/wg/-Writing General

[Anonymous No.18450944]

Any progress on your novels?

Previous thread:>>18437631

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.18451338]

>>18450944
NPC thread vendor working as intended.

[Anonymous No.18451645]

>>18450944
I want to start writing poetry in the old Irish and Welsh Bardic way. Are there any books/general tips that could help with it?

[Anonymous No.18451766]

>>18450944
You need to leave.

[Anonymous No.18452055]

I'm usually allergic to outlines but I've been noticing a lot of issues with structure in my writing lately. The idea I've got floating around was just too wide reaching and complex to let flow into a page without structuring it at least a little bit. Over the past couple days I've more or less nailed down my plot events. This is maybe "against the rules," but I'm going to develop my characters around the plot, which I've designed to facilitate the characters' growth, rather than developing the plot around the characters' stories. I'm actually feeling really good about this project. I'm going to be completely done with the outline by the end of my workweek and then I'm gonna sequester myself and write the damn thing to completion. Wish me luck bros, I've got some real ambition for this shit. Hopefully after the tenth or eleventh rewrite I'll have accomplished half of it.

[Anonymous No.18452094]

>tfw never going to be interviewed on NPR like DFW after releasing IJ
>tfw Charlie rose got canceled and you’ll never be interviewed by him
>tfw never going to be the depressed, wordy, suicidal pseud for the next generation of writers to obsessively rewatch interviews of
Why even write?

[Anonymous No.18452102]

>>18452094
The only way to ensure you become [negative self concept projected onto others' unknowable perceptions] is by continuing to see yourself that way. Try having a little confidence in yourself.

[Anonymous No.18452129]

>>18452094
To become like Stephen King or Brandon Sanderson: successful, well-liked and working in a field you love.

[Anonymous No.18452159]

>>18452129
That's one way out it. Not a very good one though.

[Anonymous No.18452171]

>>18452159
I can't see how happiness is bad, anon.

[Anonymous No.18452190]

>>18452171
Can you see how happiness with mediocrity is bad?

[Anonymous No.18452196]

>>18452190
No.

[Anonymous No.18452510]

Can anon please accidentally post another image of his gf's ass? I feel it should be a threadly occurrence now.

[Anonymous No.18453027]

>>18450944
I wrote a weird short story, which is supposed to be the first in a series following a character named Amelicare as he makes observations on various topics, set to the backdrop of a modern day Phonecian state with heavy influences from Caanaite literature and mythology. It's supposed to be relaxing, albeit bizarre and sometimes disturbing. Deities like El and Baal are supposed to make appearances later on as antagonist.
https://rentry.co/ug52n

[Anonymous No.18453036]

>>18452190
>can write whatever I want
>am also millionaire and can do whatever I want
What's the issue?

[Anonymous No.18453046]

I can't do it...

[Anonymous No.18453063]

How much do I have to study before I'm ready to write alternate history set in the late twentieth century and up to today and the near future?

[Anonymous No.18453072]

>>18453063
Enough to tell an entertaining yarn.

[Anonymous No.18453081]

>>18453063
You don't. Just start.

[Anonymous No.18453448]

Should a space be added after an ellipses?
For example, does this look good: "Immortality is a curse... unable to live... unable to die."

[Anonymous No.18453456]

>>18453448
That looks fucking horrible.

[Anonymous No.18453538]

>>18453063
Just start writing it, fill in the blanks and fix the continuity during the rewrite. Don’t be one of those schizos that over plan and write all of this useless shit only to never finish the actual manuscript.

[Anonymous No.18453616]

>>18453448
>Immortality is a curse... unable to live... unable to die.
Bro I hope that isn’t from your writing because it’s cringe as fuck.
Don’t use spaces and be strict with how/when you use ellipses. They’re popular as a stylistic fade away but even with that there are better ways to represent the writing.

[Anonymous No.18453626]

I don't read 'books about writing's and I never will. Now tell me: How do I outline a novel?

[Anonymous No.18453630]

>>18453063
Enough to fit the scope of your story.

[Anonymous No.18453652]

>>18453448
I used to do this but was corrected on it. No space.

[Anonymous No.18453723]

>>18453616
>be strict with how/when you use ellipses
Read Journey and be surprised ... just sprinkle them wherever ... they emulate natural speech. Only in dialogue btw!

[Anonymous No.18453752]

>>18453448
it literally doesn't matter... i use spaces because otherwise it sounds too connected...like this. it's just a matter of the subtle implication you want, if you want the ellipsis to be a kind of alternate period you should probably use a space after. if you want it to just create a pause then no space would be better. if you want it to create a certain level of flow then you can put a space on both sides like celine

[Anonymous No.18453780]

>>18453723
>>18453752
Ah, the Celiné chads have arrived ... glad to have you, friends ... men are like maggots ... we feed on each other like rotten meat ...

[Anonymous No.18453843]

>>18453448
Officially no spaces, but this is one industry standard that I will always consider retarded.

[Anonymous No.18453860]

>>18453780
>>18453752
>>18453723
>>18453448
Cringe

[Anonymous No.18453861]

>>18453448
>Should a space be added after an ellipses?
This is the level of /wg/...

[Anonymous No.18453871]

>>18453861
wg is a good board bro thats where i get all my island palm tree with coconut desktop backgrounds...

[Anonymous No.18453873]

>>18453860
dilate

[Anonymous No.18453876]

Have any of you folks ever tried to kickstart a book?

[Anonymous No.18453895]

>>18453723
>>18453752
>>18453780
How is that any better than telling someone to write like McCarthy? It works for those authors but it’s just going to come off as derivative and cheap for most everyone else.

[Anonymous No.18453897]

>>18453895
whos mccarthy

[Anonymous No.18453907]

>>18453873
Seethe

[Anonymous No.18453959]

>>18453895
Unless you use ellipses as liberally as Celiné does, no reader will actually make that association. It's a matter of preference. My preference is superior to yours.

[Anonymous No.18453965]

>>18453626
Why would you need to outline it? And why a novel, it's a marathon not a sprint.

[Anonymous No.18453972]

>>18453895
you don't have to do all that much to write like him in the way that the quoted anons are referring to. just don't use quotation marks to signify dialogue and try to use as few apostrophes as you possibly can. it's like the absolutely most superficial element of his style, granted, but they're not talking about emulating what actually makes cormac a generational talent we might not see for another 100 years. they're just talking about the surface level shit. conflating the two suggests a pretty naive reading of mccarthy.

[Anonymous No.18453984]

>>18453959
>No one will know you copied another writer
Based plagiarism chad.

[Anonymous No.18454002]

>>18453984
Yes.

[Anonymous No.18454031]

>>18453626
Whatever is the easiest way for you to organize your ideas and plan out your plot.
I just take pen and paper and start writing stuff.
"Maybe X could happen?"
"But why would he do this?"
"Maybe he could have this motivation"
Basically having a conversation workshopping ideas with myself. I write down the questions and the answers. And then when I'm done I have a plot.

[Anonymous No.18454096]

>>18453626
Sometimes I outline how a chapter might go on paper or Scrinever 3. Most of the time the general flow is outlined in my head. I literally just write.

[Anonymous No.18454134]

>>18453626
>he doesn’t let the creative energy take over as he writes, dictating the direction of the story he had no plans for
ngmi

[Anonymous No.18454213]

>>18453626
Just write short summaries of what will happen in the chapter.

[Anonymous No.18454219]

>>18452190
if it's fullfiling and makes you money there's not much room for complaints anon. It doesn't matter if it's not some pseud work that appeals to overweight virgins on an asian basket weaving website

[Anonymous No.18454240]

>>18453072
>>18453081
>>18453538
>>18453630
Thanks. Seems like I was worrying about nothing.
Hopefully, my epic about the Power Rangers dealing with the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union will turn out great.

[Anonymous No.18454269]

>>18452190
not really

[Anonymous No.18454417]

>>18453027
>the clouds barley

[Anonymous No.18454426]

>>18452190
nope

[Anonymous No.18454498]

>>18452094
To be honest, I also have fantasies about getting interviewed by a pre-cancelled Charlie Rose about my latest critically and commercially successful novel, but that's not why I write. I write because I want to create something. Though it would be nice to have at least one of short stories published.
>>18453897
Cormac McCarthy
>>18453448
I would personally just use periods after those.
>Immortality is a curse. Unable to live. Unable to die.
>>18453063
Everyone else has already said it, but I'd just start writing and make any corrections as you go.
>>18453046
Stop whining, yes you can.

[Anonymous No.18454536]

>>18454417
I use a shitty off brand word and type fast, its not the final version

[Anonymous No.18454634]

I've asked for feedback on this short story a couple times. I'm hoping to finish it soon, but if anyone has any feedback on this section I'd appreciate it.

[Anonymous No.18454871]

>>18454634
Don't warp words. Try writing this using normal grammar in such a way that the reader knows how your characters talk.

[Anonymous No.18454897]

What do you anons think about visual novels?
I'm a hobbyist writer but I want to make a serious visual novel for a handful of reasons - for one, the average quality is abysmal so it's not hard to stand out, for another I think it's a medium that's been underutilized since 80% of vns are hentai.

[Anonymous No.18454940]

>>18454897
Sure. It's fun. I'm working on one with a friend but I'm also writing conventionla pieces by myself.

[Anonymous No.18455262]

>>18454897
The only acceptable form of a plot-heavy video game.

[Anonymous No.18455412]

>>18454897
Personally I want them to have a little game to them. If you've played the Zero Escape series those are perfect. Tons of story to the point where many consider it a VN but it has puzzle solving here and there. If I were to make one of these games I would mix story with simple puzzle gameplay. But it is your story and many like VNs just the way they are.

