/wg/ - Writing General - Ligmadiction

[Anonymous No.19104810]

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
>Links: https://pastebin.com/i4RLYJEx

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

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 Dickens and write serially
https://www.royalroad.com/
> Basic overview of the Screenplay format
https://screenwriting.info/

>Previously on /wg/
Fuck it.

[Anonymous No.19105129]

What do you guys think of this.
>two business partners, Ghodes and Hoskins
>Ghodes is visiting Hoskins
>drinking tea in Hoskins' office

Ghodes could clearly see Hoskins was starting to act sleepy, slurring his words, and was even having trouble holding his own cup. But the only indication of him noticing was a slight smile that hid in only one side of his mouth. He kept the conversation going, and waited patiently. Eventually, Hoskins dropped his cup, and his head fell down. Eyes and mouth open, he sat completely lifeless.

Ghodes' smile now grew from a tiny indication to a grin that covered his entire face. He walked over to Hoskins and carefully placed two fingers on his neck. No pulse, fantastic. His eyes gleemed like never before.
But he was not completely finished, so he restrained himself, and put on a more sombre expression as he calmly walked over to the door out from the office.
He laid one hand on the handle, took a few deep breaths, and suddenly ripped the door open in the most violent way he could manage.
He shouted at the top of his lounges "THERESA! Come quick! Something horrible has happened to Hoskins!"
The maid came, and a doctor was called, but it made no difference, Hoskins had perished. In his witness interview with the police, Ghodes told them what little he could, his dear friend and just suddenly seemed to fall asleep, right in front of him.
But as soon as he parted with the police, and found himself wandering the streets completely alone, once again, his face would carry that grin like a portrait.

[Anonymous No.19105242]

>>19105129
>Something horrible has happened to Hoskins!
seems silly. what's the year?

[Anonymous No.19105334]

>>19104810
I got the fastest rejection e-mail so far, it took less than 24 hours. The rejection was based on my work not being the right genre, but they said "we're sure the topic will speak to many".
This was the first rejection I've received where the message was written by an actual person instead of just being a template sent by a bot. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside from the first real human interaction I've received from a publishing house.

[Anonymous No.19105351]

ok anon who said the last thread was shit cause there was no work or crit posted, here is a section of a short story i'm writing. give me your critique, lets MWGGA

[Anonymous No.19105363]

>>19105334
That was likely sent by a slusher who was just trying to be nice. Maybe they’re new.

[Anonymous No.19105388]

>>19105363
It was still nice.

[Anonymous No.19105447]

>>19105129
>act sleepy
this seems bad to me. it could work if Hoskins was pretending to be sleepy and this was a purposefully clunky way of indicating it, but considering he's dying it doesn't work.
>carry that grin like a portrait
feels poor. find a more apt metaphor, or a better verb than "carry"
over all it's fine, straightforward and clear but not very imaginative or creative in its description. If this were a whole novel, I could see it being good only if the plot and characters were great. As a standalone, it does little to interest me. your prose is utilitarian, but does harken to detective novels of the turn of the century
>>19105242
disagree, i think it's appropriate for the genre he's clearly trying to evoke.

[Anonymous No.19105485]

>>19105447
and what genre is that?

[Anonymous No.19105515]

>>19104810
You can't seriously be this lazy not to include the link to the last thread. Dumbass OP
>Previously on /wg/
>>19090762

[Anonymous No.19105532]

>>19105485
like i said, crime fiction/detective novels of the turn of the century, like christie or doyle

[Anonymous No.19105539]

>>19105532
let's hope that is the case then

[Anonymous No.19105554]

>>19105539
considering the characters are named ghodes and hoskins, and are spending their time drinking tea in hoskins personal office, i'd say it's highly likely

[Anonymous No.19105569]

>>19105363
this post reeks of bucket crab

[Anonymous No.19105605]

>>19105569
It is what it is

[Anonymous No.19105636]

>>19105351
Ents? Like from tolkien? Unless these are talking trees in this New England wood that word has no meaning. The houses coming out from their cover and cautiously coalesce is a little twee and while I get where you're going, it humanizes the houses a bit much and feels silly. It'd be better to emphasize how the woods are cleared, rather than the "movement" of the homes.
The sudden shift to an "I" POV at the end of the 4th paragraph is jarring. Not in an "I'm a horror writer unnerving you" way but in a "I don't know how to write" way.
Similarly amateurish, there's no transition from the 4th to 5th paragraph. You're talking about getting that one extra tantalizing bit of information about what the town is about, only to suddenly get hit with something about a missing girl and the piper from there on out.

[Anonymous No.19105655]

>>19105351
I can tell the 5th paragraph was written on a separate day.
"dried corn grated across mucous barnacles" might be one of the worst descriptions I have ever heard. Not only is that such an obscure sound that your book would need to include a bag of Orville Redenbacher and a map of local piers to be fully experienced but with an autistic thought experiment that has gone on way too long, I don't even think that would make the sound you think it would.

[Anonymous No.19105691]

>>19105351
i think you capture that same feeling i got from The Willows and The Great God Pan, and with some editing it could be really neat. i liked the town and land around it sounding alive especially, i think having that consistent throughout would work

[Anonymous No.19105703]

>>19105334
i hope you keep submitting

[Anonymous No.19105710]

Describe entering this temple in your best prose.

[Anonymous No.19105714]

>>19105710
i walked into a temple

[Anonymous No.19105717]

>>19105703
Until I run out of options, then I'll rewrite the whole thing and try again.

