Read The Elements of Style and did a re-write, can I get a proofread?

[Anonymous No.18880631]

Hey /lit/,

I have been talking to my shrink and back on meds, the advice I got on multiple threads to "seek help" was actually good advice. My manic episode completely destroyed my life. I quit work, began writing a shitty novel, and performed my swan-dive into total alcoholism. The wellbutrin I'm on is particularly spicy with the THC and alcohol in my system, however, at least now I know I'm delusional and have no chance of success.

In the meantime, before I commit myself to the local mental hospital, would anyone be interested in seeing my editing progression from before I received valid and real criticism from /lit/, and then the result of my unfettered critical view of my own work?

I can post two PDFs for comparison if anyone is interested. Thank you and have a very nice evening.
>inb4 seek help
>inb4 ngmi
>inb4 schizo
>inb4 wear the mask, take the vaxx
p.s. a HUGE congratulations to Waldun for his recent book release, and a belated congratulations to F. Gardner on his latest, Jigoku

[Anonymous No.18880689]

Meds.

[Anonymous No.18880714]

lol

[Anonymous No.18880851]

So uh, nobody interested in seeing my edits?

[Anonymous No.18880891]

>>18880851
Just fucking post it dude

[Anonymous No.18880935]

>>18880891
I need another drink first

[Anonymous No.18880969]

I will proudly put this book on my shelf right next to Call of the Crocodile and Moby Dick.

[Anonymous No.18881008]

>>18880969
Thank you, to be placed next to Mike MA and F. Gardner is an honour. You have uplifted my spirit this evening. Bless you.

[Anonymous No.18881221]

>he didn't post it
Fuck off, reported, get banned faggot. Stupid fucking self-pubber, you will never make it. KYS.
>n
>g
>m
>i
You are a disgrace. Everything about your prose screams "help me", to which we have all replied. "seek help", however, you continue to elude the truth based on your own admission. Your delusion has taken over again, a Jungian shadow that eclipsed the ego, now at the controls and sadly manipulating you into a masochistic, vicious cycle of humiliation as your timid, fearful writing spews forth from your keyboard as a 14 year old barfs from too much bud light. Everything about you screams desperate, not hopeful, begging, full of despair. Like every inch of your fraudulent soul craves fat weebs in mom's basement to adore you, put you on a shelf next to their BBC shrine and funko-pops. Kill yourself boomer. You deserve nothing more than the gallows, funny how your corpse would hang around longer than any of your books in a top seller's list. You make me sick, beyond ill, I feel as though I will slip into a coma, acquire a disease of my very soul reading any of your pathetic drivel. There could not be anymore of a waste of time than reading anything Mr. Seek Help himself produces, countless hours better spent analyzing Hunter Biden's cock, or researching how the vaccines give you 5G. Loser.

Seek help... wait, fuck that, kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.18881236]

>>18881221
Seek help

[Anonymous No.18881252]

>>18881236
He won't. When his shit book sells 0 copies and reality hits him in the face, he'll kill himself. Maybe, fucking maybe then we'll get back to having real authors lurk around here instead of these useless, unskilled fucking dreamers. Fucking loser self-pubbers are a joke. KYS you fucking idiots. Either take the time and go through University and at LEAST a MA, or fuck off, nothing you could write is even worthy of the ink it is written on. Fucking pathetic self-pubbers need to learn the truth.
>n
>g
>m
>i

[Anonymous No.18881665]

>>18881008
Same to you man. Rock on!

[Anonymous No.18881715]

>>18881665
Seek help, Jason, the samefagging is obvious.

[Anonymous No.18881764]

>>18881252
Is that what you want out of this book, Jason? To be known as the pathetic samefagger?

[Anonymous No.18881769]

>>18881764
he'll take being known as a samefagger if it means being known at all

[Anonymous No.18881779]

>>18881764
>To be known as the pathetic samefagger?
He already samefags on /wg/

[Anonymous No.18881780]

>>18881665
Thank you for your encouragement good sir. I've been a bit overwhelmed as of late, 24 days until my launch. I've contacted several editors and I'm going to be sending off my first edition for a good proof read, releasing it with quick edits on sept 11th 2021, followed by a second edition that I will work with an editor on to correct my garbage prose.

Thank you again, so much, for your words of kindness. I'm having a difficult time staying positive and following through, I allowed myself to be critical but now I fear I have become too critical, and I cannot imagine anyone even wanting to read my shit. This bro at the liquor store who read my book loves the story, he said the writing was fine to him, but he said every book he reads recently is quite wordy. Wordy is popular at the moment, apparently.

Anyways, uhhh... hope you have a nice evening. I will be continuing to ingest liquor, my nemesis and simultaneously my superpower, and monitoring this thread. I bid you good evening, sir.