[Anonymous No.18455430]

>>18453027
>West
Directions like that aren't usually capitalized.
I also wouldn't use "barley" as an analogy for both the clouds and the waves.
>but not close enough that it was before the sea became like an abyss was a structure
This is sort of a strange way of saying it. I don't think you need to get too fancy when describing the distance.
>spoke a thin black haired maiden, a lean young lady
I think you should make this a new sentence after "maiden." You should work on breaking up the sentences a bit more, in general. There were a lot of run-on ones, at least in these first two paragraphs.
You should also format the quotes correctly, it's difficult to read as they are now. The quotes themselves seemed to run on way too long. Maybe that's part of the tone you're going for, but to me having the first thing a character says be a philosophical tirade feels odd.
You probably want to break up some of those descriptions of the characters and places instead of front loading them. For example, maybe you can call attention to Amelicare's green eyes when he pulls down the sunglasses or something.
Sounds like an interesting world anon. I'm also writing a series of short stories following a single protagonist. Who, coincidentally, also has green eyes and a weird name. Good luck with it and let me know if any of this doesn't make sense.

[Anonymous No.18455652]

>>18455430
>I also wouldn't use "barley" as an analogy for both the clouds and the waves.
That was a typo, again my word processor is clunky
>I think you should make this a new sentence after "maiden."
In the sentence you are referring to I refer to the aspects of her appearance twice in different ways, a common motif in Ugaritic literature was to describe something twice i.e. parallelism
>Take a lamb in your hand,
>a sacrificial lamb in your right hand,
>a young animal in both your hands.
So though the entire work is not written in a poetic fashion, I liked that aspect enough to work the descriptions in that way
>but to me having the first thing a character says be a philosophical tirade feels odd.
Ay, typical of my work, though not all of it so perhaps I should change my style, or build up towards it in the story.
>Sounds like an interesting world anon
Thanks, it seems no one cares about Canaanite mythology (aside from QTards) so I thought it would make an original backdrop.
>I'm also writing a series of short stories following a single protagonist
Each "story" is just going to be a few pages long, I am actually taking a break writing this from my novellas. It's more of a novelty if anything rather than something I would call my better work.
>Who, coincidentally, also has green eyes and a weird name
Well I think I chose green eyes because I myself have green eyes and my previous characters in other stories had different colors, I try to make all my characters original even if just scraping my head. The name just came from a website where I looked up Phoenician names. In one of my other stories at least two of the characters names came from a site of list of Angel-based names for children.

[Anonymous No.18455673]

>>18454634
One trick I recommend is trying to imagine the action as series of frames in a silent movie. In silent movies they'll sometimes insert a frame with dialogue but they try to be as sparing with it as possible because it interrupts the flow.

In this case, when you write something like "... caused Caelan to glare up at the asker with a look of unhidden malice" it's like someone inserted a frame with those words. "a look of unhidden malice" is an abstraction, not something you can render as a shot (unlike, e.g, the very next sentence). It's awkward. You can cut the line (or just say that Caelan looked up or, if you must, include some thought to the effect of expressing his malice) and his indignation is still clear from the dialogue and his description of the man.

There's also a typo in the second paragraph.

[Anonymous No.18455748]

>>18454897
>What do you anons think about visual novels?
Writing them? That's an insane commitment and undertaking.
Reading them? Don't have time for it anymore, much less while I have a job, other hobbies, and serial-writing tight schedules. Took me a year to finish Muv Luv Alternative because I get constantly sidetracked by writing.

[Anonymous No.18455826]

>>18452094
What a pathetic aspiration

[Anonymous No.18455903]

What program should you use to write? I've been ooga booga-ing in notepad for everything so far.

[Anonymous No.18455908]

>>18455903
I use Scrinever 3 for Windows. But there's nothing wrong with using notepad either. I read how people just write a chapter on a webserial's built-in draft system too (like wattpad, royalroad, etc).

[Anonymous No.18455910]

>>18455903
Just Word or some similar free software. Stuff like Scrivener is for pseuds.

[Anonymous No.18456057]

>>18455903
I use Openoffice. It lets you format everything like you'd be able to in word and when it's time to send your novel off to the copyright office just go to the "save as" option and select word 95 or 2000 or whatever.
It's free and I'm sure there's different ways to do it but I like what I use.

[Anonymous No.18456075]

>>18452196
>>18453036
>>18454219
>>18454269
>>18454426
Go to prison then.

[Anonymous No.18456083]

>>18454240
Just remember to call them something like the Salvation Rangers instead and you pretty much have Fifty Shades of Grey P4

[Anonymous No.18456103]

>>18455748
I think you're just slow.
Compared to writing a novel, a VN is nothing.

[Anonymous No.18456139]

>>18456103
As in creating them? Not even close I'd say. There's more to making a VN than just writing scripts. Not to mention it can and will be a very costly endeavor. I'd say there's hardly a market for them even on Steam, much less outside Japan and even then it's a continuously shrinking market there.

[Anonymous No.18456185]

>>18456139
It's more of a hobby project than a financial venture for me. I've got like 10k I can just spend on leisure, so I'm going to use that to commission an artist. Then I'll do the writing, my degree is a masters in ML so the programming portion will be trivial, and then I'll either have to learn how to make music (I'm a pretty music person, just never tried) or otherwise commission that as well.

Overall a lot less effort than writing a novel I'd say. I don't think I'm going to make 10k back on it, but that's fine by me.

[Anonymous No.18456186]

>>18456083
I'm obviously not using the same name. Come on.

>Fifty Shades of Grey P4
The fuck happened in part 3?

[Anonymous No.18456201]

>>18456186
>Oh Grey, we are having FUCKING SEX
>I LOVE FUCKING SEX
>UNNNNNNNNNNGGGG
More or less

[Anonymous No.18456266]

Started what's probably going to become a novel a week ago. It's a pulpy scifi horror set in the postapocalyptic ice wastes of Imperial Russia about a guy and his family.
First time I actually enjoy what comes out. Wondering if it's a good sign or not.
Will try to finish it in two or three months, let it stew and get to editing.

[Anonymous No.18456382]

How do I stay focused while transcribing all the stuff I have in my head?
I'm about to take a break from "writing" to do something else but I want to leave things written down so I don't have to worry about remembering my stories while I'm doing something else.

[Anonymous No.18456389]

Are ya writing son?

[Anonymous No.18456397]

>>18456382
Audio recording?

[Anonymous No.18456403]

>>18456382
>I want to write
>but I don't want to have to write

...huh?

[Anonymous No.18456409]

>>18456403
Later this year I'll either be joining a farm for at least a year to change my hikikomori ways or fleeing from a civil war.
I'll definitely go back to writing but that's how things are on my end.

[Anonymous No.18456414]

>>18456409
>fleeing from civil war

more information please

[Anonymous No.18456469]

>>18456414
The retards overseeing and validating my country's elections let a party connected to multiple terrorist groups get through the selection process despite there being fucking laws preventing people with links to terrorist groups to participate in elections, and then looked away when they systematically committed fraud to pass to the second round because their credibility was at stake.
Being on the verge of winning has emboldened those groups and some of them are planning on attacking the capital and maybe, depending on whether the military cucks out or not, start executing people on the streets. They are already mobilizing as I'm writing this to participate in a "march" to make their votes be >"(((respected)))", even though they taught their delegates how to steal voting stations and commit electoral fraud.
This party also managed to trick retards, like half of the country because South America, into siding with them on the premise that they are clean of corruption and worried about the poor, despite them being literally indebted to foreign dictators and contractors in the countryside that went into hiding due to corruption cases related to contractors erupting some years ago, so it might escalate into a civil war.

If things go well, I'll start getting my life in order so I won't be sitting all day in front of the PC "writing". If things don't go well, I might die or have to flee a civil war.
Aboriginals are all cowards so it's possible they'll get scared and nothing happens but who knows.

[Anonymous No.18456510]

>>18456389
Started a little slow today. Played siege six with friends and wrote a few words in between deaths, but now I've managed to get close to 200 words done while watching a friend tormet himself streaming MGS3.

[Anonymous No.18456554]

>>18455673
That’s super interesting anon, never heard of it spoken like that before. Thanks for the advice, it’s really helpful.
>>18454871
Thanks anon, I’m trying to do something similar to what McCarthy did in Outer Dark, but I’m not him so maybe I should keep it simple.

[Anonymous No.18456571]

>>18456510
Atta boy. Some is better than none. Just write 201 words tomorrow.

[Anonymous No.18456574]

>>18456075
How does that make any sense, anon?

[Anonymous No.18456576]

Got up extra eartly to pump out 500 words. Gonna leave for work in a bit. When I come home: another 2.500 words, weight lifting, helping a frined out.

[Anonymous No.18456581]

How do you write, anons? What's going on inside your head while you do?
I'm usually observing the scene. Kinda like a webm, colors, sound and all. I can't manipulate it much, only look closer, but can switch it to an alternative.
Then it's just a matter of describing what I see.

[Anonymous No.18456605]

>>18456581
It's like a game of leap frog to me.
Think about one event for a while, jot it all down quickly, then the next. I can type real fast but it doesn't help me because I'm always over-analyzing myself and trying to chart out how things will happen before I actually type. I usually think about the dialogue first, and then think up some action on the fly so it isn't people standing around talking.

[Anonymous No.18456606]

>>18456581
I concentrate on the words and the concepts they represent. My deep subconscious does all the work. I just select which parts of that work are good.

[Anonymous No.18456623]

>>18456581
>Sit down to write epic poem
>Look at articles and videos about subject matter
>Pause at certain points
>Write a stanza or two in a text file
>Keep watching/reading
>Write a stanza or two in a text file
>Repeat until the video or article is finished
>Take the best stanzas and put them in main document where they most make sense
>Edit whole poem after each article/video to make sure it is consistent and everything is placed well and flows well
>Usually change a word or two in older stanzas each time through
I'll finish this first part someday. Then I get to decide whether I want to keep using the same meter in the next part or if I want to switch the meter in each part.
What do you guys think? Is it better for an epic to only use one meter? Or would it be more interesting with different meters in each "book"?

[Anonymous No.18456630]

>>18456581
A lot of times I'll put on background noise, and I'll write myself into my books if I have to. Like tonight the protag of this book is pretty much a big cat playing with a cornered rat. A rat that doesn't want to get away.
So I'm listening to this as the shadows close in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO7XpDalr5g
Completely lost in fantasy, the darkness becomes the ink upon the page until it swallows me completely and I have to go to bed.

