for what it is, but unless you're going pure Linux and getting into programming you're probably going to have to deal with Microsoft so I just go with it.

[Anonymous No.18284037]

>>18279931
>Any progress on your novels?
A few more chaps done and I am working through another lore document. Tomorrow I will be doing a "Habitat and Population" section and uploading the first draft of the next main chapper of Vol 4 then the weekend will be for editing an old chapper, tidying it up and posting it on FictionPress and Royal Road.

[Anonymous No.18284198]

>>18283283
Thanks for reading and commenting anon. Think you’re right, probably should make it “two travelers” at the start.

[Anonymous No.18284243]

>>18284037
What's your RR fiction, anon? I'll try and give it a read

[Anonymous No.18284273]

>>18283443
>Being fully honest
Sounds awkward. I think “If I’m being honest,” sounds a little cliched but works better than what you have now. I’m not sure if you’re in another country, but in America you aren’t supposed to use semi-colons to break up a sentence in the same way you’d use a Oxford comma.
The tequila analogy is also a little awkward. Mainly because you’re already describing the protagonist going to a bar and I didn’t know if you meant a real drink or a figurative one.
>I said, “Hello”
I’d just make it
>”Hello,” I said.
If you wanted to get a bit fancier, you could do something like;
>”Hello,” I said with an awkward smile.
I also think you should focus more on this existential dread the protagonist is going through. I assume he’ll talk it out with the guy at the bar, but if he’s on a suicide cruise it’s be interesting to hear more about what is sparking his second thoughts.
Sounds like a neat sci-fi story anon. Hope you go somewhere with it.
>>18283978
Kek, I was wondering if pre-edit just meant pre-proofreading. Either way, hope my other comments were useful in some way.

[Anonymous No.18284287]

>>18284243
Why it is the legendary smash hit that took the site by storm! 2.5 Stars Overalls says Royal Road Anon, "Most meh I have read in years, never before have I seen such meh!"- Completely Made Up Review

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/43060/dark-crow-rising
Link should work, I presume, never linked here before. General genres are Fantasy and Plot-Driven Harem but it does dabble into other genres per Vol, the first vol for example which is currently being fed on to the site I like to think has a notable horror element to it.

I hope you enjoy it, if not, I hope you can and are able to tell me why so I may improve. Thank you for your interest!

[Anonymous No.18284330]

>decide to play a game
>open up all the front page trending stories on Retard Road
>look and see if they formatted their dialogue tags properly
>only 1/7 did so
This could all have been avoided if they read one (1) book.

[Anonymous No.18284364]

>Want to write a tower climber book, 10 floors to the top
>target 70k words, quick paced action piece
>Figure that's about 25 chapters depending on average length
>The quickest I can cover one of the floors is one chapter
>This leaves 15 chapters for character interactions outside of the tower

I'm going to have to get really good at writing action quickly.

[Anonymous No.18284384]

>>18284364
Nobody wants to read a book that's over half action. Just make a video game.

[Anonymous No.18284388]

>>18284384
>10/25

You didn't do very well in math class, did you?

[Anonymous No.18284402]

>>18284388
Still too much.

[Anonymous No.18284443]

>>18284330
Why reading a book if you can use the time to shit out chapters for the algorithm?

[Anonymous No.18284487]

I'm writing a story about a guy that goes from a gun novice to /k/ as fuck after the world goes to shit when paranormal fuckers start appearing and most of the human population just dies. I didn't want to be really too flowery with the writing, I wanted to be as straightforward as possible while still kind of evoking some of the disgust and fear. Can anyone give some advice on this section so I can work on improving?
https://pastebin.com/QyiicwVK

[Anonymous No.18284554]

I've been struggling with drawing a cover for my book for the past two weeks. Decided to use that Canva thing you guys were talking about some time back.

[Anonymous No.18284568]

>>18284554
The main title looks like shit IMO.

The rest is fine but maybe needs more stuff to look like an actual plan. Also the thumbnail kinda looks like a bottle ... not even sure if it's a good or a bad thing.

[Anonymous No.18284581]

>>18284568
I should use a fancier font? Maybe something with a serif?
It's supposed to be a tower, so a bottle makes sense.
I don't want to add too much text to the cover. It's just meant to convey: 1. Fantasy story (tower, mention of orcs, trolls, and goblins) and 2. Comedic tone (exit plan? Maybe there's a prisoner to rescue?)

[Anonymous No.18284617]

>>18284487
>"Ameiru majtraktru! Ketbulu enan!" It returned in a gutteral tone,
Fix your dialogue tags, that's all the advice you need/deserve at this moment.

[Anonymous No.18284619]

>>18284581
>I should use a fancier font?
Yeah, the current just looks too clean and doesn't fit the tone of the rest.
>It's just meant to convey: 1. Fantasy story (tower, mention of orcs, trolls, and goblins)
Well, it does that. The comedic tone is obvious too. But the stuff picked is a bit too shallow and one more thing could probably give it even more personality.

Though even in the current state, I'd likely read the story description.

[Anonymous No.18284669]

>>18284619
Better?

[Anonymous No.18284707]

>>18284669
Mhmm, specially the Os are nice, maaaybe making the title a bit larger. Though the con from the details seems that the thumbnail looks a bit overloaded now. Perhaps making the text in the brackets smaller could do the trick?

[Anonymous No.18284717]

>>18284707
I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the feedback.

[Anonymous No.18284731]

>>18284669
Maybe make the title black too? To seperate it from the "plans."

[Anonymous No.18284753]

>>18284617
>Fix your dialogue tags
What does this mean exactly?

[Anonymous No.18284759]

You ever just write a chapter that's inexplicably 25% longer than all the others

[Anonymous No.18284764]

>>18284753
Never EVER use anything other than "said."

[Anonymous No.18284771]

>>18284764
Why?

[Anonymous No.18284784]

>>18284759
Anon, please, I wrote chapters that are 50% longer than the others. Some stuff just needs more words and can't be elegantly split into more chapters.

[Anonymous No.18284787]

>>18284771
Because that's the rule. Violate it, and people tell you to fix your dialogue tags. Then they all point at you and laugh for making such a newbie mistake. I bet you head hop, too, and tell instead of showing. You filthy, filthy amateur writer. HOW CAN YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT?!

[Anonymous No.18284789]

>>18284771
Because it's just distracting and looks amateurish while said gets ignored by the brain. Although obviously anon is exaggerating and something like whispered or yelled is fine from time to time. Hell, even more fancy stuff if it's used RARELY.

[Anonymous No.18284797]

>>18284771
not him but "said" is all you need, some authors also use some "asked" and other similar plain verbs as well, very rarely a "remarked" or "mouthed"
it just sounds more professional and goes by the "show don't tell" philosophy

[Anonymous No.18284815]

>>18284797
I see. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.18284817]

I use tags other than variations of say and you can't stop it.

[Anonymous No.18284822]

>>18284797
>"show don't tell" philosophy
How about we just cut out all description of everything altogether? That'll show them (and not tell)!