[Anonymous No.19105739]

>>19105636
> Ents? Like from tolkien? Unless these are talking trees in this New England wood that word has no meaning
yeah idk I figured this might be poor but it felt right to me
thanks for the rest of the feedback, I felt the first paragraph was weak but you've pinpointed some of the issues. the rest I hadn't considered
>>19105655
>Not only is that such an obscure sound that your book would need to include a bag of Orville Redenbacher and a map of local piers to be fully experienced but with an autistic thought experiment that has gone on way too long,
lmfao
i meant corn like pic related, the kind i saw as a kid going to plymouth plantation and sturbridge village. this was the only way i could think to accurately describe how his voice sounds in my head, and it all feels very new england to me, but you're right it's way too specific and obscure to the point where it distracts instead of communicates
and no, actually only the first paragraph and part of the 2nd were written on a different day
>>19105691
>The Great God Pan
yeah i love this one. not as much a fan of blackwood but i remember the willows being much better than his other stuff. i'm 100% writing in that voice so I'm glad it comes through without feeling like parody

[Anonymous No.19105782]

Can I write a non fiction book without a degree

[Anonymous No.19105799]

>>19105655
how about
>which crackled like barnacles against the scabbed back of a keelhauled sailor
or is this still too autistic

[Anonymous No.19105804]

>>19105351
it doesn’t sound like you’ve ever visited new england based on your description of the town and especially the church. also some of your phrasing (‘new england wood,’ ‘ents’) is seemingly intentionally arcane and not in a good way.

[Anonymous No.19105805]

>>19105782
Sure. It's more about research, anyway.

[Anonymous No.19105809]

>>19105782
Of course, just make up shit

[Anonymous No.19105887]

>>19105799
When I think of crackling my mind goes to burning. Kindling crackles. A slice of fish being set into a ripping pan crackles before calming down.
What you're describing is more of a grinding sound. If you described the voice as grating and grinding rather than crackling I could see those working far better but again I'm still not sure that I like the object the barnacles are being rubbed on to produce sound. With a lot of similes like this the first and foremost image you get from them is visual. If that's not what you're intending, like here, you need to immediately push towards the sense you want to convey. When you mention "scabbed back" the order my mind goes is
>visual
>pain
>sound
even though sound is really the only part that you are really trying to convey.

[Anonymous No.19105892]

>>19105809
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Million_Little_Pieces
Just don’t get caught.

[Anonymous No.19105940]

If anyone has any comments on this passage I'd appreciate it.
For context, the protagonist Caelan had met this character Rhett earlier. Rhett drew a really bad portrait of him.

[Anonymous No.19105945]

>>19105569
>>19105605
How can I crab when I’m already published and know how the publishing biz works from experience/research?

[Anonymous No.19105962]

>>19105804
i'm literally from massachussetts and visited my grandmothers house on mt desert island every summer growing up. old rural towns (like the one I grew up in) are definitely structured like this, where the further you go from the center the more isolated the houses are. it's different in suburban areas, obviously, but on the countryside this is absolutely a consistency. as for the church, i think my description makes it seem like the belltower and steeple are two separate features, so i should have just said the bell is within the steeple--beyond that i cannot imagine what is inaccurate about this description, i can think of 5 churches in my area of mass alone that fit this description, and more in maine.
>>19105887
i do want to communicate something physical and textural about the voice, and how viscerally unpleasant it is to the ear. crackles is definitely not the right word. to me, its like something hard, dry, and thin that pops with slime when grated.
>When you mention "scabbed back" the order my mind goes is
>visual
>pain
>sound
this is super helpful, i'm not very analytical when i write so i've never thought of it this way.

[Anonymous No.19105966]

>>19105129
I think you have some phrases that sound awkward, even though I can understand your point.
>But the only indication of him noticing was a slight smile that hid in only one side of his mouth.
I think you should work on being a little less wordy and more to the point. For instance;
>Ghodes' smile now grew from a tiny indication to a grin that covered his entire face.
Might sound better as;
>Ghodes' smile grew to a grin that covered his entire face.

[Anonymous No.19105997]

>Crit
>>19105940
I think your mood and pacing were excellent but I did find when the car backed away that your description fell into a cliche. Instead of it “disappearing”, the body could have “returned to the darkness from which it came” or something. Overall, it’s a striking excerpt from what seems like a bigger piece.
>Writing
https://pastebin.com/fDva9Y8R

[Anonymous No.19106045]

>>19105351
I think it's pretty good anon, but there are a few things that make it sound awkward. New England is a state so just saying the "New England wood" sounds odd because there are lots of woods in it.
I also think you can get a bit too fancy with some of your writing. For instance;
>seems not intended to protect the building but rather to smother it
might sound better as;
>seems to smother the building rather than protect it
You also use a lot of semi-colons where you could probably just start a new sentence. For example;
>beyond being a bit small...
in the first paragraph and
>their joy is derived...
in the second could both be their own.

[Anonymous No.19106069]

>>19105962
>to me, its like something hard, dry, and thin that pops with slime when grated.
I'm not 100% sure why you would want his voice to sound like that last bit but a calloused cyst would be the closest to what you are describing.
>The sound that comes with the manicuring of an elderly infected foot.
Still not great.
I think the description of his voice is falling apart with the "pops with slime when grated" part. I know what you mean, it becomes more mucousy when he's irate, but I'm not sure a simile is the best part to bring that up. I would just stick to a simile for the hard and dry and express the next bit with the idea of him needing to rearrange the flehm after raising his voice. A DarkSydePhil snort could even be a nice quark for the character.

[Anonymous No.19106072]

A little experiment with "larding," an oulipo technique where you start with two sentences, then add a sentence between them, then add sentences between the existing sentences, and so on until you're happy with the length. Kind of nice way to build up paragraphs, I always did it mostly linearly, you end up thinking a slightly different way.