[Anonymous No.18456640]

>>18456581
A lot of times I'll put on background noise, and I'll write myself into my books if I have to. Like tonight the protag of this book is pretty much a big cat playing with a cornered rat. A rat that doesn't want to get away.
So I'm listening to this as the shadows close in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS_FrBsM9m4
Completely lost in fantasy, the darkness becomes the ink upon the page until it swallows me completely and I have to go to bed.

[Anonymous No.18456647]

>>18456640
original post was better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO7XpDalr5g

I think that is better for your writing that Evanescence

[Anonymous No.18456684]

>>18456647
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA damn I thought I deleted that before someone caught that. Shockingly I'm not nearly as gloomy as I probably appear. I copy pasted that one earlier to share and when I put it here I just saw a link and didn't check until it was too late.
I'm gonna be giggling for a while about that one.
I'm also listening to this band. I can't get enough of Renaissance/European music but it's the light after midnight. You know?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZSswWiWirY

[Anonymous No.18456698]

>>18456554
Don't take that anon's comment to heart. The way you've "warped" words here to denote accent is perfectly within the acceptable bounds (ok "Cain" might be pushing it just a little, but I personally liked it).

[Anonymous No.18456879]

“We can only hope you’ll grow out of your desolation. Now...let’s try to refine your defensive posture. Try and catch my blade with your own.” Karl instructed, raising his arms up in preparation for an obvious overhead strike. Out of nowhere, Damian found himself breathing a little heavily. Basic movements weren’t a surprise in these sparring sessions, but...they always made him uneasy. Was he expected to do better than this, by now? Failure crossed his mind as his arms trembled. Sure enough, Karl lowered his mock blade in a predictable, downward strike. A clack ran through the room as Damian raised his own blade horizontally to intercept it, holding onto opposite ends with both hands. Though, he found himself short on breath and his arms unsteady, and the two swords shook against one another. Eventually, he was able to glance Karl’s weapon away from his own, tilting it to the side where both of their arms fell to their sides, Damian’s harder than his opponent’s. Karl readied himself immediately, in the same stance, and Damian followed suit, far less gracefully. Then Damian’s abdomen was jabbed, faster than he even realized. He gasped as the air forcefully left his body, nearly falling onto his knees. Then a blow fell onto his left shoulder, heavier than any strike he had known. Pain racked his whole body as he fell over onto his back, coughing. Then another bash found his knee, and Damian’s eyes became wide and unfocused. He could no longer follow Karl’s movements, and the beating continued. Again, and again, the wooden blade found his trembling body as he haplessly held his arms over his head.
“Death is life’s only peace. It is far too early for you to expect repose.” Damian could still hear well enough, and he could only listen to Karl’s even voice between his own painfully pathetic cries. Damian shut his eyes as tightly as he could as it continued, for longer and longer.
“We both understand that telling your father would be pointless. Of course he’d agree this is necessary. Do you realize you surrender to a portion of what those around you have endured?” Another blow to his elbow, his stomach, his wrist, his leg. Damian could only imagine what a pitiful mess he looked like, as each swing of the weapon elicited another hollow clack as his body was given another bruise. It was only when he noticed that, finally, the only sound left in the room was his own pained gasps, and he forced himself to breathe with less difficulty if only to retain a scrap of dignity.

[Anonymous No.18456897]

>>18456879
Your first paragraph is literally way too long.

[Anonymous No.18456932]

>>18452510
footfags get the rope

[Anonymous No.18456933]

>>18450944
wah

[Anonymous No.18456955]

Hey anons, was wondering if anybody would have some feedback for this short story I wrote. Any and all feedback would be appreciated
https://pastebin.com/21PEUBhv

[Anonymous No.18457032]

>>18456879
>Out of nowhere

[Anonymous No.18457040]

Jamarcus and Moesha took turns practicing with their new made-in-Africa crossbows in Van Hassain’s backyard. After two hours, the two were reasonably quick at reloading bolts and hitting the target, and the doctor ended the session. The two put away their weapons, and Van Hassain called the two to him.

“Vampires are strong, but not invincible,” explained Van Hassain. “They are weakened by sunlight, garlic flowers, and …”

He opened a small, dark wooden box.

“… and blood diamonds,” he finished.

Inside the box was a single bolt with a transparent gemstone tip.

“The steel bolts that you’ve been using will hurt the count slightly, but only this blood diamond bolt will stun him long enough to for me to get close to him and strike him with my onyx stake.”
Moesha took the box and examined the sparkling bolt.

“And we only have one?”

“Alas, yes,” answered Van Hassain. “It is very precious. Many South Africans died for this to be made. As I will be the melee fighter, you two should decide amongst yourselves who should be the one to carry the diamond bolt.”

Mrs. Harker then gently closed the box and handed it to her husband.

“Here. You keep it,” she said, leaning in close to Jamarcus. “I know that you’ll use it when the time is right.”

[Anonymous No.18457054]

I shook it but jizz wouldn't come out
I called mom but forgot she is mute
I went outside to jog the sun didn't cast my shadow
grabbed my friends wife he didn't hear her voice
I don't exist
I am a mirage of sperm retention and sexual assault

[Anonymous No.18457092]

>>18450944
>Any progress on your novels?
Yes, I'm done now. I was never going to become the next Faulkner, the next Nabokov or the next Joyce, but I hid behind the language barrier to avoid criticism for months, maintaining an illusion that was fun to live in while it lasted. I had thought my country's education system to be topmost in the world, but this turned out to be utter bollocks. A child of 18, a person ten years my junior, has a greater vocabulary than I, who had to look up the word “topiary”, and no one likes the expression theory of art anymore, I am likened to a long lost dinosaur.
This will be my final post on /lit/. I've been humiliated and exposed as a fraud. My writing is pretentious, infantile, banal drivel. My observations are dull, my language grade school level. My tenses are mixed up; I use colloquialisms, ellipses and onomatopoeia. I mix tired and trite idioms together to obfuscate their unoriginality with a veneer of irony; I have continued to recite ornate Jewish chimpanzee parables with diminishing returns. The parable seemed very clearly to me to be asking me whether or not the now-grown-adult can choose. I say yes, of course, but that's not my issue.
I was never cut out for writing. I began writing my "book" on January 6th. Since then I've produced 99 thousand words for it. These words are a tide of garbage without value, without insight, without form. The themes of time, space, infinity, memory and pointless duelling are not present in my work. It was never real writing, it was anime and weebshit!
Story arcs, character arcs, narrative arcs, these are all outdated terms. You say what you hear, and only the anime fandom uses the term “arc” anymore. I am a toad! Look how many words I wrote, because apparently literature is bodybuilding and just aimlessly typing will somehow improve my writing. My appetites grew as I wrote, I set a goal of a 101 thousand words when I began, only for the cancerous growth to demand a 137 thousand words soon enough to be completed, and still I don't even know what genre it is that I'm writing. Is it autofiction? A comedy? A picaresque? Am I merely shitposting edgelord-triggering diarrhea in neo-emo gothic revivalist gestalt?
Regardless, I have failed, and even in my failure I have merely imitated how people who think they write well but write poorly write, and I couldn't even do that well. "Oh I can do that anytime if I wanted to" I thought, but no. I have put down my pen. Never again will my fingers click-clack across the keyboard. No more outlines, no more characters. Goodbye

[Anonymous No.18457114]

>>18457092
Is this a new pasta

[Anonymous No.18457117]

>>18457114
This is actually at least 4 months old. And it fools people every single time. It's kinda amusing but also kinda sad that so many fall for it.

[Anonymous No.18457121]

>>18457114
it is a morphed pasta. It started off with just the 2nd paragraph, the one that starts with "This will be my final post on /lit/. I've been humiliated ..." and every time it's posted, someone adds more and more to it. It's like a living art piece

[Anonymous No.18457216]

>>18450944
i just get drunk and write shit and put in on a blogspot. thoughts?

[Anonymous No.18457434]

>>18457121
Sadly it's getting to be so long there's not much room for addition anymore.

[Anonymous No.18457491]

>>18456955
> "nooo not the lonely old manerino" the story
Story concept is good, but you could see the ending from a mile away. Maybe try something like this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Occurrence_at_Owl_Creek_Bridge

[Anonymous No.18457715]

>>18457491
Thank you, the story you linked sounds very interesting (I'll read it tomorrow - it's getting late here). I guess you're probably right about the story being trite. What do you think of the writing style?

[Anonymous No.18457997]

>>18456879
>Try and catch my blade with your own.” Karl instructed

[Anonymous No.18458305]

>finished chapter 20/42
Just one more and I'll be halfway done.

[Anonymous No.18458323]

>>18458305
don't care, didn't ask. ywnbaw (you will never be a writer)

[Anonymous No.18458509]

>>18455652
I actually never heard of Ugaritic literature myself until I read your comment, so I'm sadly uninformed on the subject. Sounds like it could be really sweet if done well, though. All the best authors borrow from the classics.
>perhaps I should change my style
I don't think philosophical speeches are always a bad thing, but like I said I thought it was awkward having it be the first thing a character says.
>>18456698
Thanks anon. It's tough to say how much advice to follow on here, but I'm always grateful to hear from anyone who has feedback.

[Anonymous No.18458511]

>>18458323
This is a SAFE SPACE for literati of ALL creeds.

[Anonymous No.18458527]

>>18458323
But i care! And i want anon to be proud and i want him to know that he already is a writer. Check mate!

[Anonymous No.18458573]

>>18458511
Except isekai writers and RR serialists

[Anonymous No.18458931]

>>18458323
Who hurt you?

[Anonymous No.18459175]

>>18458573
What makes people think it's a good idea to do one long series while they are still developing as a writer?

[Anonymous No.18459193]

>>18459175
It’s animefags

[Anonymous No.18459273]

>>18459175
It's how you make money from web serials.

[Anonymous No.18459287]

>>18455826
h-heh, y-yeah you're right... :(

[Anonymous No.18459399]

Test post to delete before posting my shit

[Anonymous No.18459416]

Mostly Peaceful

They say the more we know
The more we don’t know
And I know that’s true for me
With all this knowledge on my shelf
Piling up without being read.