[Anonymous No.18284829]

>>18284822
sounds good

[Anonymous No.18284834]

>>18284817
Literally worse than Hitlerdrumpf.

[Anonymous No.18284862]

>>18284731
>>18284707

[Anonymous No.18284886]

>>18284797
>>18284789
>>18284787
Any other dos/don'ts of writing I should know about?

[Anonymous No.18284896]

>>18284886
Make sure to include a variety of ethnic, sexual, and gender identities and have sensitivity readers to ensure your representation isn't offensive to anyone ever.

[Anonymous No.18285455]

>>18284764
cucked
use other dialogue tags when you should, most of the time you shouldn't
read books instead of how to write books

[Anonymous No.18285468]

>>18284886
Be sure to give the reader time to catch their breath in between the exciting/interesting parts. After a bank robbery, for instance, it's important that we spend a bit of time with the characters as they sort of unwind. Driving home, trying to watch a movie, but can't really get interested, keep looking out through the blinds for the cops, try to have a snack. These parts are often referred to as "filler" and they can be incredibly tedious and dull to write but I assure you the reader will thank you.

[Anonymous No.18285589]

>>18284822
Funnily, people crying about "show don't tell" don't often actually even know what it means

[Anonymous No.18285607]

>>18285589
Show me what it means.

[Anonymous No.18285622]

Kentaro's death hit me weird. He was pretty much what I wanted to be since I was a teen. Consistent, talented, exttemely passionate, his works able to move so many people and he worked on his magnum opus for decades. And now he's dead. Not even because he didn't take care of himself, it was pretty much one of those random casee that can hardly be prevented. What do I make out of this? This is probably the only thing I am scared of, to become who I wabt to become, but die before being able to accomplish my work. I was never really scared of death until now.

[Anonymous No.18285629]

>>18285589
I've always taken it to mean that you describe what's happening, not simply state it.
>he dusted off his coat and put it on
Should be
>he removed an old coat from its hanger and shook it free of dust, then quickly slipped it over his shirt.
That said, writing rules don't matter of you can execute something well, regardless how unorthodox it may be.

[Anonymous No.18285658]

>>18285622
Use that to work on the things you care about. We all inevitably die. Within 100 years every single one of us posting in this thread will be dead. Most of us will die before that. I'll probably be dead within 50, myself. If you want to reach people, do the best you can to work on it. Ultimately it's all out of your control. A couple twists of fate in Kentaro's life and he could have died completely unknown. You cannot control renown or success. We just conflate the effort for the results because we are human beings and like to believe that we are actually causing the conditions of which we are just beneficiaries.

[Anonymous No.18285684]

>>18285629
No, this is just completely inaccurate. A better example:
>his coat was awesome
Telling
>his coat was covered in patches denoting counterculture membership and wore its aged leather like armor. he drew appreciative looks from passersby whenever he wore it
This is showing. You are to show the reader in which ways it is awesome rather than just telling them what to feel about it. Write it such that the only possible interpretation is that it's an awesome coat

[Anonymous No.18285689]

>>18285684
>>18285629
you both dont know how to write, stop talking

[Anonymous No.18285699]

>>18285658
>Within 100 years every single one of us posting in this thread will be dead. Most of us will die before that. I'll probably be dead within 50, myself.
good. can't wait for all you fuckers to die because i hate you

[Anonymous No.18285700]

>>18285689
These kinds of insults usually are more effective when you show people how they're wrong. Just for the record, since I'd imagine that even your complete shitpost is intended to have some kind of effect.

[Anonymous No.18285708]

>>18285699
>>18285689
Looks like someone's a little cranky! Umpteenth publisher/agent reject your manuscript?

[Anonymous No.18285714]

>>18285699
>all you fuckers
>he thinks he's exempt

[Anonymous No.18285722]

>>18285708
you're replying to two different anons, kek

>>18285714
actually i do not think i am exempt from death

[Anonymous No.18285726]

>>18285700
Sure, I guess. Show, don't tell can be enumerated in this sentence: "Let the viewers draw their own conclusions."
>>18285684 is mostly correct in theory but his sentence is fucking awful. Also, it's not a strict rule that only one conclusion can be drawn. It's just that the viewer should be able to interpret something themselves, which also helps make your book more mentally aesthetic since mental imagery is the way to achieve this.

>>18285708
I write as a hobby. I'm not stupid enough to make it a career, brah.

[Anonymous No.18285741]

>>18285726
>Also, it's not a strict rule that only one conclusion can be drawn
this was implied. from the author's point of view, you want someone to think that your counterculture coat is awesome because the author thinks it's awesome. so you do your best to show why you think it's awesome instead of telling the reader that it's awesome. i used the counterculture thing for a specific reason: to show that even if you like a thing, your reader might not like countercultural patches. but this still results in deeper, more nuanced writing than if you just tell a reader that it is awesome. literature is a dialogue with a reader, and the best of it is interactive in this way.

yeah, the sentence sucks. you got me.

[Anonymous No.18285743]

I posted a flash here once and someone told to me show not tell
It proceeded to start shit post battle of people explaining the difference between showing and telling and why my flash was either all showing or all telling
Half the people had no clue what the phrase meant

[Anonymous No.18285746]

>>18285629
>he dusted off his coat and put it on
What you thought was telling is actually showing. Your correction doesn't change the nature of the sentence, just makes it unnecessarily long-winded.

>>18285684
>This is showing
No, you're telling, in the worst way possible. The whole point of the principle is to spare people from boring, meandering walls of text like that and make things more dynamic.

[Anonymous No.18285761]

>>18285741
except sometimes a point is fucking boring and to convey it with complexity is detractive to the experience of reading
>bro just always have the densest prose possible
dumb. sometimes you can just say the coat is an expensive, well cared for coat and move on
giving priority to moment to moment prose over the overall experience and flow is probably the biggest problems for new pseud writers

[Anonymous No.18285775]

>>18285746
>The whole point of the principle is to spare people from boring, meandering walls of text
what? the point is to make writing better. it's not to spare people from your personal aesthetic dislikes. the actual point is to avoid exposition for exposition's sake. if you want something to come across to a reader, show them how that thing works in context rather than from an enumeration of its traits and characteristics. the coat example presupposes the importance of that coat to the implied story of which it is a part. again, i am not defending the content of the sentence, i am using it as a metastructure to illustrate a point.
>>18285761
see above. i'm not saying every coat needs to be wearing its leather like armor. in the story of which that fragment is an implied component, you should assume that for some reason it's really important to the story that readers get a good idea for how awesome the coat is.

you guys are really difficult sometimes.

[Anonymous No.18285785]

>>18285775
>the point is to make writing better
By making it concise and dynamic, which 99% of readers agrees are characteristics of good writing.

[Anonymous No.18285789]

>>18285785
>>18285785
of all the things to address, that's what you choose.