[Anonymous No.19106092]

>>19106072
nice drum imagery

[Anonymous No.19106279]

how can you evoke the sight of a beautiful woman? Like when you see one and you just feel good.
I have such a hard time transferring that feeling whenever I write beautiful women

[Anonymous No.19106308]

>>19106279
I suppose you describe her in a way that itself is beautiful or you show the reaction she produces in others.

[Anonymous No.19106418]

>>19106279
She was a tight little number, with a cracking ass and a pair of HUGE bazongas I'd like to get her number, if you know what I mean, maybe twice if the mood is right.

[Anonymous No.19106476]

How do you have one character look for another character when they have no idea what the other looks like or if they're even still alive?
>have you seen my mother?
>well, what does she look like?
>uhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Anonymous No.19106494]

>>19106072
I like to do this in my 2nd draft.

[Anonymous No.19106496]

>>19106476
>a name
>an alias
>her job
>where she first lived
i mean there must be something connecting them, otherwise you are looking for a person you never knew existed

[Anonymous No.19106512]

>>19106476
Maybe a character can have a keepsake from his mother and he sees if anyone recognizes it or if anyone else has one. It could lead somewhere very off track.

[Anonymous No.19106585]

>>19106512
This is a good idea, thank you. Description of the character can come from someone who remembers someone else asking about the keepsake.

[Anonymous No.19106600]

>>19106585
it could be an old smelly shirt and then he meets a dogman that could track her down for him

[Anonymous No.19106606]

So animefag is trying to take over again? Abandon thread

[Anonymous No.19106720]

>>19105351
>this thing was unremarkable, not particularly unusual and possessed all the standard features that one would expect of a thing of its type; now i shall list them
i hope they pay you by the yawn

[Anonymous No.19106787]

>>19104810
How do I make a main character who the reader wants to see their downfall, wish for it, desire to participate in making that happens?

[Anonymous No.19106805]

>>19106600
please stop stealing my ideas

[Anonymous No.19106816]

>>19106279
The reaction she creates in other people always worked best for me. Characters are always more interesting when the other characters noticably change their behavior in their presence. Hans Landa is probably a dead on example.

[Anonymous No.19106852]

>>19106606
We get it, you don't write, nobody here does, but stop acting like a little bitch about it.

[Anonymous No.19106879]

>>19105997
Thanks for reading and for the feedback anon, I really appreciate both!
I read yours, by the way, and have some suggestions if you're interested.
I think the pacing for some of your sentences could use some work. Some feel like they're unnecessarily extended with commas or semi-colons such as;
>There was a sword by his hip, bound up in a leather belt, by no means a real scabbard; it clamoured against the contents atop a tabernacle; it scraped the stonewalls, as he danced.
while other like these three;
>He heard it thump on impact. Someone’s voice called out from down below. Halfdan peered out of the window.
feel like they could be combined into one.
I also think you have some unnecessary descriptors.
>Wulfgar’s eyes widened as he dropped his sword; it fell to the ground when he did so and clattered next to Halfdan’s feet.
The "when he did so" is sort of redundant since we already know you're describing what happens when he dropped his sword.
Really interesting imagery, though. I like the description of the dance as like a sword fight and the line about the guy shaking "his dot" made me chuckle.
I also thought the story itself was great. I loved the idea of Halfdan just assuming the amulet gave him some power and of the image being a coke ad. One thing I would recommend for it is to hold off on explaining everything, though. I would leave it up to the reader to figure out what was meant by the "new sun." I might also leave the reveal that the amulet wasn't actually powerful a secret until the king mentions it at the end.
Funnily enough, my own story is actually post apocalyptic as well, kek.

[Anonymous No.19106931]

>>19106720
i understand this criticism but isn't that the point of what i'm trying to communicate? That the town would be totally normal and uninteresting if not for the natural elements, which overwhelm the civilization in such a way that it makes the otherwise innocuous town threateningly uncanny?
i'm rewriting those first two paragraphs cause I agree that they need some work, but if you're trying to communicate that something is plain and ordinary isn't it best to use plain and ordinary language?

[Anonymous No.19107071]

>When I was nine years old, the Gods chose my father as the next family representative for the Star League. While it is considered a divine honor to serve in the League, there is little pride in it; only misery and mystery. No man has ever watched the competition, nor do we even know who we are competing against. All we know is that the noble houses, in exchange for our bloodline magics, must provide tributes to their precious league and compete for the glory of humanity. Those who win the Star League are allowed to return, and their peoples are no longer required to compete. It is the only reason the Elithian restorationists have an inkling of support some 50 years since The Timeless Emperor deposed Duran II and slaughtered the royal family. In truth, the only thing that has ever returned from the Star League are the corpses of noblemen. Some frozen, some half-eaten, some plastered with tiny holes throughout their body. I even heard the last boy from the House of Morav came back completely intact, but missing his entire skeleton. This nonsensical league has lasted for as long as the Gods have been with us, and without any eyes beyond the veil, there is no end nor revelation in sight to this new ritual of human sacrifice.
>That day, when my father left me, he crouched down, held me, and told me, "I leave you now to serve a Great Cause, but I pray that you might serve the Highest Cause. Your mother is loyal to it. Always trust her." But now, how can I trust the woman who birthed me when I just witnessed her butcher Elaine in front of an audience of thousands, including that vile man who would keep us and our lands as a little fief in his grand empire? How could she choose to slay her niece for a temporary show of strength over mercy?

[Anonymous No.19107090]

What do you guys think about adding/omitting commas before those words used at the end of questions? I don't really know the proper term for them, but it's stuff like this:

>"You should know what I'm talking about, right?"
>"You should know what I'm talking about right?"
>"Wait there like a good boy, okay?"
>"Wait there like a good boy okay?"