Like the lie of my erudition
As I shame others for reading
Nothing but texts and tweets, if at all,
While someone else’s lie by omission,
A cavernous blindspot in our worldview
In whose depths life also flourished unaware
Of other life forms and their interests,
Grew too big to be ignored.

You can’t afford to, in more ways than one
Certainly George Floyd couldn’t,
Else he would’ve still been a bouncer
And those who burned, looted and murdered
Would still have been baristas.

Like a shadow across the window
A strange rumbling in the air
And a plane flying way too low
When it was just another day at work
And the fallout lasting for years
And spreading across the globe,
But now without the small courtesy
Of a widely televised impact.

So who knows when the world began to end?
Not with a bang but a whimper indeed
As my wifi comes and goes
And the deadlines just keep coming
And I can’t anymore
Cause I did three times this morning
And I miss my friends and family
The first because they’re locked down too
But the second because I just ate them
Because I’ve grown to hate them
And cause prices are going up
So I killed two birds with one stone.
Kidding, but at least that would be something.

[Anonymous No.18459571]

I posted a few threads ago about an alternate history story I was working on.

Good news! I finished it up and summitted it for a contest yesterday! It's not much but I'm proud of myself for it, it felt great being able to complete something I was happy with.

[Anonymous No.18459783]

>>18459571
Post contest so we can enter too

[Anonymous No.18459822]

>>18457715
Nah, it's not trite at all. Black Mirror and Twilight Zone made entire franchises on the expected twist short story format. But the writing style is sad, old timey, like the fairy tales written in the 1700s, so it's not very engaging? Almost like the style itself says "THIS IS A SAD OLD MAN HE'S SO SAD THAT HE IS DELUSIONAL ABOUT HOW SAD HE IS." It might be better to use a more active voice in the beginning and slowly switch to the current style at the end?

[Anonymous No.18459932]

>>18456879
The action sequences are pretty easy to follow in the first few sentences, but they start to become more difficult as you go on. Like the one anon said, I think this is mostly because the scene drags on a little too long.
I think it gets better towards the end when Damien is getting pummeled, but that first section needs some work.
I would also recommend trying to vary your sentences a little. A lot of them just start with, "Damien..."
I know you got some harsh feedback from others, but this is still better than my own action sequences, I think what you have is workable. Good luck bro.
>>18457040
Is this the Blackula anon?
>>18459571
Congrats anon!
>>18459416
I don't know much about poetry, but one suggestion I have is to add more punctuation. Maybe I'm just a brainlet, but I had trouble following it myself.

[Anonymous No.18459943]

Translated.

Mary put the book she had been reading on the bedside cabinet. Her face was white as chalk and she was shaking. He's going to kill me, she thought, if I don't do something quickly, he's going to kill me. From the kitchen, the clatter of plates rushed through the open bedroom door, making Mary jump up in bed. Why is he still here? Why is he in the kitchen. She felt her heart pounding faster and faster. An oppressive heat settled on her cheeks. I've got to get out of here. I have to...or he'll cut me up.

"Mary," called the voice from the kitchen. The clatter of plates had stopped. Mary froze, halfway between the bed and the floor. The blanket slid off of her, revealing her body, a white brassiere and briefs. "Mary, Mary," the voice called over and over from the kitchen, in an unchanging tune, and each instance was like a blow to her spine. Now, right now, she thought, if not now...

On all fours, staggering, like a newborn calf, she pushes her way into the black hallway, past the kitchen, facing away, her half-naked, snow-white body in the electric light, and again the clatter of plates, unbearably loud...she slips into her overcoat, which lies in front of the jacket rack, and pulls open the front door, which is ajar, and only notices, as she crawls down the staircase towards the exit doors, how the light switches on in her apartment and shines on her back.

[Anonymous No.18459960]

>>18459783
It was the Talkernate History podcast one, and the deadline was today. That said, they're 100% doing more, I'll make a post next time they announce another one.

>18459932
Thank you!!!

[Anonymous No.18459994]

I wrote 761 words yesterday while waiting for a friend. That's pretty neat.

[Anonymous No.18460012]

>>18459994
Next time: a thousand words.

[Anonymous No.18460032]

>>18459932
That was indeed Blackula

[Anonymous No.18460074]

>>18460032
When is the blackula/JK-sama cross over?

>"Onichan, our blasters do nothing to these dark skinned vampires, what are we going to do?"
>"Senpai, we have to call... blackula-kun."
>"You mean dirk dumphler from wish mountain can't make it?"
>"You know we destroyed wish mountain during the galactic battle of 214H.R. Dirk Kick is a dead man. We need blackula."

[Anonymous No.18460079]

>>18456955
The phrase;
>did not hasten to move
read a little awkward to me, personally.
You also should vary your vocabulary. In the fourth sentence, you use "church" four times. You can try and break it up by saying something like "parishioners," instead of "churchgoers."
>He had seen too much for that, he thought to himself.
The "he thought to himself" feels strange here because it doesn't come after a quote. You can probably cut it, the reader can already gather that it's the old man who thought he'd seen to much.
>The old man’s older brother had left town several years ago and died shortly thereafter while his son had gone off to fight in Indochina but his wife had already died, which meant he could not mourn, because it had not occurred in rapid succession.
This sentence is pretty awkward, it would help if you broke it up. For example;
>The old man’s older brother had left town several years ago and died shortly thereafter. His son had gone off to fight in Indochina and his wife had died years earlier. None of these misfortunes occurred close enough to mourn them all as one.
I'm assuming having so many sentences start with, "He..." was a stylistic choice, but you may still want to cut back on them. Certain sentences like;
>He wanted to do something.
Feel unnecessary because we don't even know what he wants to do about the tree.
I thought the part about him not noticing the cross until they took it down was my favorite line.
Not a bad start anon, but it could use some fleshing out. You might want to check out Flannery O'Connor's, The Geranium. Has a very similar theme to yours.

[Anonymous No.18460139]

>>18459273
What about us that aren't doing it for money though.

[Anonymous No.18460150]

>>18460139
Everyone wants to make money from writing, search your heart you know it to be true

[Anonymous No.18460247]

>>18460150
no way fag

[Anonymous No.18460467]

>>18460079
>You might want to check out Flannery O'Connor's, The Geranium.
Also make sure to read her Judgement Day, as it is effectively a remake of this one.

[Anonymous No.18460495]

this be me yall

[Anonymous No.18460652]

>>18460495
go on

[Anonymous No.18460673]

I'm rewriting the first third of my fantasy novel and need to have the two main characters meet for the first time. They both have magical abilities that would let them instantly identify each other as magic when they see each other, but is it still too contrived to have them meet by randomly seeing each other in a city plaza?

[Anonymous No.18460685]

>>18460673
That's how most romantic comedies start

[Anonymous No.18460766]

>>18460673
>>18460673
>magic user A is struggling to help get kitten out of tree
>accidentally catches tree on fire
>magic user B hears little girl cat owner crying and magic user A appologizing and trying to fix it
>magic user B comes in and to show how good they are, absolutely douses the tree
>cat falls from tree and magic user A uses magic to catch the cat while magic user B is gloating about saving the day
>cat owner takes cat and goes home without saying thank you because they are both awful people
>magic users now alone and can have awkward flirty talk

[Anonymous No.18460814]

>>18460766
that is so kawaiiii

[Anonymous No.18460856]

>>18460766
they better both be girls

[Anonymous No.18460883]

>>18460856
They are the same two girls from >>18460074
But is is their meet-cute.

[Anonymous No.18460892]

>>18460883
normie spotted!

oniichan means older brother
oneechan means older sister

[Anonymous No.18460905]

>>18460892
>too much a dweeb for the normies
>not weeb enough for the dweebs
this is pain

[Anonymous No.18460954]

>I've only written 300 words today
Why am I like this

[Anonymous No.18460966]

>>18460954
At least you're writing. I only woke up 2 hours ago and I haven't even written anything yet and it's already afternoon.

[Anonymous No.18460984]

>>18460954
Whats problem that's a great word count to have.

[Anonymous No.18461072]

>>18460954
>>18460966
>>18460984
Hello, I am a gatherer of knowledge from India. It is my believe that you should try out, atleast once, the high volume writer lifestyle. Dedicate a week to this project of broadening your mind towards different ways of being. Think of it as a writing retreat. During this week, write atleast 3000 words per day (if you have a day job, 5000+ if you don't have one). Write atleast 250 words per 15 minutes. This way, you won't have the time to labour over every sentence. Don't wait for ideas to come. Sit down, start your 15 minute timer and start writing. 3000 words = 3 hours of writing. Spread it over the day however you want, but don't go to sleep before you have hit your word count. After this retreat, you can go back to whatever style and schedule of writing you like best. I did this, after seven years of writing very sparingly, and kept doing it and am doing it now for over a month without a single doubt in my mind. I believe there are many ways of how to write, and everyone must find his own way – but many people seem to get stuck in this one kind of way, not because it is best for them, but because the other way seems difficult at first. This is why I recommend a week atleast. It would be better to change your writing pace for two week, three week or even longer.

[Anonymous No.18461093]

>>18461072
Kinda a cool idea, I might try it when I have a free week.

[Anonymous No.18461192]

>>18461072
>write atleast 3000 words per day (if you have a day job, 5000+ if you don't have one).
A noble suggestion, but I don't think that's feasible for me in the slightest. 3k every day for a week would make me incredibly burnt out because my chapters are usually hovering over 3k lately and it takes me a week-sometimes going past deadlines to get one out. I'd rather just work at my own pace and avoid a potential extreme burnout.

[Anonymous No.18461626]

And today I got a rejection from a lit agent. I should just move on and submit elsewhere, but now I'm trying to figure out if I can improve my first page again.

Great.

[Anonymous No.18461665]

did any of you make the long list of that sligo writing contest

[Anonymous No.18461693]

>>18461665
How do you even find writing contests?

[Anonymous No.18461779]

My protagonist won the "cumbucket challenge" in today's chapter.

[Anonymous No.18461798]

>>18461693
submittable, but this time someone had posted this contest in one of these threads.