[Anonymous No.18285800]

>>18285789
Because it's the only thing that matters. Don't get hung up on how to use tools, think about WHY they are used. To make writing more effective and interesting, so readers won't just drop you

[Anonymous No.18285813]

>>18285775
dude stop defending yourself they're right and you're wrong

[Anonymous No.18285818]

>>18285800
your stupid and you stink
>the justification for any labor is the profit gained from it
sniff my farts
a communication based medium like literature is primarily intended to communicate

[Anonymous No.18285820]

>>18285800
feel free to do your own thing. if you want to be the next dean koontz, it's no skin off my ass. but do me a favor and don't misunderstand basic tenets of writing and twist them to be subservient to your personal aesthetic tastes. at least don't do it in my vicinity.

[Anonymous No.18285838]

>>18285658
Dunno man. A lot of people that are alive today will live to see the end of aging, whivh will make events like this hit even harder.

Ultimately I consider him successful due to his accomplishments in art, not necessarily his fame. It's incredible how many people legitimately were touched by his passion, not just how many people knew him.

I just wish we hadn't lost such a talented person. The world needs more people like him.

[Anonymous No.18285850]

>>18285838
We still likely have 200 years to go until we stop aging since nobody is really researching it, sadly, and other bio technologies need to be developed first.

[Anonymous No.18285870]

>>18285850
Telomere rejuvenescence is already a thing. That alone will prevent several of the effects of aging. The only thing lacking is a industrious method of producing stem cells from an adult, once we get that it's just a matter of dealing with cancer.

Aging isn't one single thing, it's several small little issues that compound together, usually at the same time, mostly kickstarted by the two issues I cited above, and scientists ARE researching it intensely.

[Anonymous No.18285891]

>>18285818
>>18285820
>noooo nobody may read my story and think it makes sense
this is why you suck, /wg/

[Anonymous No.18285990]

I'm reading over my book for the last time before self-publishing. I've read it over a bunch of times already and I've had others read it too, yet I'm still encountering stupid mistakes and typos.

[Anonymous No.18286024]

>>18285990
When you read a story imagination takes over and shows you the immersive vision. So, if it happens to so many people, maybe it's just a good story.

[Anonymous No.18286128]

>>18285689
Ok, I'll accept that my example was bad. I was just giving my interpretation of the saying. Is it my writing which is bad or was my interpretation wrong also? Like >>18285700 said, an example would ve great.

[Anonymous No.18286135]

>>18285726
"Let the viewers draw their own conclusions."
Isn't that doing neither. I'm all for ambiguity in the right places, but sometimes you need to describe what a character is doing. Honestly? Both showing or tell works respectively.

[Anonymous No.18286167]

>>18285746
>What you thought was telling is actually showing
Sorry but what? Telling a reader that a someone is doing something isn't showing them by describing what's happening.

[Anonymous No.18286200]

>>18285891
do you give up on everything that doesn't make immediate and complete sense? i really don't understand what people like you are even reading, or if you read at all. there is categorically nothing more boring to me than a work where my hand is held the entire way through, making sure i don't miss anything at all. might as well cup my balls while i piss while you're at it, if that's your attitude. the most rewarding experiences i have as a reader are where i make connections between things that aren't obvious or explicit. overly obvious writing to me is like explaining a joke, which obviously completely kills the humor. it strikes me as the singular most egregious offense against the idea that you should show rather than tell. it cheapens the whole thing when the author comes out and just tells me what his point is, like those droves of short stories composed of [PREFERRED DEMOGRAPHIC] being [AFFECTED NEGATIVELY] by [THE OTHER GUY'S POLITICS], because [HERE'S WHY YOU SHOULD AGREE WITH ME]. it's boring and artless. clarity and concision are functions of problems with commensurate solutions; material with prior conditions and determinate causality. that's not what art is about any more than it's what being human is about.

[Anonymous No.18286271]

>>18284862
Works for me.

[Anonymous No.18286294]

>>18286167
If you remove objectivity from description it's the same as telling ie: the sad house.

[Anonymous No.18286594]

>>18286200
tl;dr

[Anonymous No.18286626]

>>18286167
If you want to get really anal, everything written is "telling". But that's not what the advice is about.
>He put on his coat.
"Showing them by describing what's happening".
>His coat was covered in patches denoting counterculture membership and wore its aged leather like armor.
Telling, explaining things that can't be discerned by just looking.

[Anonymous No.18286647]

>>18286626

[Anonymous No.18286666]

>>18286647
Maybe one day you will understand

[Anonymous No.18286685]

>>18286666
no, you're the one who has no fucking clue what the difference is. if we were to follow your definition of "show, don't tell" entire stories would be written like this
>he put the coat on and walked down the street
>people looked at him and thought his coat was cool
>he saw a cute girl
>twenty lines of single-sentence dialogue
>they kissed and the kissing was great
>he got an erection
>he cummed
>she didn't

[Anonymous No.18286692]

>>18286685
>he put the coat on and walked down the street
telling
>people looked at him and thought his coat was cool
broke pov
>he saw a cute girl
telling
>twenty lines of single-sentence dialogue
if you have more than three sentences in a row it is no longer dialogue
>the kissing was great
telling
>he got an erection
>he cummed
>she didn't
also telling
My conclusion is that you don't know how to show.

[Anonymous No.18286704]

>>18286692
>he put the coat on and walked down the street
>he cummed
Dis are show tho.

[Anonymous No.18286710]

>>18286704
No, they're not.

[Anonymous No.18286717]

>>18286710
Yes they are

[Anonymous No.18286720]

>>18286692
let me quote your post so you can see my point, because your nose is stuffed entirely up your own ass:
>Telling, explaining things that can't be discerned by just looking.
this is your metric for what telling is. please explain to me how, by this specific metric, the following are not the opposite of telling:
>he put the coat on
>he walked down the street
>he got an erection, cummed, she didnt etc
these are all things that can be discerned "by looking." you can observe someone putting on a coat. you can observe an erection, an ejaculation, your movements down the street. yet for some reason to your shitposting brain, these exact structures are showing when it suits you, telling when it doesn't.

[Anonymous No.18286723]

>>18286685
I hope you're only pretending to be retarded.

[Anonymous No.18286726]

>>18286717
Show me how it feels to cum in a girl, or provide evidence that you cummed in her.

[Anonymous No.18286733]

>>18286720
Calm down and realize you're talking to more than just one anon.

[Anonymous No.18286734]

Stop derailing the fucking thread with this autistic bitchfit. Fucking hell. Can’t you fucking retards drop it.

[Anonymous No.18286740]

>>18286734
People discussing writing in a writing general? Not on my watch!

[Anonymous No.18286743]

>>18286734
no, because this is an important distinction to make. people here have widely disparate views on what the essence of show vs. tell is and it's something which is fundamental to not just creative writing but writing in general.

[Anonymous No.18286754]

>>18286743
It’s fucking subjective. Everyone has their own interpretation of show vs tell. It’s a worthless to discuss.

[Anonymous No.18286759]

rate my bullshit. be mean <3

aliens, biscuits
---
"How can you taste anything if you can't smell?"