I put commas before them but now that I think about it, I'm not really sure if this is strictly necessary or just considered good manners like the Oxford comma

[Anonymous No.19107156]

>>19107090
i usually put commas but doesn't it literally just come down to how you want the sentence to be read? no comma makes the sentence all one breath and rhythm, comma may add a pause or put emphasis on the last word. i would only use no comma if the character says the line quickly, casually, or if the "right" is a genuine assumption of agreement/understanding.
seems to me that at its most its a subtle shift in meaning. i could be wrong

[Anonymous No.19107184]

>>19106787
What villains just drive you insane when they get away with it? It may be normalfag tier, but think about how many people hated Joffrey Lannister. They hated him so much his actor got bullied when he went to college because his peers couldn't separate him from the fictional character he played on television. The development of Joffrey from "Oh, he's a bit of a momma's boy but alright" to "Holy fuck I hate this guy and his family, even down to the cause of his birth" is something you might want to look into emulating.

[Anonymous No.19107285]

Got 2 more rejections since the last thread.

[Anonymous No.19107353]

I keep using "as" too much. What do

[Anonymous No.19107371]

>>19107353
Cut it. I keep using "that" a lot (in Portuguese). I have to ctrl+f and highlight them all so that I can see how much I've been using them.

[Anonymous No.19107385]

>>19106045
>New England is a state

Yikes

[Anonymous No.19107443]

>>19107371
What if cutting it ruins the flow

[Anonymous No.19107481]

>>19106931
if someone wrote "the dog had wings" i would already assume the dog was normal other than the wings without them having to preface it with a paragraph about how the dog had four paws and a taste for bones. if you want to start out with mundanity for pacing reasons then maybe write something about the townspeople going about their business or the tedium of the protagonist arriving and having to find lodgings etc etc because explaining to a presumably non-moronic reader that normal towns contain churches and normal churches contain crosses feels very silly to me. it's okay to just drop the one relevant detail and let the reader fill out the space around it, you don't have to plop the town down building by building like you're making a videogame level. same with the character description.

[Anonymous No.19107482]

Can anyone read this
https://es-konnte-auch-anders-sein.tumblr.com/post/152783839241/daymend

I wrote this when I was younger, in surely some nietzschean depressive fugue state, but as I read it... it's kinda good. Idk. I just don't think I can write like that anymore. I stopped reading

[Anonymous No.19107499]

>>19106072
I really love it anon. Very readable. I wanted to finish it all the way through.

[Anonymous No.19107524]

>>19107090
I'm a comma slut, but that's how my brain thinks. In bits, and then digressions, and then other bits, but not always like this, but sometimes, aswell.

[Anonymous No.19107597]

>>19107090
fyi it's called a tag question

[Anonymous No.19107601]

>>19107443

rewrite all the sentences

[Anonymous No.19107628]

>>19106852
This. I’ve yet to see any anons post any works. I’m beginning to think no one writes here.

[Anonymous No.19107650]

>>19107628
Stop replying to yourself and post something

[Anonymous No.19107680]

>>19107628
I've discussed themes and plot a few times but I haven't posted a passage yet. You want to see something unedited?

[Anonymous No.19107696]

>>19107628
>>19107482
please slog through this and blast my shit up. destroy my pretentious ass

[Anonymous No.19107744]

>>19107482
I don't know what is trying to convey, is this a story or the ramblings of a teenager that spent too long doing chores outside? It has a mix of vulgarity and purple prose and the diction is so bizarre it makes me want to look away and skip to another sentence in the hopes that it's more readable.

[Anonymous No.19107859]

>>19107481
I see what you're saying. how's this work for you?

[Anonymous No.19107892]

>>19106072
the short sentences give a suddenness to the imagery, nice work. >>19107482
>https://es-konnte-auch-anders-sein.tumblr.com/post/152783839241/daymend
loose, unfocused rambling. a mess.

[Anonymous No.19107979]

Since anon asked for something to read, here's a few 1st draft scenes on a "knee of the curve" singularity scifi I'm working on. There's 16 chapters, ~40k words total right now, I am starting on the 2nd draft tomorrow with the aim to add more detail to scenes that need slower pace. I'm looking forward to more extensive line-by-line editing after that.

https://pastebin.com/4VDmidC5

[Anonymous No.19108028]

Brehs, I finished my novel today. Been a long time coming. It felt weird plugging in the last words and then thinking, "Okay what do I have to write next" but there's nothing left to write. Just time to pour over it and pick out things here and there that don't read quite right, which is going to be a whale of a process. It feels more overwhelming now because now I have to start trying to get it published, or self-publish and try to promote it.

Has anyone had experience printing up a manuscript at Staples or something? I'd much prefer reading a physical copy mainly and making the edits on screen to the side by referring to page number. Screen-reading just doesn't feel as comfy. I'm probs gonna print a few copies just to give to a few of my friends who enjoy reading, since if my friends who enjoy slow build high fantasy and don't even like it and can't into it then that's a problem.

[Anonymous No.19108040]

>have to go back to edit and rewrite my 12k first chapter because It sucks.

Seriously, what's the best method of tackling this. It took my around five months to write the fucking thing. Plus I still have to finish my prologue as well.
>prologue ends with the protagonist being a radical hockey fan, shitposts on /sp/ about maple leafs being a good team, still don't know how to incorporate that.
How do I copy /sp/?

[Anonymous No.19108048]

>>19108028
Writing the whole story is half of the process, editing deserves an equal amount of time, it's definitely a process. It is still an accomplishment. I suggest you treat yourself this week and then get back to work.

[Anonymous No.19108074]

>>19107481
>>19107859
ok actually i already hated it and changed it. any better?