[Anonymous No.18461799]

>>18461693
There’s a book that comes out every year that lists the writing contests and indie press submission times, stuff like that, kind of like a Yellow Pages for authors, if zoomers know what the YP are. I don’t know what the book is called though

Otherwise I browse through Submittable
https://manager.submittable.com/opportunities/discover

[Anonymous No.18461820]

>>18452094
Isn’t it better to be the greatest writer and have to give absolutely no interviews?

[Anonymous No.18461874]

>>18461072
Pretty based fellow pajeet. Here's a website that might help in those ambitions https://www.squibler.io/dangerous-writing-prompt-app

[Anonymous No.18461909]

>>18459932
I don't know much about poetry, but one suggestion I have is to add more punctuation. Maybe I'm just a brainlet, but I had trouble following it myself.

There’s supposed to be a buncha puns on knowing nothing vs. something and one I thought was obvious about not being able to “afford” ignoring the pandemic.

[Anonymous No.18461913]

>>18461909
Fuck forgot to greentext the first para

[Anonymous No.18462241]

>>18461820
>better
Completely depends upon your own internal values and goals. What’s better to me may not be better to you. My obsession with these interviews is from the solace I’ve found in them. The comfort. Not even being famous or anything, but if I could help others the way those interviews and their books helped me, I would. It’s not about being the master of a craft and perfect at it while sacrificing my entire life for that goal.

[Anonymous No.18462484]

>write maybe 600 words a day, maybe three days a week
>spend a couple hours of my weekend genuinely engrossed in books which I find captivating >spend mindless work hours mostly thinking over books which have had a significant impact on me or society, wondering what the author did to make their work stand out
>open this thread, find out I've been doing this ALL WRONG for fucking GOD KNOWS HOW GODDAMNED LONG
>FUCKING FUCK I'M SUCH A DIPSHIT
>start looking other places for writing rules, realize what a complete asshole I've been about writing
>for instance, I usually wait until I stumble across an idea which genuinely excites me before I begin a new project, when really I just needed to discipline myself
Guh. I just deleted what must have been total garbage. Goodbye shitty protocol-violating manuscript, hello blank page. I can't believe I seriously wasted so many hours re-reading Catch-22 when I could have easily doubled my net total of books read this year. I didn't even realize it was this easy. Just write and read!

[Anonymous No.18462498]

>>18462484
Satire is funny only when the author is in on the joke.

[Anonymous No.18462634]

>>18455903
all the suggestions other ppl are giving you are whack. literally just write it in google drive. not only can you use it on all devices and it cant get lost - It has both typo checking and (more useful) grammar checking, so if you change half a sentence or smt it will point out it doesnt make sense anymore. its quite smart.

[Anonymous No.18462694]

I don't have any stories left in me anymore, I'm too tired and sad to write anything. I tried to write something the other day and all I could think to do was write "nigger" in different handwriting styles. It sucks, all my creativity is gone.

[Anonymous No.18462700]

>>18460495
>wondering how I ended up here
No one else is. I kicked an opiate addiction two years back, my brother has been an on/off heroin addict most of his life. The tragically-cool drug memoir genre peaked with Trainspotting, and even if it didn't, drug addicts are some of the most boring people on the face of the planet, because, surprise, all the drug fun only exists inside your head. Everyone else just sees an unreliable moron who needs to get his shit together.

In terms of your actual prose. Serif fonts are gay, and your writing is loaded with anti-details. What I mean is that you list off things which are clearly intended to add atmosphere, but they're so vague it just becomes a laundry list of tired cliches. An example:
>A mind unshackled and untethered from any sort of human reality.
Like what? You see talking cats? You think you're a glass of orange juice? Normal people living ordinary productive lives without chemical dependency seem so bizarre and foreign that it's almost like you're surrounded by fictional characters? Fill in the blanks a bit. I can't tell if your "hollowed out and rotted from the inside" room is a stereotypical junkie grimehole or, like my own bedroom during my pill usage, it just completely lacks the accumulated debris of a normal life (decorations, electronics, random trinkets purchased on impulse) because all your money goes to drugs. If you aren't willing to give up on this altogether, at least color in the outlines a bit.

[Anonymous No.18462708]

>>18462498
Actually, a non self-aware author can be successful at satire, provided he has a natural talent for ligma.

[Anonymous No.18462738]

>>18462708
Excuse me my dear fellow anon, but I must ask you, for I do not know exactly, what, pray tell, is Ligma? Does it have anything to do with Sugma I’ve heard so much about?

[Anonymous No.18462811]

>>18462694
I've built up so many paracosms in my head that if I were to stop coming up with them tomorrow, I would still have enough stories to last a lifetime.

[Anonymous No.18462826]

>>18462694
don't hand-write then, switch things up

[Anonymous No.18463071]

>>18460079
>>18460467
Thank you anon for all the feedback and recommendations. I'll keep your feedback in mind while rewriting the story. The Geranium was also a very good read. I'll check out Judgement Day, too.

[Anonymous No.18463115]

>1400 words about grocery shopping and he’s only through the frozen food isles
YES. YES. YESSSSS.

[Anonymous No.18463117]

>>18457121

>It's like a living art piece

Yeah copypastas like these tend to be good pieces of art

>every time it's posted, someone adds more and more to it

sounds like modified spam w/c shouldn't exist, but ok

[Anonymous No.18463121]

>>18463117
You didn't say one of the stupid things that got incorporated into the pasta, did you?

[Anonymous No.18463494]

Do you like it when a book review includes a plot synopsis or would that make you mad because it's a spoiler?

[Anonymous No.18463509]

>>18463494
A plot synopsis is just lazy and offers no insight.

[Anonymous No.18463512]

>>18463509
This. Plot is the literal least significant part of any novel.

[Anonymous No.18463541]

>>18463509
>>18463512
So how much would it bother you to know the plot of the book beforehand, scale of 0 to 10

[Anonymous No.18463629]

>>18463494
I treat book reviews like I treat movie, steam, or anime/manga reviews. I usually gloss over them pretty much entirely.

[Anonymous No.18463666]

I usually write film scripts, but recently I feel like a novel might be better suited for some of my ideas. Anyone care to give me some pointers?

>Jack, a 5 year old boy with dark black hair and pudgy face wandered around white sands of the beach, looking to find anything fun to play with, the visit was impromptu, he wasn't able to bring his shovel and bucket. Wind snapped at his blue button-up shirt that his mother helped put on, he always mismatched the buttons. Jack looked to the tree line, where his mother sat reclining comfortably in the shade. She gave Jack a wistful wave and motherly smile. Jack returned the wave flapping his hand hard.
>The boy made his way to the water, the waves were calm, the water warm, it reminded Jack of the jacuzzi in his home. He reached into the water and found all sorts of interesting items. Little bags holding fishes (Jack hoped they were alive), batteries (Jack hoped they were dead, else he get shocked), seaweed, sometimes a handful of what Jack liked to call "plasty eggs" little beads of opaque plastic, reminiscent of caviar. Jack hated caviar, so did his mother, his father said it was fancy, it didn't taste fancy.

[Anonymous No.18463667]

I feel like the plot is the most important part of the book, and the plot summary is the most important part of the plot. The plot is most similar to life. It corresponds to the deep nature of our existence. In life, what is inside of us is expressed through our actions. And so it is with books. The life of a book is expressed through its plot. What makes the plot summary superior to the plot is the condensation to the essentials. Therein lies artistic work on the one hand, on the other hand it saves me time. I'd rather read the summary of a book than the book itself. The book is like the twisted memory of its true past.

[Anonymous No.18463676]

>>18463666
Didn't your film teachers ever tell you to start off with something interesting instead of the literary equivalent of a court transcript?

[Anonymous No.18463690]

>>18463676
Noted. I was reading it and it felt very robotic.

Any good tips for keeping the flourish and flowery writing flowing when writing?

[Anonymous No.18463699]

>>18463690
No, that's not what I meant. It's not bad in terms of prose, but literally nothing interesting is happening. Basically, "why the fuck do I care"

[Anonymous No.18463704]

>>18463699
Well its the first two paragraphs in a supposed novel. Here are the next 2. The four paragraphs make up a little teaser before chapter one.

>Jack looked to his mother, she was out of her chair, walking along the beach, her sundress flowing and her hat nearly flying off her head. Jack noticed his father appearing out of the tree line. How was he not sweating in his suit? Jack didn't know. His father began to talk with his mother. It seemed like he was giving really bad news. His mother waved for Jack to get ready to leave.
>Jack was ready, the sun was really hot and he felt his skin beginning to burn. He reached into the ocean one last time before going home. Hoping to find something fun, perhaps another toy like last time. His hand dug through the sand, pluming the water with white. His fingers grasped onto something warm but smooth. He pulled it out, a cylindrical brass tube, tapered at the top. On the bottom was a silver button. Jack knew what this was, he always found them at the beach, nothing fun. He dropped the rifle casing and made his way to his mother, who was now crying.

[Anonymous No.18463716]

>>18463541
Anon stop. A plot synopsis is not a review. Just drop that idea right now.

[Anonymous No.18463728]

>>18463704
Different anon here, yet I echo the same sentiment. Why do I care about any of this? There is no pull or reason for me to continue reading.

[Anonymous No.18463737]

>>18463728
Well its supposed to be show the reader that the world this boy (our protagonist) grew up in was one of climate change, but also wealth. World building as well I guess (the rifle shells being a common thing in the ocean means tons of war, etc)

I guess I can make it more apparent that the boy wants something and searches for it.

[Anonymous No.18463750]

>>18463704
It is nice that things get going towards the end, however: I feel like you are describing way too much stuff – stuff that is not particularly interesting and does not inform the characters (or, if it does inform them, it does so in an uninteresting way). I would say you should focus more on the action. Get the mood building over with quick. The boy waving "hard", for example, is great. The boy digging "through the sand, pluming the water with white", is not as poetic as it needs to be to justify its existence.

[Anonymous No.18463755]

>>18463737
Try rewriting it following these rules:
>First two sentences should begin describing the conflict and make me interested in it.
>The first "scene" should develop upon it.
>Everything you mention should serve to help describe the conflict with one degree of separation. That is, you can describe how pretty mother's sundress if it helps characterize her as a southern belle, but only if her being a southern belle is part of the conflict.