I was busy in the kitchen making biscuits.

"I don't know, Patrice, you tell me."

She didn't say. I could see the heat waves off the oven. It was 11:32 on a Sunday. Long night last night.

Our horrible dog kept running around and licking my legs. I put it in the backyard and threw a stick. The dog jumped and missed.

Patrice was inside eating butter out of the container with a spoon. I went into the day room and looked out the window. The clouds looked weird. I could see the dust in the air. And the window broke.

It was so loud and bright I forgot about the coffee table until it shattered. The sirens started as I hit the floor. Apparently we were prepared. I wasn't.

I thought it was funny that UFO's looked exactly like in cartoons. Flying saucers!

Patrice was out back and the dog launched a stick up in the air with its mouth. She jumped and caught it. "What the fuck?" I ran upstairs and grabbed the shotgun. If aliens come, I'll show up.

There was a knocking on the door. I was all sweaty. The handle turned. "Fuck, I forgot to lock the door." A tall green man stood there. He had two little gray guys behind him. "Ayy, lmao." They just stood there.

I unloaded two shells and they just stood there. "Ayy, lmao." I slipped and fell back to the kitchen. They came inside. Outside through the glass door I saw Patrice and the dog. They were dancing or something. I grabbed a knife and eyed the stairs.

The aliens came into the kitchen. They opened the oven. One of the little gray guys tried to pick up the baking sheet and burnt his hand. "Ayy, lmao!" it cried out in pain. The other gray guy squirted some foam on the first one's hand. "Ayy, lmao," they said as they hugged each other. The green guy looked at me.

I put on the oven mitts. I took the biscuits out. They gathered around. The green guy placed a device over his mouth and spoke: "How can you taste anything if you can't smell?"

[Anonymous No.18286764]

>>18286754
>It’s fucking subjective
Goes to show you don't understand the subject. We're talking about a strictly mechanical matter, not sorcery here.

[Anonymous No.18286773]

>>18286740
This is what you call a discussion about writing? The state of /wg/.

[Anonymous No.18286774]

>>18286764
I don’t give a shit what you’re talking about. It’s subjective and everyone will tell the same with their examples. Now stop fucking derailing the thread already.

[Anonymous No.18286777]

>>18286734
Show don't tell is probably the most important thing about writing sans the story/characters.
>>18286726
There is no point to over-explain things. You show it by "I cummed in a girl", anything more is only necessary to mention if it was the characters first time or if stuff felt weird.

[Anonymous No.18286778]

>>18286773
The usual state is not discussing writing at all. Which makes it an off-topic thread that should be banned.

[Anonymous No.18286780]

rate my bullshit. be mean <3

aliens, biscuits
---
"How can you taste anything if you can't smell?"

I was busy in the kitchen making biscuits.

"I don't know, Patrice, you tell me."

She didn't say. I could see the heat waves off the oven. It was 11:32 on a Sunday. Long night last night.

Our horrible dog kept running around and licking my legs. I put it in the backyard and threw a stick. The dog jumped and missed.

Patrice was inside eating butter out of the container with a spoon. I went into the day room and looked out the window. The clouds looked weird. I could see dust in the air. And the window broke.

It was so loud and bright I forgot about the coffee table until it shattered. The sirens started as I hit the floor. Apparently we were prepared. I wasn't.

I thought it was funny that UFO's looked exactly like in cartoons. Flying saucers!

Patrice was out back and the dog launched a stick up in the air with its mouth. She jumped and caught it. "What the fuck?" I ran upstairs and grabbed the shotgun. If aliens come, I'll show up.

There was a knocking on the door. I was all sweaty. The handle turned. "Fuck, I forgot to lock the door." A tall green man stood there. He had two little gray guys behind him. "Ayy, lmao." They just stood there.

I unloaded two shells and they just stood there. "Ayy, lmao." I slipped and fell back to the kitchen. They came inside. Outside through the glass door I saw Patrice and the dog. They were dancing or something. I grabbed a knife and eyed the stairs.

The aliens came into the kitchen. They opened the oven. One of the little gray guys tried to pick up the baking sheet and burnt his hand. "Ayy, lmao!" it cried out in pain. The other gray guy squirted some foam on the first one's hand. "Ayy, lmao," they said as they hugged each other. The green guy looked at me.

I put on the oven mitts. I took the biscuits out. They gathered around. The green guy placed a device over his mouth and spoke: "How can you taste anything if you can't smell?"

[Anonymous No.18286782]

This is great, you know, having a thread be derailed.

[Anonymous No.18286794]

>>18286777
>You show it by "I cummed in a girl"
that's telling
describe the act of cumming in a girl
if you think the only way to do that is by over-explaining, then you don't know what showing is and i don't think you ever will. explaining is a form of telling, after all.

[Anonymous No.18286795]

>>18286774
>It’s subjective
You're simply wrong about this and can't even produce a single argument otherwise without going into incoherent rage and insults. Why do you think such advice was ever given if it's "just do whatever you want, it's subjective lol"

[Anonymous No.18286799]

>>18286782
So you'll flood the thread with spam because you feel intellectually overwhelmed?

[Anonymous No.18286804]

>>18286799
No, because this thread is already derailed. Why try to save a sinking ship.

[Anonymous No.18286833]

>>18286804
It's saved for good when you kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.18286857]

telling is an insufficient lack of in-work detail viz. the scene being portrayed. it's a shortcut to getting a reader to have the impression you want them to have. sometimes this is okay, sometimes it's not. say you have a big fantasy story. your hobbits travel to the lake where there's a dragon who's sitting on a pile of dildos. you have a billion pages of walking and fighting and homoeroticism and when you get to the end you go:
>they fought the dragon hard. he put up a good fight but it was really difficult. afterwards the hobbits fucked and it was awesome.
this is telling in a dramatically exaggerated fashion. it is the skimming over of relevant detail in favor of short descriptions which would give your scene more immediacy ergo impact. this is an example of where telling was bad. showing would be going deeply into the scene (which, in this case warrants it narratively) and giving a sense for how great the hobbit buttsex was and how hard they fought the gay dragon to fuck each other in the ass. without this the scene has no impact. it's just a gay fan fiction.

you wouldn't want to explicitly show the way your characters walk to the store to buy a carton of milk. unless the entire purpose of your story is to walk to the store and buy milk, the reader can probably do with a bit of authorial abstraction because if he's walking to the store to get some milk before he goes out and puts out a forest fire all with the one carton of milk, it's just a transient phase in the story that doesn't really matter. for this purpose, any two ways of SIMPLY saying "he went to the store and bought some milk" are roughly interchangeable.

some people here are trying to paint it in a dichotomy, as if you should always show or always tell. you should lean towards the one which makes more sense for each arbitrary point in your story rather than adhering strictly to doctrine. a doctrinal writer is a bad writer, although he may make a commercially successful one. it has to do with concision per >>18285785 less due to the consensus of some shadowy cabal of the "99% of readers" and their tenuous agreement on the CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD WRITING, but because concision is to be modulated with purpose and reason, according to need. it's not some monolithic, cosmic good by which you can judge good writing. if people have hard dicks for concision in and of itself, it's because they are drowning, and the pretense of an objective metric seems to throw them a lifeline.