[Anonymous No.19108089]

>>19108074
trees as sentinels?....looming? odd mix of suggesting that trees are both a kind of watch protector of the houses, yet loom like a villain would around the houses

[Anonymous No.19108095]

>>19108040
I'd make sure the first 13 lines represent the most important aspects of your work to the best of your ability. The emotion, the voice, the themes, the yearning of the protagonist, whatever you need to establish your promise to the reader. It's good that you're willing to fix Chapter 1 as it lays the foundation for the rest of the story usually. I noted a lot of things I didn't like writing a recent 1st Chapter so I absolutely have to unfuck it. It's mainly a lack of time developing one character before he dies, cutting out another entirely, and being more specific about the last scene which is way too vague.

[Anonymous No.19108123]

>>19108048
I've thankfully frontloaded much of the editing along the way. Whenever I'm not adding new things I'm going back and reading. I also went through meticulous autistic planning rather than freestyling it. I feel like doing this extended my up front time writing but is going to make the upcoming boatload of rereading and shitting my pants over why a sentence doesn't sound right a lot easier. My rereading and editing at this point is like I've read the first quarter a hundred times, the first half fifty times, the first three quarters twenty-five times (proportionally). The last quarter is what I'll focus on first as it is the most raw still. I've only gone over those chapters a few times in my "I just finished the chapter time to go back and hammer down the most obvious things" process.

> treat yourself this week
Time to jerk off and play vidya for the weekend.

>>19108040
Does it suck structurally? In the form of the prose itself? Gotta determine the big problem first.

[Anonymous No.19108131]

>>19108089
i was under the impression that a sentinel could be an oppressive figure, who watches over you to protect something else. like a prison guard, who keeps you in jail to protect society

[Anonymous No.19108162]

>>19105710
The thing was massive. This was going to be difficult to pull off, but by God I was the man to do it. I approached the opening, gazing at the shear size of the stonework in comparison to myself. Sexual intercourse among mammals typically involves mates of generally similar sizes, with the female being the slightly smaller of the two. What I was approaching was more similar to the relationship between a male and female angler fish. I unbuckled my pants and let my penis, which had proved to be of certainly adequate proportions up to this point, sway in the arid desert wind. I was already erect. My task seemed to become ever more unachievable on my approach and the temple came to its full size in my perspective, but I'd come from at least a mile to get to this point: I left the choice to turn back fat behind me. With the grace of a socially awkward teenager copping his first feel of a drunken fat girl at a house party, I stumbled up to the eroded Sandston and rubbed my cock along it's surface. After several seconds my member was abraised and I didn't know if I could continue. I discharged my offering to the gods on the baking stone in front of me, and heard each drop sizzle as it hit. I looked around to the faces of sever dozen tourists, with shocked expressions, and noted the a security team was converging on my position. Knowing my time was short I hurriedly discarded the rest of my clothes and ran in.

[Anonymous No.19108257]

>>19105710
I had sharted in my pantaloons not three hours ago. The relentless desert heat and the harshly spiced, partly spoiled meats of the locals had combined to result in a noxious liquid plume which had fired unceasingly from my anus for forty-five minutes. Though I felt myself in immense pain, and my sphincter burned like the searing sands around me, my guides took no pity upon me. Instead, as my britches ran brown with the concoction they had fed me with, they only laughed in their dullish way, and snapped photographs of my plight.

In those moments, the fleeting, panicked instants in which one cannot know whether the rumbling in their rectum will be merely the passing of gas, or whether some material too will pass out from their cavity and smear among their cheeks and crevice-hair, it often feels the world has come to a screeching halt. I am reminded of the ideas of Schrodinger, and wonder if he too ever felt the sudden urgency to release gas, only to find a small bit of feces had come with it. In that cursed instant of unknowing, did he think that the feeling at his pucker was simultaneously gas and stool at once, until observed? As I mulled over this thought, my barbar camel rider friends pointed onwards, to some structure not far away.

"Bathroom there, white man," one said, and he then made an exaggerated gesture of holding his nose and waving his hand before his face as the others guffawed. I would kill them soon. In their sleep I would strangle them, one by one, for this humiliation. But, even as I entertained this satisfying thought of malice, another rumble took my belly, and I urged my camel forwards to the mundane, stone-built shanty ahead. Upon its face were crude figures of men and women, which I took to indicate male and female bathrooms on the right and left of the entry. Yes, I would defecate therein. Then, when all of their filthy food was cleared from my guts, I would feed them my own intentions.

[Anonymous No.19108289]

After learning that he's dying of cancer, a depressed incel NEET hires a prostitute with HIV to have sex with his enemies. Would you read it?

[Anonymous No.19108298]

>>19108289
No.

[Anonymous No.19108345]

>>19108289
Yes.

[Anonymous No.19108352]

>>19108289
Would YOU read it? Do YOU even have anything written down that we could even read? DOG AND ALIENS. WOULD YOU READ IT?

[Anonymous No.19108395]

>>19108257
made me laugh, anon. nice work. some of the elaborations are better cut though, like the hilarious line about killing them soon doesn't need the elaboration of strangling them in their sleep, it almost ruins it the same way explaining a punchline ruins a joke.

[Anonymous No.19108398]

>>19107892
would someone please criticise this or appreciate it...fml

[Anonymous No.19108413]

>>19108395
Thanks, will incorporate this feedback into the final draft.

>>19108398
Write more shit fiction if you want critique.

[Anonymous No.19108439]

>>19108352
I have the first 20,000 words, I'll start posting chapters a few threads from now

[Anonymous No.19108445]

question for you guys. is there really any point to writing literature when you can't really reach the mainstream audience anymore? it seems to me the only writing that reaches this generation is for tv and film. most of the stuff i enjoy reading and writing are antiquated sentimental claptrap anyway so it doesn't matter, but i wonder if there's anymore reason to try and get "good" at the novel or short story form beyond reasons of personal satisfaction. it makes me wonder why there are so many of these "how to write" books being published when most people don't read at all--or is that a myth? from where i stand though, it seems like all the currently popular authors are sustained by readers from the last generation.