You're not that far off the mark but I think you need to step back and see the whole picture. I have trouble with this myself.

[Anonymous No.18463794]

>>18463716
When did I ever say plot synopsis = review? I specifically asked about including the plot synopsis in the review

[Anonymous No.18463812]

>>18463794
If you don't understand by now that you shouldn't, you never will.

[Anonymous No.18463821]

>>18463812
I'm gauging what percentage of people actually are bothered by it versus people who are not

[Anonymous No.18463854]

Slowly returning to just write. Although the hiatus had work on character motivations and plotting, so it wasn't just procrastination

[Anonymous No.18463863]

>>18463854
>it wasn't just procrastination
It was, anon, it was. You could've written something else. There are always things to write. I'm sorry.

[Anonymous No.18463875]

>>18463863
Passive processing is a very important part of coming to conclusions about the work you’ve done and the choices you have to make. Anyone with any experience of getting creative work from start to finish know this. Stop being mean.

[Anonymous No.18463902]

>>18463704
I personally like this childish perspective. I’d skip the father sweating thing since kids dont think about such things until they’re older. Otherwise i’d say keep at it. I mean we’re already learning that something’s wrong by what Jack sees in his parents. Ignore the ”instant action” retards. I’m assuming they are the same people that are having trouble with choosing between ”nanokevlar powersuit” or ”omnichrome stealth field unit.”

[Anonymous No.18463933]

>>18463875
You could've passively processed Project A, while working actively on Project B. I'm not being mean. I just think that you can and should write every day. I don't believe that any Project A is so big that it needs your whole brain power – it's an excuse that keeps us from writing. I don't believe in it.

[Anonymous No.18463983]

>>18463821
How about you go and find out how to actually write real reviews, instead of polling random bullshit here?

[Anonymous No.18464108]

>>18463933
Interesting perspective. I believe people are different and that what works for some won’t work for others. Also, people have different motivations for writing. Mine, to give an example, is to finish this novel then stop writing for a while and focus on other things. Procrastination is also sometimes a good thing since it builds up frustration and guilt, which can result in bursts of high output, or at least getting your ass to open your file and start putting down words again. For some, however, it only leads to further avoidance and procrastination, which isn’t good. All i’m saying is people should be humble and not assume there is a ”right” way to do things. Whatever works.

[Anonymous No.18464226]

>>18453448
Yeah. The ellipses really make the lines stand out in the reader's mind. You can practically hear the next part:
>Unknown to death... nor known to life... have withstood pain to create many weapons...

[Anonymous No.18464232]

>>18464108
Faulkner said most of the work with his writing was done before he ever set a pen to paper. If you've seen the sparsity of his outlines, it becomes obvious that he has done most of his story and character development in his head. The irony is that if Faulkner had been alive today and posted that, anons would have said something similar to >>18463863. Like you say, whatever works, works. I personally commit to one good, plausible handwritten page a day for five days a week. I feel like a broken record whenever I say this, but contrary to popular belief there are no hard and fast rules about writing. There's only what works for an individual. Some people like to parade around writing dogma, but people forget that it's just that: dogma. It rests on what works for most usually one single author.

[Anonymous No.18464267]

>>18462738
Lol, way to go dumbass. You just walked right into my trap. Ligma is short for "ligma balls." Do your parents know you like licking balls faggot??

[Anonymous No.18464272]

https://pastebin.com/V4peB1eg

Have at it, boys. Show no mercy.

[Anonymous No.18464278]

>>18464232
>dogma balls
lol you guys are making this too easy

[Anonymous No.18464284]

>>18464272
I hate it but I'm having trouble expressing why.

[Anonymous No.18464307]

>>18464272
>>18464284
Okay so my major qualm is with that quirky-irreverent tone. It reminds me of the literary version of the Big Bang Theory with more highbrow prose. Also, I couldn't even find the rhythm in one of the latter limericks, which is doubly aggravating because your characters are speaking in verse in the first place.

[Anonymous No.18464313]

>>18464307
>>18464284
>>18464272
Ok so can I slam your hairy bamhole now or what?

[Anonymous No.18464318]

>>18464307
The last one? He’s very solemn and sad about what his partner has made him do. I attempted to make it sound more bluesy rather than anything requiring clean meter.
>literary Big Bang Theory with more highbrow prose
Are you saying that that’s been done before and I’m derivative of it?

[Anonymous No.18464366]

>>18464318
It means millions of people across the world will enjoy your writing.

[Anonymous No.18464392]

>>18464366
>It means millions of people across the world will enjoy your writing.
Ha! I wish. I’m just here to post my silly ideas. Have a good day, anon, and I saw you just came into the thread (as per the poster counter). You’re awfully quick of wit!

[Anonymous No.18464688]

>only need to write a wee bit more
>just don't wanna because it's sunny outside
Rain is conductive to writing, sunlight is a distraction. I will go outside now to walk in the woods and contemplate my work. Walks are good for that type of thing you know.

[Anonymous No.18465304]

>>18463737
First off to play devil's advocate, conflict is the not be all end all of fiction, it's one of many tools to keep the reader's attention, in particular by creating a feeling of anticipation. Unless you're writing pulp (or sometimes, even if you are) it is not necessary to jump straight into conflict from page one. There are other methods to create anticipation, e.g dramatic irony in which one character (or the reader himself) knows something that another character does not. The reader then begins to anticipate the moment of revelation and therefore keeps reading. The more emotionally charged the revelation, the greater the anticipation.

It seems to me, that in choosing a young boy as the pov, you are almost obliged to use dramatic irony, and you do, probably even unconsciously, when e.g you talk about the mother's wistful smile, the father delivering bad news, the mother crying, the rifle casing and so on, which we, the reader understand, but which the protagonist does not. So the setup for irony is there. The problem, I think, is there is no real emotional charge associated with the eventual revelation. As another anon succinctly put it, "why...do I care?". More to the point, why does the protagonist care? How would the revelation affect him in the future? How does his ignorance affect him now? Is that made clear? Is it dramatic? If, for instance, the parents were arguing about the boy, and you make this clear by giving us snippets of their conversation -- which we understand but which the boy doesn't, thereby maintaining irony -- and then the boy tries to cheer his mother up but (by whatever method he attempts) accidentally reminds her of the very reason she's upset and she snaps at him, then you've not only exploited the irony but have also created a moment of misunderstanding that makes us identify and empathize with your protagonist. In short, we begin to care.

Also you probably shouldn't begin a novel like the way you introduce a character in a screenplay. It reads awkwardly.

[Anonymous No.18465419]

>>18464232
To reiterate this, while there are no hard and fast rules for writing (one can always invent new techniques for old effects) there are some rules, derived from human physiology, for remaining both happy and productive. You can do almost anything and still be productive, but to be happy as well narrows the options.

One of the central principles is "certainty" or "linkage", where you stop yourself at the moment when are you "going hot", when you know exactly what you're going to write next. You will never get writer's block if, like Faulkner or Hemingway, you only sit down to write when you know exactly what to write next. The means by which you accomplish this, whether by having many irons in the fire (as Asimov famously did) or by patient dependence on your subconscious to work things out, is not as important as the principle itself whose purpose is to ensure a positive feedback loop toward your writing thereby making the act a pleasure rather than a poison. The story you write in three years can just easily be written in three weeks -- and with much less pain -- so long as you were working out the story in your head for three years and only sat down in the last three weeks to "dash it out".

There are other "rules" for being happily productive, but I'll leave it at that. I will say there is a place for daily writing, but it should be more in the same way a pianist practices his scales. Keep the instrument sharp for the moment when the story must be put to paper.

[Anonymous No.18465687]

Is there any way to find out what kind of a story becomes successful? You might have a well-written story with a unique perspective and a lot of thought put into it that interests no one. Then you might have some barely legible trash full of very basic grammatical errors and paper-thin characterization that become a smash hit and has all the readers go like, "perfect, one of the best things I've ever read!" I don't get it. It seems so completely random. Like a bad joke.

[Anonymous No.18465730]

>>18465687
Unless you're a mind reader it's impossible to tell. Most world wide best sellers were a complete surprise to almost everyone, especially the publishers. Also, some books become sleeper hits over time, like Moby Dick

[Anonymous No.18465819]

>>18465730
Success is random?

[Anonymous No.18465845]

>>18465687
I've been thinking about this a lot myself. I think it comes down to writing for your audience rather than writing (solely) for yourself. This means putting yourself in the reader's shoes and writing something that makes them, specifically, want to keep reading. Some people consider this a bad thing (calling it "emotional manipulation" or whatever) but I've come up with a simple model for how an author might go about doing this and I can share it if there's any interest.

[Anonymous No.18465846]

Why am I called a pseud for using semicolons, em dashes, and colons more than commas? I take great care in following the rules of punctuation; a stark contrast to popular "writers" found in modern webnovels, self published books, and even published works, because their sentences are full of comma splices and even run-on sentences. And yet, no one ever calls them our on their mistake, but people are quick to call ME out when I use correct grammar and punctuation because it "looks" weird.

[Anonymous No.18465850]

>>18465845
Ok show us

[Anonymous No.18465900]

I need to change my writing schedule and book dedicated editing time. Smashing out word count is one thing, but quantifying revision seems impossible.

How do you set goals for polishing?

[Anonymous No.18465921]

>>18465819
yeah, as far as human comprehension is concerned. Maybe if we stick chips in everyone and make an AI compare brain activity to the book market we might start to predict fads and blockbuster successes.

[Anonymous No.18465928]

>>18465846
Because society is based on the security and safety from repetitious predictability. Your use of foreign punctuation marks used only by lawyers and Johannes Gutenberg is an ineffective way to communicate messages to the masses. You are purposely calling yourself out for using tools best left unused. It's the same precarious nature that leads people to use archaic words with awkward phrasings.

[Anonymous No.18465945]

>>18465846
cause it's ugly, like your soul

[Anonymous No.18465964]

Why don't you just write whatever is popular at the time?

Twilight is popular? Write a vampire boyfriend story.
Hunger Games is popular? Write a teen fights government story.
Mandalorian is popular? Write an escort a cute green baby alien story

[Anonymous No.18465969]

>>18465964
Is this a serious question? It's the same reason you don't buy stocks that just spiked.