[Anonymous No.18286866]

>>18286857
So you’re just going to keep on derailing it.

[Anonymous No.18286870]

>>18286866
yeah, i'm derailing the writing thread with a discussion on writing. okay retard.

[Anonymous No.18286874]

>>18286870
An autistic bitchfit isn’t discussions.

[Anonymous No.18287096]

>>18286778
That just isn't true.

[Anonymous No.18287107]

So, nobody has good resources or advice for second person then?

[Anonymous No.18287190]

>>18286780
I sent this to a girl I was talking to and she stopped talking to me lol. Praise be

[Anonymous No.18287450]

>>18286874
But there seems to be multiple people involved in the discussion/bitchfit. Are they all autistic? What’s the distinction between a discussion and a bitchfit, anyway?
Show me the distinction, don’t tell me the distinction.

[Anonymous No.18287464]

>>18286720
I'm not involved but I've been following the discourse. I think that you're completely right.

[Anonymous No.18287470]

This showing vs telling dialogue is such bullshit, cut it out anons.

[Anonymous No.18287516]

Guys I just had a crazy fucking cool idea from this awful nightmare I just had.
>having an awesome dream where my mom and I have a fight that turns into a big heart to heart where we really bond
>we decide to finish up our drive(?) at this reptile mansion together and look at some cool lizards
>I bump into a little bell thing and glance at it as it rings
>plackard says "Thank you for all the enjoyment. Prepare for the Harvest Moon Feast"
>freak out and start yelling at mom to get the fuck out
>she opens the front door; entire mansion has been teleported from surburban area to a steamy, waterbogged swamp
>hear an awful howling which I KNOW means vampires
>two sickly people come around the corner into the room in a trance with their mouths wide open
Basically the first half of the book would be an exploratory narrative between a neglectful mother too prideful to admit she made mistakes and a son too withdrawn to reach out to make amends. They would start to be close again by the time the second half starts, at which point they have to survive the Harvest moon feast (probably a night?) where they bridge the gap between them and walk out alive and closer together. It's a bonding book. I think it sounds fucking fun as hell to write if not challenging because I have a really good relationship with my mom. What do you guys think?

[Anonymous No.18287567]

>>18286200
agree and based

[Anonymous No.18287580]

>>18287470
show don't tell! >:(

[Anonymous No.18287586]

>>18287450
>Show me the distinction, don’t tell me the distinction.
yeah this is getting to the heart of what bugs me so much about the whole "show, don't tell" thing. it's not just a pattern you see in creative writing, it's a common pattern to all uses of language. once you see it you can't unsee it
>trust me bro... you're an idiot
>trust me bro... you're wrong
>trust me bro... the coat is awesome
>trust me bro... the ballroom is opulent and splendorous
>trust me bro... i know what i'm talking about

[Anonymous No.18287638]

>>18287516
But where is the fucking?

[Anonymous No.18287831]

>>18285629
The content of these two sentences is exactly the same. Literally every word in the second sentence is just a longer synonym for the words in the first sentence. It's really hard to pin down what it means to "show and not tell", but I've taken it to mean you depict the actions of your characters through sensory descriptions, but without filter words.
Your sentence doesn't have any filter words, but I'd argue it's not an action worthy of extreme detail, unless there was some significance to the fact that the coat was covered in dust. Hence why everyone's attempt to "show it" fell flat, because it's somewhat pretentious to lavish such effort on such a minor act.

A good example of telling would be:
>He ran as fast as he could, terrified that the raptor would catch him at any second.
Showing would be:
>It had been too long since he'd been in an all-out sprint. His lungs burned, he felt every footfall with his entire body, his joints where grinding and his flesh jiggled loosely, as if it were a rope of sausages dangling from his skeleton. Behind him the raptor cooed and panted, his talons barely making noise as they tapped along the dusty ground. At first he could only hear the raptor's breath, puffing slightly with the exertion, but nowhere near as strained as his own frantic, wheezing gasps for air. And then he could feel it, the wet and heavy bursts of hateful breath rolling across his neck in thick waves of acrid stench. Why wasn't he dead already? What was the raptor waiting for? Any moment now his knees would buckle, his calf would cramp up, or he would stumble over a rock or root, and it would all be over. He was tempted just to throw himself down on the ground and let it happen.

[Anonymous No.18288068]

I wanna try horror, it could be fun.

[Anonymous No.18288069]

>>18282064
be more specific. you got the list of things you want to describe but you havent described them.

[Anonymous No.18288091]

>>18287831
>Showing would be:
>His lungs burned, he felt every footfall with his entire body. Behind him the raptor cooed and panted.
FTFY.

[Anonymous No.18288118]

Most recent progress on my book:

plz no bully

--

A moment later there was a shout of victory from the right, where our first eager chargers had rushed the enemy. There our line began to push forward, slowly at first and then more and more quickly; a narrow span first, and then wider and wider. Beyond, as I strained to see over the forest of spears, I saw the barbarians begin to flee.
My heart leapt into my throat and I turned to the officers of the javelin-men and the bow-men who stood nearby. “Go now,” I said, “Forward, and leave none alive.” With sharp calls of command each echoed the order to each, and they began to surge forward, swift and fleet of foot. I raised my spear above my head and gave the signal to the horsemen who gave their own shout of joy as they put spurs to mounts and swept around the flanks of the disintegrating battle line.
Demodes moved our chariot forward, slowly catching up to our shield-men who now, flagging after their run across the field, the violence of the close struggle, and the short chase after the breaking of the barbarians, were leaving the final pursuit of the enemy to their more lightly-armed brethren.
“The day is won,” one of the strategists said as he pulled up to me in his own chariot, and laughed the laugh of one who is relieved of a burden that has oppressed his very spirit.
“So it seems,” I answered, and dismounted from the chariot to walk forward, picking my way among the dead and wounded, both barbarian and citizen alike. In the distance I could hear the cries of the fleeing barbarians, as our lightly armed soldiers dealt nimble death among them.
My heart, I think, knew, and so it sunk no lower when I saw the shield of the Erinys laying upon the bloody grass. Despite myself I looked up and called his name as I hastened my steps towards a cluster of men. Among them I saw Thrasyllus, who turned when he heard my call, his face blanched and pale: the slash of a sword had laid open his side, and he clutched at it to try to staunch the flow of blood. I broke into a run toward him, pushing past him when he tried to stop me. There, in the center of the cluster, lay my child, face up beneath the sun, as a man pulled from his chest the iron-headed spear which had ended his brief life.
“He fought like a lion, Androkles,” Thrasyllus said as he stood beside me, catching me as I sank to my knees in wordless grief. “They melted before him like snow before the sun. No man could doubt his courage.”
And so died my son Nicias, the architect of our victory, on the day of his greatest triumph.
For what more glorious death could a man hope for the eldest of his children?