[Anonymous No.19108475]

>>19108439
cool

>>19108445
Write for yourself first and foremost. I write for myself and publish things for free online, and I have a tiny audience that also shares my interests so I don't consider my efforts in vain. And even if that audience disappeared I'd still write the story I want to tell regardless. I know this is difficult to do, but just focus on your writing and don't compare your success to other people's.

[Anonymous No.19108512]

>>19107892
First sentence is neat, I like the juxtaposition of colors. I didn't realize what was going on at first, and actually envisioned a procession of sorcerers casting a spell at night, it drew this creepy vision in my mind that faded away into normal, comfortable morning feelings. Is it just my imagination or did you intend some bizarre feeling?
Unless I don't know the word, "voley" is spelled "volley." There's a reason that birds fly, but it's nice that the narrator entertains the reason being more whimsical to relay that feeling of easiness of the sunrise. Thought that was wonderful.
I found the "also huddle skyscrapers" a bit strange. Not wrong necessarily, but I guess the sentence felt cumbersome to me. I would have written that the suburbs and skyscrapers huddled together with a commanding presence.

I'm admittedly a brainlet, but I enjoyed it overall.

[Anonymous No.19108538]

>>19107892
i think thought that a few spelling errors (voley -> volley?, leant->leaned), awkward phrasing ("by the end of night", "burn some morning energy", "in the otherwise silent scene", "came from the distance", "by the gallop of a Ute"), abrupt changes in point of view, confusing description ("leaned back my chair up against the point where the roof met") ruined what might have been some interesting imagery (lorikeets, bang of tools).

if the intention was to establish mood, setting, theme and character (as it often is for the opening of a scene), the confused language detracts from that intention and disrupts the mind's eye. part of this has to do with transition, i think. when you write something like "otherwise silent scene" it doesn't summon any image, so it's like you cut to black and then played the sound of the Ute. first establish the empty road or city or whatever--and establish where the character is in relation to that (i thought he was in the car, and in fact i'm not still not sure where he is)--and then bring the car.

this also relates to pov. you start off third person omniscient (it seems) but then switch to close first person but the transition is not smooth enough to pull it off. one could even read this as the thoughts of the lorikeet.

i think ultimately you might be rushing. take your time and really think through, precisely, what the images and their order should be.

[Anonymous No.19108552]

If I write 1000 words a day for 143 weeks straight, and I'll end up with 1 million words. Woah...

[Anonymous No.19108557]

>>19108475
i think it's more a question of form rather than whether to write or not. not "should i write" but "should i write literature--when no one actually reads literature". i like the short story and novel form and i enjoy reading and writing them, but i also see that there's a lot of opportunity in screenwriting, competitions and the like, which imo aren't really available for literary forms as they used to be 20, 30, 40 years ago.

[Anonymous No.19108608]

>>19107696
Why? You haven’t written anything like anyone else? Seems pointless.

[Anonymous No.19108627]

>>19108512
thanks for the sweet words. Yeah you're right the huddle of skycrapers isn't particularly apt...
>>19108538
I liked the sound of a volley of birds rather than flock. The people in the english.exchange must have mispelled it as well because I too wrote 'voley', but you're right I think it is 'volley'.
You're right some of that phrasing does not work well. I think the whole brief scene should include a little more eloboration and transition from third to first should be smoother. Thanks for that.

[Anonymous No.19108730]

>>19106879
>I think the pacing for some of your sentences could use some work. Some feel like they're unnecessarily extended with commas or semi-colons such as;
I'll try to be less long-winded and try to flow better. I think the semi-colons also come off as a bit clumsy now that you mention it. They might distract a reader.
>"when he did so" is sort of redundant since we already know you're describing what happens when he dropped his sword.
Excellent point. I'll edit it out.
>Really interesting imagery, though. I like the description of the dance as like a sword fight and the line about the guy shaking "his dot" made me chuckle.
Ah thanks. I hope my imagery is going to bring the reader along and give them something to think about.
>I also thought the story itself was great. I loved the idea of Halfdan just assuming the amulet gave him some power and of the image being a coke ad.
That's fantastic then, I hope I can make a compelling post-apocalyptic story. But I was scared it was a little too derivative of Lawrence's Prince of Thorns.
>One thing I would recommend for it is to hold off on explaining everything, though. I would leave it up to the reader to figure out what was meant by the "new sun." I might also leave the reveal that the amulet wasn't actually powerful a secret until the king mentions it at the end.
Okay, thank you for pointing out where it was not respecting the reader's intelligence.

[Anonymous No.19108796]

>>19108095
>the yearning of the protagonist

Did you read From Where We Dream?

[Anonymous No.19108826]

>>19108796
No, but I read the excerpts from the previous general threads. "Yearning" is a good word to describe character motivation and I think it's someone the reader really needs to understand to respect a character as a real person. The weakness and quirks give shape, but the yearning and how it manifests into motivation is the substance.

[Anonymous No.19108847]

I'm strugling to find my main character's want/need. The story is kinda like:
>teenage protagonist and his mother move into his late grandfather's house
>he finds a magical mcguffin in the attic
>when playing around with the magical thingy, he finds out there's a mysteryous cabal in town, who are trying to use magic for their own evil objectives (it's not as contrived as it sounds, I'm omiting a lot of detail)
>now he wants to find more about his granpa's mysteryous past and has to stop the evil cabal who's somehow connected to his granfather's death... but why tho? Why does he want to do any of that?
He can't want to find more about the magic and his granp's past out of curiosity alone. Can you guys help out? Be in mind that since the protag is a teenager, there's some highschool drama going on in the subplot.