[Anonymous No.18465971]

>>18465900
Chapter a day. One issue a day. X hours. X issues. It's all the same shit. Be it deleting "that" or drawing a time line of your plot or running spell check or making sure your commas are in the right place along side your quotation marks. It's either by time, by length, or by issue.

[Anonymous No.18465975]

>>18465969
The Harry Potter craze lasted for almost 15 years

[Anonymous No.18466016]

>>18465964
>>18465975
Many other people will also jump on the bandwagon of it also how will you stand out?

[Anonymous No.18466025]

>>18465975
This. Percy Jackson was literally the offbrand Harry Potter and it was still immensely popular within children's fantasy genre, second only to Harry Potter itself

[Anonymous No.18466036]

>>18465969
Fuck you my overly simplistic YA dystopia with a female lead will take off any day now.

[Anonymous No.18466060]

>>18466016
People will be clamoring for anything like [thing that is currently popular].

> t. reading a scifi book about a tough space delivery guy who has to escort baby Yoda knock off to his homeland

[Anonymous No.18466098]

Would you recommend this book?

[Anonymous No.18466127]

>>18465850
Well the model rests on something Forster wrote in Aspects of the Novel, that a novel's success or failure depends on whether or not it makes the reader want to keep reading. John Gardner calls this "profluence". To that I add: the degree to which a work has profluence depends on the reader as much as (maybe more than) the writer. A person looking to read YA or pulp novels isn't going to experience much profluence from Finnegans Wake, and the population that would is quite limited. If you want to reach a broad audience, first figure out whether the audience you're writing for is broad.

In my model, profluence comes from four categories (in order of universality):
1. Contrast
2. Anticipation
3. Identification
4. Aesthetics

From these categories (or we might call them "principles") all literary techniques are derived. As I mentioned in an above post, conflict and dramatic irony -- two of the most common techniques -- fall into the category of anticipation, though they may also help with identification, be handled aesthetically, and require contrast to have full effect. I could expound more on each one, and the techniques associated with them, but that could probably fill up an entire book. I've found that using this model I can understand why an author makes a certain choice (even if unconsciously) at a certain point in the fiction and that I can be conscious of the same choice (or its wrongful omission) when I revise my own work.

It also explains why "lesser" writers seem to be more popular with the masses. It's because, in part, their audience does not care as much about the fourth category, aesthetics -- with which "higher" literature is mostly concerned -- as the others.

If these categories seem too broad as to be useful, it's because they are categories and not techniques. To acquire technique, study the books written for the audiences you wish to write for (just make sure that audience still exists today) and take measure of which are the most important and which the least so that you can allocate your efforts appropriately. If you want to write fantasy, for example, the setting has special importance. Setting falls into both contrast ("how is this different from my world and the worlds I've seen in other fantasy?") and identification ("how is this the same as my world and the worlds I enjoyed in other fantasy?"). Take someone like Sanderson, his entire body of work is based on just two of the four principles: contrast and anticipation, yet that's precisely what the fantasy crowd likes most, so he'll never starve. Compare to the people on this site, or in this thread, who value identification and aesthetics -- any wonder why they hate Sanderson and his ilk?

If all this violates your artistic sensibilities, remember that you are always writing for an audience. An audience of one: yourself. The trick is to find that region of intersection with the broader world. To make the specific and intensely personal, universal.

[Anonymous No.18466155]

>>18466127
Is this why I read dune in a matter of days and most every other book takes me a little longer? The urge to read and find out what happens next because of Dune's short chapter length and constant cliff hangers? Like a TV show where only one event happens every episode but you have 200 episodes left to finish?

I'm not the anon you were replying to, but I've found my writing to be character driven and without plot, which is the type of fiction that takes me the longest to get around to finishing. I have yet to write something where the plot is the clear protagonist of the story, and yet that is what dune was. Every character was two dimensional, yet I was enveloped by it. Even book of the new sun is proving to be more difficult because I don't understand the scope the book is working within regarding plot after 100 pages.

I look at the new amazon system that's a rip off of royal road except with micro transactions and I wonder how does one write 3000 word micro stories that all have cliff hangers that make the reader NEED to pay for the next story? What type of prepatory sludge do I need to drag myself through to make something that's appealing in the sense that it makes the reader NEED to know what happens next?

[Anonymous No.18466187]

>>18466060
Only works if you already have your foot in the publishing door and can write a book fast enough to catch the wave

To the unpublished plebs like myself, breaching that barrier will take so long that the trend is gone.

[Anonymous No.18466207]

>>18466155
What you characterize as "plot" as the driving force of profluence, I would call contrast and anticipation but yes, that's probably why. You need not study the "sludge" to learn the techniques you want, study what you enjoyed. Re-read Dune but this time pay careful attention to how the author creates anticipation and uses contrast to keep you reading. What does he do over and over? That's a technique. Where does he fall short -- not in the eyes of a critic, but that of a reader? That's an opportunity.

[Anonymous No.18466239]

>>18466187
Yeah this book came out only a few months after Mandalorian started. You gotta write fast

[Anonymous No.18466248]

>>18466207
I sure wish I didn't give away my copy of dune. Oh well.

[Anonymous No.18466313]

Do you think it would be possible to sell a series of completely original works while simultaneously publishing free fanfiction containing tons of copyrighted characters? Could you do it under the same label/name without getting sued for copyright infringement?

By riding the coattails of previous authors you could grow an audience much quicker than might otherwise be possible. After you're established you could just insert an overarching plot device that links all of your content together, like a portal or something, all without explicitly referring to the infringing material.

I've never heard of anyone attempting something like this before. Am I full of it, or could this actually work?

[Anonymous No.18466323]

>>18466313
The only problem is that the people who read your fanfiction aren't automatically going to like your original works, just because the author name is the same. It's like when JK Rowling those political spy thrillers, her HP fans didn't buy those books

[Anonymous No.18466349]

>>18466313
Wasnt 50 shades originally a fanfic of the vampire books?

[Anonymous No.18466372]

>>18465900
I just run a chapter through both Grammarly and Gdocs when I'm done desu. Takes like a hour or less, then I'm done and I move on to writing the next chapter.

[Anonymous No.18466374]

>>18466349
Damn you're right

E.L. James' 'Fifty Shades of Grey' Trilogy Ranked as Top 3 Bestselling Books Of The Decade
'Fifty Shades' Star Talks Full-Frontal Nudity
'Fifty Shades' Star Talks Full-Frontal Nudity
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CULTURE
'Fifty Shades' E.L. James Still Profiting From 'Twilight' Fan Fiction With Christian Grey Book
BY ANNA MENTA ON 10/10/17 AT 5:22 PM EDT
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CULTURE FIFTY SHADES OF GREY
If a Pulitzer for Fan Fiction Turned Best-Selling Literature exists, Fifty Shades author E.L. James should receive it.

1
Fifty Shades Darker - Official Trailer 2
The romance writer announced Tuesday that her fifth book, Darker: Fifty Shades Darker as Told by Christian, will hit stores on November 28. The release is a retelling of the second book in her Fifty Shades trilogy from the point of view of Christian Grey, the male lead of the dark love story. James did the same thing with her first book when she published Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey As Told by Christian in 2015. One assumes she'll do the same thing with the final book, Fifty Shades Freed, in a few years.

It's impressive how many books, films and paychecks James has managed to squeeze out of characters Grey and Anastasia Steele—especially considering they were essentially X-rated versions of Stephenie Meyer's characters Edward Cullen and Bella Swan.


10-10-EL-James
Author E.L. James' best-selling novel, "Fifty Shades of Grey," was originally "Twilight" fanfiction.
ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ/GETTY IMAGES
BEST OF NEWSWEEK VIA EMAIL
Email address

> As many fans know, Fifty Shades of Grey was first a Twilight fan fiction called "Master Of The Universe," available for free on the web. The original story, written by James under the pseudonym Snowqueens Icedragon, has long since been taken down. But the internet never forgets. PDF versions are easily available of James' bondage-heavy erotica between Twilight characters Bella and Edward. The fan fiction's opening paragraph bears near word-for-word resemblance to that of Fifty Shades of Grey, save for name changes. Rosalie Cullen becomes Katherine Kavanaugh, Bella becomes Anastasia and Edward becomes Christian.

https://gagadaily.com/forums/topic/211308-i-have-found-master-of-the-universe-the-original-50-shades-fanfic/
https://fiftyshadesofgrey.fandom.com/wiki/Master_of_the_Universe

[Anonymous No.18466379]

>>18466323
Well of course you'd want all of your work to have as much overlap as possible in terms of genre and tone. I think smut has by far the greatest potential for bridging the audiences, as >>18466349 has already demonstrated.

[Anonymous No.18466384]

>>18466379
I don't think it was overlap as much as ctrl+h character names

[Anonymous No.18466392]

I've started my first novel. Seems to be fine, except I don't describe a lot of stuff that's going around and characters' emotions that well. Will try working on this.

[Anonymous No.18466411]

>>18466384
You can't stop me now anon. My fanfiction will be a sort of Super Smash Brothers style jamboree, wherein tons of popular characters have to rape each other for supremacy. The subsequent series of paid novels will themselves be barely legal porn parodies that use the likenesses of public figures and dead celebrities. I'll be rolling in it lads, just wait and see.

[Anonymous No.18466660]

Please read and give some feedback. I'm very new to writing and this wasn't originally written in english, so grammar isn't focus.
https://pastebin.com/EcPEMsNb

[Anonymous No.18466678]

>>18466660
Stick to your native language or take more English lessons. Why should I read this when you won't even attempt getting the grammar correct?

[Anonymous No.18466703]

>>18466660
Well, you certainly put in effort. If you have a conflict or a goal, maybe foreshadow it earlier?

[Anonymous No.18466755]

>>18466678
I do stick to my native language and wouldn't translate these at all unless I had to to get some feedback. However, I do my best when translating these and do fix grammatical errors when noted, but grammar isn't my focus.

>>18466703
I don't get your point.

[Anonymous No.18466784]

>>18465845
>I think it comes down to writing for your audience rather than writing (solely) for yourself.