[Anonymous No.18288140]

Looking at these threads, I realized good writing is literally 99% prose. If you're prose is good, people will take you seriously no matter what bullshit you write.

[Anonymous No.18288161]

>>18288140
No, they will praise you for your good writing but nobody will actually read a page.

[Anonymous No.18288165]

>>18283535
no i just write because there's certain stories i cant find.

[Anonymous No.18288171]

>>18283535
Because the exact stories I want to read do not exist yet.

[Anonymous No.18288221]

>>18288118
>A moment later there was a shout of victory from the right (...) My heart leapt into my throat and I turned to the officers of the javelin-men and the bow-men who stood nearby.
I think "from the right" and "who stood nearby" and so on are ... not vague, but rather ... too abstract. You should write something that shows, instead, how the narrator is on the scene: standing in the mud with the others, on the sloping hill, with the sun glaring in his face. I'm exaggerating a little, but your narrator could almost stand on a wooden lookout tower and shout his commands down to his men - his location is a little bit unclear to me.

[Anonymous No.18288245]

>>18288221
The quotes I picked are only symptomatic. They are, in themselves, not the problem, I think. I just feel like the narrator could be grounded in the scene more effectively.

[Anonymous No.18288295]

>>18288245
Thanks for looking it over. This is the last page of the chapter, so there has been some previous set up which might address your concerns.

I think it is definitely worth keeping him solidly positioned, though, so I appreciate the insight.

[Anonymous No.18288303]

>considering putting a story on RR
>decide to check out the community a bit to see just how shit it is
>find this https://www.royalroad.com/forums/thread/109671?page=1
>instantly lose all desire to post there due to the faggotry I'm witnessing from "top" users
So is Wattpad any good?

[Anonymous No.18288316]

>>18288303
why not both?

[Anonymous No.18288333]

>>18288316
I really don't want anything I write associated with the kind of place that spawns these idiots, not to mention that my story isn't LitRPG trash or Xianxia/Wuxia nonsense so I'm not even sure it would fit in now that I think more about it.

[Anonymous No.18288336]

>>18288303
If you care at all about the type of people your story will have to share a space with, your only option is trad publishing.

[Anonymous No.18288349]

>>18288336
Fug

[Anonymous No.18288377]

>>18287638
I can add the son fucking one of the vampires

[Anonymous No.18288412]

>>18288377
He meant your mom. Where's the fucking?

[Anonymous No.18288423]

>>18288412
I don't have a mental illness so there's no fucking

[Anonymous No.18288427]

>>18288423
Yikes bro! No need to get so defensive! Unless...?

[Anonymous No.18288441]

>>18288303
Seems like a fair complaint actually. Why would you let anons rate content?

[Anonymous No.18288478]

>>18288441
because you want a more honest assessment from people who don't need to worry about you targeting them back for rating with a name connectable to them? you know, similar to the reason we post on 4chan?

[Anonymous No.18288485]

>>18288441
>FUCKING 0.5 STAR RATINGS ARE MURDER AND ARE L I T E R A L L Y ATTACKING ME
>5 star ratings? Why would I have a problem with those?
Pic related, author of one of the post popular stories on the site crying like a bitch and threatening to delete his story because mean old anon gave him a 0.5 and knocked his rating down by half a percent or something.
Also to answer your question: Yes assuming that the traffic was high enough, which on RR it certainly is.

[Anonymous No.18288505]

>>18288485
>other people can say meaner things about your writing than you can say about it
literally never gonna make it. when i get critique with personal attacks attached, it slides off me like water because i can target my own weak spots way more effectively than a stranger ever could.

[Anonymous No.18288535]

>>18288505
I have, no joke, thrown out at least four entire novel's worth of work because I judged it to be trash not worth continuing when I looked back at it. These web-serial fags shit out unedited chapters every week and get upset when people don't like it. It's comical, or it would be if it weren't so pathetic. The guy in the screenshot is also monetizing his story with a patreon making, no exaggeration, $13299/month and is crying about a couple of negative reviews.
I would never want to share a site with these retards.

[Anonymous No.18288553]

>>18288478
Why would I assume it's more honest and not just shitposting or attempts to go for competition? The stuff 4chains is good for and the stuff a novel publishing site needs aren't too similar either way.

Anon reviews make sense but just star ratings without anything else are pretty much worthless even if they aren't anon but can have negatives due the way the site works from what I got.
>>18288485
>dat humble brag when the person shittalks other people in the middle of the rant
But their reasons being dumb and them reacting overly dramatic still doesn't quite affect the main point.

[Anonymous No.18288568]

>>18288553
On the internet, on any site which does not require real world ID, all reviews are anonymous if you want them to be. Full stop. Your point is a non-point and not based in any semblance of reality.

[Anonymous No.18288590]

>>18288485
lmao

Maybe I should create an account just to give randoms 0.5 stars.

[Anonymous No.18288604]

>>18288590
After his last rant in another thread he posted again to say he got 2 more 0.5 star anon reviews and whined about it. He really, really wants you to do it anon.

[Anonymous No.18288619]

>>18288553
why would you assume a positive rating/review is more honest instead of currying favor or cultivating relationships? the only way you can ever tell what someone is actually thinking is when they need nothing from you. it's the same way you can gauge a person's character by how they treat the help.
>>18288553
some people don't have mentalities forged in cesspools of hate and depravity. i pity them.

[Anonymous No.18288708]

>>18288140
It's not true for me anyway, it's pretty easy to tell when someone defaults to purple prose to overcompensate for a boring story

[Anonymous No.18288709]

>>18288619
>why would you assume a positive rating/review is more honest instead of currying favor or cultivating relationships?
I don't. A positive rating is as meaningless. A review on the other hand, even if it's aimed to kiss ass, will at least provide some things to look at and arguments from a person aka. something to work with. And I'd say negative anon REVIEWS that actually attempt to justify their view are as good.

For me it's less about anon/non anon and more about rating vs actual reviews. Letting anon spam negative ratings just messes with the entire system. If anon want to write a review over how shitty your work is? Sure, that'd be cool.

[Anonymous No.18288730]

>>18288485
I was really amazed by that thread. How do those people dare to post anything, or even open their internet browser, if they're this fucking fragile? One (1) poor anonymous rating takes away their will to live? Holy hell kids these days

[Anonymous No.18288748]

>>18288709
There is no way to guarantee the accuracy or usefulness of the content of a review through anything but manual review of the reviews, and even that is not fully accurate. You're complaining about a problem with no existing solution, mistakenly believing that it's a different problem because of how it's expressing itself.

[Anonymous No.18288757]

>>18288535
>I would never want to share a site with these retards.
The guy's literally insane, but what do you care? It's not some rugby team where everybody has to wear the same shirt. Just do your own thing and ignore idiots.