[Anonymous No.19108859]

>>19108847
>Billy, if you're reading this, the evil cabal killed your grandfather...

[Anonymous No.19108904]

>>19108847
actually curiosity is enough of a motive, if it's combined with activity and resourcefulness (i.e the character does something about his curiosity rather than sit on his hands). i think what you may need is not necessarily motive but resistance. there needs to be some antagonism over his curiosity, maybe his mother is overprotective or neurotic, maybe his grandfather is reticent over his secrets, maybe he has a history of letting his curiosity get him into trouble (hence the move perhaps?). the motive, no matter how seemingly trivial, becomes stronger the more resistance it faces and--ultimately--overcomes.

[Anonymous No.19108920]

>>19105892
He still got a film adaptation.

[Anonymous No.19108962]

>>19107090
I usually have to force myself to go with what only initially feels the best because when I start adding and subtracting commas in this manner I can never stop second guessing myself. It seems I never arrive at something that feels 'correct', only at things that feel more or less appropriate than the the others.

It is only in retrospection that I realize that what I first wrote fits with the tone of whatever else I was writing at the time and should probably remain unchanged. Which makes sense, I suppose.

[Anonymous No.19108971]

please come in here and prevent it from turning into a flat earth debate server
gg/fpvVMGPGJ8

[Anonymous No.19108980]

>>19108847
Most literary desires boil down to who am I? Searching for identities of family or strangers in an attempt to explore themselves or come to terms with certain aspects of themselves, or of life itself.

[Anonymous No.19109006]

>>19108040
Having to rewrite the first chapter is inevitable for most people. It's only when you have a complete picture of how your plans eventuate that you can really create an apropriate beginning and endnding.

And besides, it's a positive thing. It means that you've certainly improved since you started.

[Anonymous No.19109061]

>>19108847
>These guys killed my granpa, I'm gonna fuck them up
Protagonists that are 'normal' and 'don't want any trouble' seem to me to not have much personality. I'd find a Billy that leverages his new magic tool to do something that he wants more engaging than a Billy who just gets caught in the middle of things unwittingly.

[Anonymous No.19109212]

>>19108847
Make Billy a selfish prick who wants to use the magic for his ends at first.

[Anonymous No.19109215]

>>19109061
>'don't want any trouble' seem to me to not have much personality
jackie chan is pretty based though

[Anonymous No.19109300]

>>19108074
I can tell the intent is to conjure up a pre-20th century style of writing voice but I don't think it's landing yet. There's a lot of deadweight words and concepts that take all the punch out of things. For example:
>Those few blessed by that marriage of lively imagination and observational sensitivity known to breed great artistic minds may perceive that even united at the heart of town the homes possess a particular timidity.
This is a lot of words to make assertions on two different topics. The whole conceit about great artistic minds is effectively a tangent as well as a way of complimenting yourself for then explaining how such a mind would see this scene. If you take that tangent away you're left saying:
>Even unified at the heart of town these homes possess a particular timidity.
Which cuts to the point much faster and makes it less ambiguous, in the sense that I am now free to wonder about what is timid about these homes. But I think even better than this would be if you showed me why they are timid instead of just telling me abstractly that they are; or if you'd rather glaze over it, just say "the timid homes unite in the heart of town" and I'll draw some kind of inference about them being non-ostentatious, reserved, tidy, etc.

[Anonymous No.19109391]

Welp. I'm published on Kindle Vella. No reads yet. Wish me luck.

[Anonymous No.19109521]

Spent the last two weeks trying to think of a way to make a feature film on about £2000 and have it be not shit. It's so frustrating the idea of continuing on with my lit fiction projects sounds much nicer.

[Anonymous No.19109544]

Hello /wg/. My hiatus is over and I've finally been able to get the first chapter of my novel's volume 3 out.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/31062/saga-of-the-cosmic-heroes
and the newly released chapter https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/31062/saga-of-the-cosmic-heroes/chapter/755768/volume-3-chapter-93-embers-of-ishtar-toscana-heroine

There's always people complaining nobody posts their works, so there's that I guess.

[Anonymous No.19109549]

The Axe - by Anon

I took an axe to Robert Frost
and cleaved his head in two.
The reward did far exceed the cost
farewell you lying Jew.

Not one more word of cliched tripe
nor overrated prose.
Beneath the damp, snow covered Earth
his mangled body froze.

[Anonymous No.19109550]

>>19109544
Y-you're not supposed to post your work if it's anime!

[Anonymous No.19109600]

>>19105129
Seems like you’re just rehashing ‘Frog and Toad’. Maybe try to add your own voice if you are simply planning on copying the greats.

[Anonymous No.19109646]

>>19108040
>5 months to write 12k words
anon please apply yourself

[Anonymous No.19109662]

The start of a short story I’m writing. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Tony called out, “Why don’t you put the damn thing out?”

I turned to the window, the cigarette hung limp at my lip. Its tip burned a fresh orange.

“Put the damn thing out. I hate those fucking things.”

I inhaled deeply. The tip was now scorched ash and splayed with ember cracks. The paper’s burn proceeded, headed by the rim of a raring cinder vein, that approached my lips. I hate these fucking things too.

The lone car raced its headlights up the highway, while hard rock played shockingly loud. The driver was silent, but his co-pilot, who was nagging me, drummed the beat on the dash with his fingers. Behind the driver, with my window rolled down a crack, I smoked and watched the starless night. Beyond the road there is the odd light behind a window, and if you look up maybe a plane. There are no stars but the white moon is bright. It had already descended from its midnight peak and was arcing down like a searching cyclopean eye of the night. This journey along the asphalt strip was ignited by the driver’s pride. Formerly a prospect, who could really hit, he had been on his way to the US, but then maybe to Japan. Now he is still here in this country where there is no baseball. I wondered what his pride would do to that elbow tonight. The balls and the bat rattled against my back and felt like something writhing. I dragged on my cigarette, then caught the expiration of smoke in my tattered old glove.