This ingenious trick expects you to somehow know what the audience wants, even though it's not what you personally want. And if it were that easy, everyone would be successful.

[Anonymous No.18466786]

>>18466755
Well, you have that road story with a twist in the end, But a lot of people might just stop before they get to it, so foreshadowing might be useful.

[Anonymous No.18466838]

>>18466786
Right! Thanks.

[Anonymous No.18466994]

>>18466678
Ignore this faggot, he clearly doesn't understand the very complex concept of a story that is written in a different language but translated into English for feedback purposes

[Anonymous No.18467005]

A snowcone cart was blocking the shopfront, blocking the most reliable screen to catch the ticker on in this part of town. The conehead was taking a smoke break on a day that was a touch too cool for frozen treats. Marvin clumsily pulled out the few bills he had, crumpled one, and tossed it a ways ahead of the cart. Smokey flicked his cigarette to the sidewalk and scooted. Marvin snatched up a dwindling butt and savored the few harsh puffs it had to offer. The wait was making him anxious and crude instincts had always served him better than manners.

[Anonymous No.18467097]

>>18466372
You wanna know how I know you publish to RR?

[Anonymous No.18467121]

>>18467097
> noooo you can't post on a serial publishing website

[Anonymous No.18467141]

Speaking of publishing on RR. Chapter 35 dropped.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40361/erased
Don't let your memes be dreams. Getting your work in front of people's faces is more valuable than whatever paltry pretensions you pretend to hold.

[Anonymous No.18467148]

>>18467141
>mfw my story is about to get the hiatus tag

[Anonymous No.18467156]

>>18467097
I'm not really hiding it or anything. We have a really small posters here after all

[Anonymous No.18467166]

>>18467148
Are tags added automatically or do you have to add it yourself

[Anonymous No.18467173]

>>18467166
Automatic after 30 days of no update.

[Anonymous No.18467260]

oh yeah I sold a copy of my non-fiction book and it hasn't been returned yet

[Anonymous No.18467403]

>>18467121
It's being flippant about editing at a larger scope than prose that is the issue

[Anonymous No.18467416]

>>18467156
Size has nothing to do with it!

[Anonymous No.18467490]

I'm starting to think my routine of autistically fixating on a couple of topics and then just smashing them together as hard as I can into a finished project is counter productive. How the FUCK did I get stuck trying to finish a god damn ANT MYTHOLOgy. Why did I have to bring ants into it? Why couldn't I just enjoy reading about ants without feeling like I had to jam that shit into my writing? I swear I have manic episodes or something and it just takes me months to realize I'm writing insane shit

[Anonymous No.18467646]

>>18467260
Congratulations! It feels good to see that. There's a work of yours out in the world in which you can give no further input or context to it. It's just there for someone else to interpret and enjoy.
Down the line you can look at your stuff on a yearly+ scale and it feels a bit intimidating. Sure one book here, one book there flies off the shelf and into someone's hands but you see you've got a bunch of your material out there and you're like ah, I hope people are enjoying the books.

[Anonymous No.18467717]

>>18467260
Well done anon nonfiction writing rules.

[Anonymous No.18468034]

>>18467646
I don't know if enjoying is the right word, they're books about human resources. But I hope my book helps people taking exams about HR laws.

>>18467717
Writing groups is dominated by fiction. I don't know if it's true, but I've heard that non-fiction outsells fiction by a lot. I've enjoyed writing non-fiction. It's straightforward, you don't have to worry about plot or characters. It also helps me understand the topic better too.

[Anonymous No.18468060]

>>18468034
>but I've heard that non-fiction outsells fiction by a lot
Because of self-help books.

[Anonymous No.18468103]

>>18468060
yeah, that make a lot of sense, there are a lot of books by "gurus"

[Anonymous No.18468478]

I've cracked the code bros
Instead of using things I'm comfortable and familiar with as background noise, like music I like, I just put on cringe
So that way my alternative thing to focus on is my own writing, and as cringe as it may be it's not as cringe as what I'm otherwise paying attention to
Darksydephil has finally become useful to me

[Anonymous No.18468777]

>>18450944
hello /lit/, I want start writing, but have zero experience. So before I start the passion project I've been planning out, I wanted to write a short sci-fi story/novella/whatever just to get some feedback. If anyone would like to check it out and give me some harsh feedback, here's the first couple hundred words
https://pastebin.com/VR67B6hW

[Anonymous No.18468806]

I don't use the Oxford comma in my text, but I have a sentence that looks like this:
>Bla bla... bla positive bla... bla using the bla, the bla, and the bla and negative for bla... bla.
The "bla" is obviously a stand in for other words... Notice that all the elements before the last '"and" is connected to "positive", while the element after the last "and" is connected to "negative". Should I treat it as one long list (and thus not use an Oxford comma since I don't use Oxford commas in my text) or would it be clearer to write something like this?
>Bla bla... bla positive bla... bla using the bla, the bla, and the bla, and negative for bla... bla.
Even though I don't use Oxford commas.

Hopefully you understand what I mean. Please ask any questions if it isn't clear. I'm somewhat well known so I don't want to dox myself by giving out the text. Hope you understand.

[Anonymous No.18468811]

>>18468806

[Anonymous No.18468829]

>>18468811
I know, but can I treat the elements that are connected to "positive" and "negative" as being part of the same list? That is, all the elements before the last "and" is connected to positive and the one after the last "and" is connected to "negative". I want to write "and" for the last element connected to "positive" to make it more clear that all these elements are connected to "positive". So, does this look ok assuming that I don't use the Oxford comma:
>Bla bla... bla positive bla... bla using the bla, the bla, and the bla and negative for bla... bla.
?

[Anonymous No.18468874]

>>18468777
>Either it’s mainframe isn’t responding or it’s pilot isn’t.
*its

Very good for a first attempt otherwise. Interesting enough to make me want to keep reading. However, it all goes by very fast and is sparse on description. I have no idea what the Rescue or Thur and Narik look like, only the lifeboat. Where are they standing? What do they look like? You need to just increase the word count for what happens in this scene.

[Anonymous No.18468930]

>>18468874
good catch, thank you!
yeah, definitely need to get better at describing stuff. thanks for reading it!

[Anonymous No.18469030]

Nabokov states that a good writer is a moralist/teacher, a storyteller, and an enchanter; obviously, some writers excel at one or two of these things more than others. I'm interested to hear from you anons: what writers would you put in each category? I know for me personally, I would put Chekhov and Tolstoy as great storyteller-moralists, while I would put someone like McCarthy as a great enchanter, maybe a bit of a storyteller too

[Anonymous No.18469254]

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/41979/a-hero-among-monsters
I’m up to chapter 5 now! I even updated my blog to mention that I’m writing!
https://radraccoon.wordpress.com/2021/06/16/i-still-breathe/
So like I’m done with the promoting thing, right? Now the money starts rolling in?

[Anonymous No.18469310]

>>18469254
>Now the money starts rolling in?
absolutely!
but seriously, the best thing you can do is stick to a schedule so content comes out at a reliable rate in order to gain readers. well, the best thing you can do is have fun writing your story so if readers come, or not, you're still enjoying the experience

[Anonymous No.18469515]

>>18468806
kek, imagine the narcissism you have to have to believe that people would identify you from your unique writing style or one sentence or whatever

[Anonymous No.18469517]

>>18467490
>ANT MYTHOLOgy
that actually sounds kind of cool. I always appreciated the details Card gave about his ants in Ender's universe.

[Anonymous No.18469774]

>>18469254
Kill all goblins!

[Anonymous No.18469779]

>>18469030
nabokov = doo doo

[Anonymous No.18469799]

>>18467490
it's what having autism is like and i'm jamming all my obsessions into one story as well, i can't do otherwise or i start feeling like my mental constitution will dismantle. i feel the same frustration as you do. i wish i didn't have to force 1910s ballet shit into my ultra-contemporary buddhist narrative just because it's my special interest but here i fucking am.

[Anonymous No.18469900]

>>18469799
>>18469517
kind words from my fellow autists, I felt better about it after a nap anyway

[Anonymous No.18469962]

How do I write a story? Give me some tips, please

[Anonymous No.18469964]

>>18469962
Google it.

[Anonymous No.18469968]

>>18469962
You start with "It was a dark and stormy night", pretty much up to your tastes what comes after that.

[Anonymous No.18469971]

>>18469962
God, you write like a massive beta faggot.

[Anonymous No.18469978]

>>18469971
You write just like him.
It checks out.

[Anonymous No.18469990]

>>18469964
I was banned.
>>18469971
No, you!

[Anonymous No.18469992]

>>18469962
It must be hard for you to function.

[Anonymous No.18469998]

>>18469992
Anon, please. Asking them to do the bare minimum for their stories is really difficult for them.

[Anonymous No.18470016]

>>18469992
Is that really a story guide? Looks like it's made for screenplays.

[Anonymous No.18470018]

>>18470016
That’s all you’re good for aren’t you? Excuses upon excuses.

[Anonymous No.18470022]

>>18470016
I don't know, why don't you search it up and read it yourself?

[Anonymous No.18470039]

>>18470022
>Anon expecting other anons to do their own work.
NGMI

[Anonymous No.18470040]

>>18470039
I can dream.

[Anonymous No.18470043]

>>18470018
Well, usually I just write with initial ideas for main characters and their conflict. If I first wrote a plot summary, then looked for a character best suited for PoV, took a step back to critique my choice, made a perfect first line, broke down the summary into a scene list, went to do research for them and edited as I wrote, I'd have never written anything. It just looks like a formula for writing on demand, which why I said it was for screenplays.

[Anonymous No.18470050]

New thread

>>18470046

[Anonymous No.18470595]

>>18456469
What country are you in?

[Anonymous No.18471018]

>>18469774
The real goblins are the friends we made along the way.
>>18469310
Way ahead of you on the schedule and enjoying what I write. But I do not to put some more effort into promotion.

[Anonymous No.18471809]

>>18467490
That's cool, keep being unique and creating that which nobody else can.

[Anonymous No.18472890]

>>18470595
He is in Peru, they just had elections. Anon exaggerates, as expected.