[Anonymous No.18881783]

>>18880631
I like how the cover embraces the toilet paper theme. Not only in its cover art style but also in the way it is cut. The edges are so poorly cut the book actually looks (and feels I imagine) like toilet paper. And the author didn't stop there with the analogy... to say nothing of the prose.

[Anonymous No.18881823]

>>18881783
Kind sir, would you do a wannabe writer a favour?

https://jason-bryan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/TheShitkickers-Chapter1.pdf
>this is the earlist rough draft I have

Compare the above to my most recent work below

https://jason-bryan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/tsk-chap1-new.pdf

Please, give me your honest opinion of how I have progressed, or regressed, in my writing. I believe my recent study of The Elements of Style have shown me how to write clearer. I'm playing with a more fluid opening line, as well, but something that ties in that sentiment smoothly.

Thank you so much for your time.

[Anonymous No.18881826]

>>18881823
Seek help

[Anonymous No.18881831]

>>18881826
Isn't that precisely what I'm doing?

[Anonymous No.18881836]

>>18881831
Seek help

[Anonymous No.18881837]

>>18881836

[Anonymous No.18881860]

>>18881823
Fuck I just noticed a "were" I should have deleted earlier

[Anonymous No.18881930]

Does anyone like how I changed:
>It starts to rain.
To:
>Still tired, Ken is also hungry, his feet sore, and looking at the restaurant, Allie can be seen waving to him from the window. He smiles, and waves back, his forearm hit by a sudden rain drop. With a pitter-patter on the dirty sidewalk below him, Ken looks to see little dots darkening the concrete as a cloudburst begins to pour. In moments, his shirt feels wet, lifting his head, the tow truck is pulling away from the curb. Ken's reflection in the wet car windows, his smile flips upside-down; on the back seat of the departing car is his only umbrella.

[Anonymous No.18881971]

Am I improving?

[Anonymous No.18882179]

>>18881971
no. you got some real basic problems with sentence structure and grammar, makes reading it a chore

[Anonymous No.18882213]

>>18881823

I'll read the first page or so.

My first impression is that you've gone for this Pynchon-type first sentence (his was like about some rocket screaming through the air or something). I did the same thing with my (really shit) novel; there is a temptation to do that but honestly you should begin a lot more simply and try to grab the reader with something tangible as quickly as possible. Remember, you're competing with the internet for their attention. Your first sentence is complicated and tough to parse. The second sentence is a lot easier; consider leading with that (even so, maybe tone it down a bit).

You have a mix of this pomo style as well as some more normal stuff going on - I would ditch the pomo style entirely (in your next work, a bit late for this one now). In my opinion if you're writing in that contemporary-literary style you have to be in the top 1% of books. If you're writing in a more normal style you can afford to be less amazing.

I read 3 pages and I have no idea what this book is going to be about. You need to signpost, you need to make me interested. As it is, I'm not interested after 3 pages and so I'm stopping here. I'm guessing this dude Ken goes on some type of adventure? I want to know what I'm in for, at least what "type" of book I'm going to get. Look at Philip K Dick - you know from very early on in e.g. Ubik that it is going to be some sort of mystery - but then what exact kind of mystery enfolds later. Or look at Book of the New Sun - we know it is going to be a biography of his life. What is this book about? Who is Ken and why do we care? Especially as he is a shit-kicker (probably?). Why do I want to read about someone like that?

[Anonymous No.18882227]

>>18882213
I thought the cover and the first page make it clear that the book leads into the drug and crime crisis in Vancouver, and how utterly bluepilled some people are

Thank you so much for writing your reply, I appreciate it! Did you finish the first chapter?

[Anonymous No.18882231]

>>18882179
I read it aloud and most of it flows really nice?!

I'm still working on the edits, so if you have any particular sentences that make you wanna punch me in the face, please let me know and I'll fix them!

Thank you very much good sir!

[Anonymous No.18882244]

>>18882213
I guess I'm NGMI if my heavily-edited writing doesn't obviously show a bluepilled person getting redpilled hard by the end of chapter 1

[Anonymous No.18882277]

>n
>g
>m
>i
Nobody wants to read beyond page 3 lol

[Anonymous No.18882300]

>Sitting back on the couch, curling up next to him, is a soft furball-his girlfriend Allie's
dog. Petting it lazily, he yawns, Ken's knuckles glide on the dog's soft fur hypnotically, this, and
an absence of harrowing moans, eases open the door to sleep

Ken leans back into the couch. Curled up next to him is a soft furball, his girlfriend Allie's dog. Ken yawns, patting the dog lazily, and becomes hypnotized by his knuckles gliding softly through it's fur. This quietens the harrowing (find a better word than harrowing) moans and eases open the door to sleep.