[Anonymous No.18288773]

>>18288757
As I've dug deeper I've just found more and more of this typical baizuo retardation bullshit. I'd actually say that the forums on the site are more cancerous than reddit, and that's quite a high bar.

[Anonymous No.18288786]

>>18288748
>You're complaining about a problem with no existing solution
Getting rid of ratings without actual reviews. Then one can always double check whether the reviews are just spammers, ass kissers or have legitimate opinions.

[Anonymous No.18288789]

>>18288709
On a perfect platform, there would be no ratings or rankings, but just written reviews. Then readers would have to try to stimulate their peanuts, read, and try to understand what they read, instead of just HURR HE HAS THIS MANY COLORFUL STARS WOWZIE

[Anonymous No.18288802]

>>18288773
Barely like 1% of the users even post in the forums. They're pretty dead most of the time.

[Anonymous No.18288806]

>>18288786
>actual reviews
Quantify this, then realize the problem

[Anonymous No.18288819]

>>18288757
This is what I do, I don't even know what my story is rated. I get comments more often these days and that's good enough for me. Just go on goodreads and check what some of your favorite books are rated if you want to see just how meaningless rating accumulations are.

[Anonymous No.18288895]

>>18288535
>$13299
I hope there's suppose to be a period in between the 3 and 2...

[Anonymous No.18288897]

>>18288806
The rules can be always adjusted but for a start something like "500 words min" and "mentioning stuff actually in the book" would do wonders to raise the bar. The main goal is getting rid of low effort trolls or pushing, not suddenly make everyone write top-tier reviews. Even more professional critics suck at it.
>>18288789
Ratings and rankings are useful for content to be pushed though. Though guess amounts of review can replace ratings.

[Anonymous No.18288902]

>>18288303
Its impossible to gain traction/views on wattpad without using advanced levels of judaism. that is the one thing rr has going for it

[Anonymous No.18288909]

This is a self report because there's a rogue janitor in /fng/ in /vg/.

He's allowing his friend to ruin the threads with constant shitposting and spam by taking them out of the report queue and making sure no mods see it, he's also not giving out bans even if I directly call him a gigantic niggerfaggot because he knows it's going to require a mod to approve it which will lead to a mod seeing all the other shit and he'll be in hot water. I'm posting outside of that board now because it seems like another staff member on another board needs to take care of it. Thanks.

The posts you need to look at is mostly just these two since one of them quotes a lot of the other ones. (just this thread, he's been doing it for weeks)

>>>/vg/336383108
>>>/vg/336383964

Take care of this fucking faggot already. He had to give up his ID and a bunch of other bullshit to prevent this kind of shit from happening, take care of it.

[Anonymous No.18288930]

>>18288535
>with a patreon making, no exaggeration, $13299/month
That must be a damn good story.

[Anonymous No.18288931]

>>18288909
Nobody cares not /wg/ fuck off.

[Anonymous No.18288937]

>>18288931
shut up bitch

[Anonymous No.18288946]

>>18288895
Nope
https://www.patreon.com/Zogarth
My currency isn't USD so I converted, but it should be about the same.
>>18288897
>500 words min
I use a markov chain generator or GPT2 to fill the minimum and give you 0.5 stars. This review stays up for weeks because it looks semi-legit.
>mentioning stuff actually in the book
I rant about something and give you 0.5 stars even if it doesn't make sense.
There is no reasonable solution to that issue that doesn't involve manual human review at some point. Even companies like Google and Facebook hire indians by the tens of thousands to review content because they can't figure out how to do it automatically to that degree of sophistication.
The actual solution is to tell the authors to grow a spine and to implement a bell curve system for the ratings to normalize them a bit.
>>18288902
Good to know.
>>18288930
It's fairly average for web-serials that aren't total trash.

[Anonymous No.18288989]

>>18288946
Kek he makes that much and still cries like a faggot about getting .5 stars?

[Anonymous No.18288996]

>>18288989
Right? I'm a fucking software engineer and I don't make that much. I would kill to be in his position.

[Anonymous No.18289025]

>>18288946
>This review stays up for weeks because it looks semi-legit.
Which is preferable than it staying forever if the account is old enough. And any human reading the shit could see it's bullshit. An option to hide bullshit by votes could take care of it while the mods are busy but I have no clue whether the RR community is mature enough to wield the power. Works great on ars forums for example.
>There is no reasonable solution to that issue that doesn't involve manual human review at some point.
Of course but with some extra hurdles for the shitposters, the manual reviewer will have an easier time doing their job. And the reader will have an easier time finding out whether the work is worth it for them or not. Besides, social media companies aren't interested in getting rid of shit too fast, outrage and spam is good for their business model until there are alternatives without these.
>The actual solution is to tell the authors to grow a spine
It does nothing about the impact of negative reviews on sites like RR. Just like on online market places, negative reviews are serious business and go beyond hurt feelz.

[Anonymous No.18289033]

>>18283863
Joplin. Free, open-source, accessible across all popular platforms, and you can choose which service to use for cloud storage.

[Anonymous No.18289054]

>>18289025
>Which is preferable than it staying forever if the account is old enough
Except I can make more easily. You're deliberately ignoring the issues here and trying to worm your way around the fact that the systems you're proposing are only marginally more resistant to abuse than the existing ones.
>Of course but with some extra hurdles for the shitposters, the manual reviewer will have an easier time doing their job
Do you know just how many things they'd have to review, and how much it would cost to get them done quickly? No, you clearly don't. Sites like RR don't have the budget for that shit.
No system you can create that is both affordable and expedient can tackle both of these issues without relying on hypothetical AI processing to do the work of humans but cheaper and faster. That AI is hypothetical because even the best ones today can't do it properly, and still cost a lot.

[Anonymous No.18289058]

>>18288989
Crying about it gives more attention which balances out the lack of views from lowered rating. Doubt anyone making 13k with some shit like this is totally clueless about what they are doing. For fucks sake, the person who cried about the crying probably introduced the fag to 50+ new people.

[Anonymous No.18289067]

>>18283863
>Google is rolling out a newspeak word filter
Got some deets? What, are they scanning documents for words like faggot and nigger and then sending you a nastygram for wrongthink?

[Anonymous No.18289117]

>>18289054
>Except I can make more easily.
Nothing additional restrictions couldn't slow down. And sure, a sufficiently motivated sperg would still push through but making it too much work for normal users would still minimize the initial problem.
>Do you know just how many things they'd have to review, and how much it would cost to get them done quickly?
Hence making it harder to create accounts and spam meaningless reviews would be helpful. It's pretty much how security works too, the goal isn't some perfect unbreachable system but making the hurdles high enough that only the most dedicated attackers would be an issue.

[Anonymous No.18289202]

Which is more viable financially, putting something on kdp or RR?

[Anonymous No.18289222]

>>18289202
Trad publishing

[Anonymous No.18289243]

>>18289202
Royal Road.

Don't listen to >>18289222 traditional publishing has been on the decline and is on the verge of collapsing and dying.