[Anonymous No.18882304]

>>18882300
>Sitting back on the couch, curling up next to him, is a soft furball-his girlfriend Allie's dog. Petting it lazily, he yawns, Ken's knuckles glide on the dog's soft fur hypnotically, this, and an absence of harrowing moans, eases open the door to sleep

Ken leans back into the couch. Curled up next to him is a soft furball, his girlfriend Allie's dog. Ken yawns, patting the dog lazily, and becomes hypnotized by his knuckles gliding softly through it's fur. This quietens the harrowing (find a better word than harrowing) moans and eases open the door to sleep.

(is what I meant)

[Anonymous No.18882312]

>>18882300
Oh man I love what you wrote up until this:
>This quietens the harrowing (find a better word than harrowing) moans and eases open the door to slee
I'm filtered, this goes beyond what I can imagine, I imagine in such simple terms it is hard for me to dig up more complex words.
>The stroking of the dog's fur allows him to ignore the outside world and drift off
Thanks... going to add your words to my next revision. Would really appreciate more feedback if you have the time. I can send you a single chapter of any part of the book if you want to see a slice of the story once it really gets going?

Thanks!!!

[Anonymous No.18882313]

>>18882231
here>>18882304

[Anonymous No.18882333]

>>18882304
This is great, however, there is something about the two and's that just doesn't sit right.
>Ken leans back into the couch. Curled up next to him is a soft furball, his girlfriend Allie's dog. Ken yawns, patting the dog lazily, and becomes hypnotized by his knuckles gliding softly through it's fur. This quietens the harrowing (find a better word than harrowing) moans and eases open the door to sleep.

Ken leans back into the couch. Curled up next to him is a soft furball, his girlfriend Allie's dog. Yawning mightily, Ken pats the dog lazily, becoming hypnotized by his knuckles gliding through plush fur. Tactile relief from desperate moans, easing open the door to sleep.

Fuck /lit/ is ruthless but it forces you to re-examine everything.

[Anonymous No.18882348]

Is it wrong to develop an anti-and fetish?

[Anonymous No.18882512]

>>18882227

I got to the UwU text (I'm personally not a fan of this kind of colloquialism in novels but times are changing and maybe I'm just old fashioned. I didn't get that it was about the drug and crime crisis desu; but even within that, what is the story? Is it about a person who is investigating that crisis? Trying to solve it somehow? Trying to do something within that setting? What is the hook?

>>18882244
Don't think about it in terms of making it or not, especially not with a single piece of work. 1) if you're new to this then you have an entire lifetime to produce something good. If you've commited to being a writer then you have to write every day, write a bunch of different stuff, and try a bunch of different styles. 2) Art isn't easy, and you're trying to make art. You aren't writing Darren Shan monster stories, you're writing stuff that (at some point hopefully) will have true literary merit and will stand the test of time. That doesn't just happen, and you may spend your whole life chasing it and never making it, but you absolutely have to try. You're not a "bad writer", you just need practice and time and you need to look at your own work critically.

Most importantly - read. Especially read the lit 100 - those books are there for a reason. Don't look at the last 40 years and that moron Waldun for inspiration, look at the last 3000 years of our collective history and look at, most basically, how Homer and Petrarch and Melville and Dostoevsky tell stories. Because at the end of the day, you're telling a story, and you need to tell that story clearly and powerfully. Good luck!

[Anonymous No.18882521]

>>18882512
The book is about the guy getting his bike stolen about 1/2 through the 1st chapter, and the resutling shockwaves that tear through his life

[Anonymous No.18882532]

>>18882333
You don't need words like tactile - obviously it's tactile relief because he's petting something. You also don't need "mightily". Keep it simple, concise, and keep it moving. Avoid adverbs except where they really add something unique and "unguessable" to the sentence. Yawning mightily - Why do I care that he's yawning? You're trying to communicate that he's tired, right? Can you do that in a way that shows that and has fewer words? In fact, you're already saying that - "leans back into the couch"; "yawns"; "lazily"; "hypnotized", "sleep" - you're saying the same thing 5 times across 4 sentences while communicating virtually nothing of interest to the reader. Why do I care about her dog? Is it interesting in some way? Can you give me some detail about the couch that illustrates his character or situation? What about something about the dog that illustrates the gf's character or situation? We get a bit about Ken being lethargic - and the desperate moans is a bit interesting but I want more useful info and less fluff.

[Anonymous No.18882556]

>>18882532
The moment with the dog, it is one of the few instances of peace during the first 1/4th of the chapter, mostly he is hearing shit happening outside of the window until he finally gets up, starts his late day, and has to rush to pick up his girlfriend

[Anonymous No.18882750]

>>18882556
I'm not really looking for a defence of your work, I'm just showing my thought process as I read it. I may be atypical but given the other responses in the thread, I think I'm sort of median.