[Anonymous No.18289259]

>>18289243
Nobody reads on Retard Road, they only post there.

See: >>18277416

[Anonymous No.18289267]

>>18289202
At this point, it ain’t even a question, go for royal road and try to earn that sweet patreon money.

[Anonymous No.18289271]

>>18289243
Question about RR, I have only just had a look at it, and frankly all the remotely successful stuff seems like trash, and not just generic trash but almost YA tier story writing with a strange mix of sexual wish fulfilment thrown in, is this representative of the entire market on there? People want just almost exclusively a load of dross?

[Anonymous No.18289291]

>>18289259
Ahhh ok thank you for explaining this and yes now I think about it, the content on there is tinged with anime themes.
>>18289267
Although this evidence is somewhat conflicting. I suppose the most obvious solution is there is a reader base on there, but it is composed of poor readers who like familiar and accessible tropes.

[Anonymous No.18289294]

>>18289271
One of the most successful webcomics, Questionable Content, is like that. So I guess so.

[Anonymous No.18289305]

>>18289271
I agree with this anon. How is it possible these people are making seven grand a month pumping out trash?

[Anonymous No.18289317]

>>18289305
Because there’s a market for it? How is this even a question?

[Anonymous No.18289327]

>>18289202
Daytime job.

[Anonymous No.18289367]

>>18289317
Good thing we've got you around to point out the obvious. Keeps the rest of us humble.

[Anonymous No.18289391]

You will never get an anime studio interested in your shitty Retard Road story. You can't even format a dialogue tag correctly.

You couldn't even achieve trad publishing if you tried and you know this. Retard Road is the ultimate cope.

[Anonymous No.18289397]

>>18279931
Is the reading recommendations in any particular order?

Not sure where to start here.

[Anonymous No.18289404]

>>18289317
Its surprising there is such a large dominant one. Even comparisons to YA actually seem unfair to YA, given usually the YA writing is superior and the story more coherent and less pandering than the average retard road fanfic.

[Anonymous No.18289512]

>>18289202
I don't know how to make KDP work. Published on there for a long time, spent money to get on mailing lists, made almost nothing. There is just no way for people to discover your writing. On RR people will see your story on the front page of the site after you update and if you start trending or whatever you'll show up a lot longer. It is much easier finding someone to read your stuff.

[Anonymous No.18289569]

>>18289391
At least find a different "chad" to avatarfag as instead of "UOOOOOOOOOOOO ARMIN I'D GIVE ANYTHING FOR ASIAN BUSSY DX"ren

[Anonymous No.18289641]

>>18289317
Because many know it, many read it for a long time and it hits the genres they like like litrpg, or cultivation, or whatever.

[Anonymous No.18289652]

>>18289391
That's why japanese publishers rewrite the webnovels they chose into light novels. Then adapt it to manga. Then adapt manga to anime.

[Anonymous No.18289661]

>>18289652
And you think you'll get that opportunity as a gaijin?

LMAO

[Anonymous No.18289672]

>>18289661
The point is that anime studios do not adapt webnovels, they adapt manga. That itself adapted light novels.

[Anonymous No.18289679]

>>18289391
I'm aiming for trad publishing but I don't get the dislike against RR fags. Besides, in a way they are cooler since they don't have to deal with all the agent-editor-publisher fuckery when others profit from their work much more. I'd just wish they could show a tiny bit more effort in the very basics, because it's fucking embarrassing to look at most of the shit there.

[Anonymous No.18289680]

>>18289641
You got the wrong post.

[Anonymous No.18289693]

>>18289569
Was there ever a protagonist utterly raped as bad in their final chapter? A least Dany died by a dumb betrayal.

[Anonymous No.18289698]

>>18289679
Can you show effort when you update several times every week, if not daily, for months if not years?

[Anonymous No.18289701]

>>18288897
>Ratings and rankings are useful for content to be pushed though
It's entirely meaningless. Older stories always build an unfair advantage simply by having been there before others. A newer story might be better written and better rated, but because the top rankers have had x years more time to accumulate ratings, it's impossible for others to catch up. And the top part of the list will continue to constantly gain more views and ratings simply for having superior visibility, and the content has long since become a secondary concern. In other words, the system is completely broken and irrelevant for its purpose.

It's like real life millionaires. The descendants of the guy who first decided to can and sell tomato pulp are now billionaires, and nobody else can imitate that success, even though what made the inventor a billionaire is something literally anyone could do.

[Anonymous No.18289705]

>>18289117
>still ignoring the main points made
Your exact system has been used before and it's just as broken as allowing pure voting. Moron.

[Anonymous No.18289711]

>>18289698
No.

[Anonymous No.18289723]

>>18289693
What’s wrong with the ending? It was Shakespearean

[Anonymous No.18289734]

>>18289698
You can finish the story first and upload bit by bit later. Besides some of the formatting fuckery or typos in blurbs has zero excuses.

[Anonymous No.18289748]

>>18289734
Some of the users are also foreigners, Mother of Learning is from central or east Europe. Probably other writers as well.

[Anonymous No.18289759]

>>18289723
>I can't believe what you're saying. It's macabre!

[Anonymous No.18289766]

>>18289759
You laugh, but it’s true.

[Anonymous No.18289770]

>>18289734
Yes, your backlog will last for a while. Unless your readerbase dislikes something in the process and starts to leave. I guess you could finish it for whoever liked it but it might be a write off as far as growth goes.

[Anonymous No.18289777]

>>18289770
Any example of this?

[Anonymous No.18289785]

>>18289748
Impressive if true, Mother of Learning is on the top of the list. And doesn’t the author still get paid via Patreon?

[Anonymous No.18289788]

New thread
>>18289787

[Anonymous No.18289851]

>>18289641
So does regular fiction have much of a readership there?

[Anonymous No.18289904]

>>18289851
Yes.

[Anonymous No.18290668]

>>18286626
>>18286626
The coat example is a dead end, as it has nothing to do with what the saying is about.

Better to go to an example we all know, but it s nonetheless shit, like Star Wars, that does both.

Yoda goes and tells you exactly why beer goggles are the path to the dark side in something we like to call exposition:
>Beer is the path to the dark side,
>Beer leads to beer goggles,
>Beer goggles lead to dirty women,
>Once you have a dirty woman on your jock, forever will she dominate your destiny.
^ That's an example of telling.

Showing, involves MORE writing, not less, as you demonstrate the moral to the story, full tilt, by the actions in the story itself. In Star Wars we have Luke completing his hero's journey by rescuing his father from the dark side. For something more relevant to the parody, see Phyllis Diertrichson's "The Postman always rings twice" or some shit.

Now, you can lay it on too thick, and make it too blatant, or have the characters have a philosophical debate in the middle of a battle or such, thus, exposition, telling instead of showing.

It doesn't apply to such mundane bits of writing like the length of description used when someone picks up a coat. I mean, you could apply it there to some degree, by giving the coat some character, and letting that character complement the actor putting it on, but that's about it.