“Joe!”

I turned to Tony’s furrowed brow. I breathed out and asked “Sorry what?” as I pointed to my ear.

With a wrinkled nose, Tony lowered the music and said, “Put it out, don’t make your problem ours.”

“What problem?” I inhaled.

“Your smoking problem.”

“It's a problem?” I exhaled.

“It's bad for your lungs, anytime you get active you hack like mad, you’re addicted, and it will kill you. It's a problem.”

“Tony, what are you sitting on up there? I’m just trying to enjoy myself here.”

“You can kill yourself there, so long as I don’t have to breathe your fumes. ”

I looked to Bobbie, he hadn’t said a word, he just drove. After one last inhale I tamped it out on my glove. Then I smiled at Tony as my last drag drifted through my teeth in wisps. Tony shook his head and turned around. I wound the window down and laid my cheek on the door. A cold wind whipped my face, the cold and harsh sensation would hurt if the wind wasn’t so soft. Tony turned the music back up and the wind and music contaminated one another. In the headlights, the oncoming road was pulled out from under us like a neverending rug. I fiddled with the lock absentmindedly. The wind dried my eyes so I closed them. My hair flailed in the wind and I could see the lock in my mind. Eventually my cheeks numbed, so I wound the window up. Then the music became clear again. The car raced on.

[Anonymous No.19109696]

Thinking of a short story in the same vein as those "trapped in a location with a ticking clock" movies. Frozen, 12 Feet Deep, 127 hours, Buried etc... How about a guy trapped under a slot machine that's malfunctioning and spewing quarters?

[Anonymous No.19109715]

>>19109696

that sounds interesting

[Anonymous No.19109748]

>>19109696
Very Aristotelean

[Anonymous No.19109770]

>>19109662
found it boring desu. you repeat the same beat over and over without variation or irony. the description and prose is too "writerly" and melodramatic for such a mundane scene.

there was something happening with the baseball stuff, it felt like the story might be going somewhere but then you go back to the same beat and hit it again and i don't know where the story is going after that and you've lost me. what exactly was the expectation you were trying to create in your reader? it doesn't feel like there was any.

[Anonymous No.19109794]

>>19109550
But if the animefags don't post their works, then the writing general will have no writing in it

[Anonymous No.19109798]

>>19109794
We'll have something better. We'll have integrity.

[Anonymous No.19109808]

>>19109798
>We'll have integrity.
Literally pseud cope.

[Anonymous No.19109829]

>>19109662
>le meme dialogue about smoking addiction
Oh please. For fuck's sake it's 2021.

[Anonymous No.19109843]

I have this problem where I put it off every day no matter what until like 3 in the morning. How tf do I stop procrastinating? It's so weird because when I start I don't have that much trouble. I feel like I don't have any control

[Anonymous No.19109877]

>>19109770
Thanks will rewrite and improve.

[Anonymous No.19109963]

>>19109662

I edited the last paragraph cause the word wind was used an excessive amount.

I looked to Bobbie, he hadn’t said a word, he just drove. After one last inhale I tamped it out on my glove. Then I smiled at Tony as the drag drifted through my teeth in wisps. He shook his head and turned around. I wound the window down and laid my cheek on the door. A cold wind whipped my face, harsh sensation would hurt if wasn’t so soft. In the headlights, the oncoming road was pulled out from under us like a neverending rug. I fiddled with the lock absentmindedly. The draft dried my eyes so I closed them. My hair flailed and I could see the contraption in my mind. Eventually my cheeks numbed, so I wound the window up, and the music became clear again. The car raced on.

[Anonymous No.19109966]

>>19109963

missed a the right before the word sensation whoops

[Anonymous No.19109972]

>>19108971
What’s with all the flat earth talk on here lately?

[Anonymous No.19110003]

>>19109963
>>19109662

ok i re-edited it, i didnt like that last simile so i changed it and also cut a bunch of fat

I looked at Bobbie, he hadn’t said a word, just drove. After one last inhale I tamped it out on my glove. Then I smiled at Tony as the drag drifted through my teeth in wisps. He shook his head and turned around. I wound the window down and laid my cheek on the door. A cold wind whipped my face, the harsh sensation would hurt if it wasn't so soft. In the headlights, the oncoming road was a dark blur.

[Anonymous No.19110233]

I find i write alot like the bible, i mimic its wording alot in my fiction writing style. however what would you guys say the bibles writing style is?

what would you say defines something as "written like the bible"

[Anonymous No.19110333]

>>19110233
look at pearl s bucks good earth trilogy. i'd say it fits the bill to a t

[Anonymous No.19110429]

>>19109521
>making your own kino
Based

[Anonymous No.19110581]

Is it normal to use "of" a lot or am I fucking up? Because it feels like there lots of different structural contexts where it's necessary

[Anonymous No.19110635]

>>19110581
post excerpt of where you think it becomes problematic

[Anonymous No.19110638]

>>19106787
Write a character who gets away with shit that should not be possible (it just happens cause because).
Have them be arrogant, or always have thing work out for them under the pretense of "Working hard".
Never take things seriously and never care about the consequences of their actions.

[Anonymous No.19110657]

>>19108028
How many words is it?

[Anonymous No.19110663]

>>19108289
I would read it so long as the focus was not too mcuh on the depress incel NEET and if there was versimillitude to the prostitution.

[Anonymous No.19110690]

https://textbin.net/kwdfru07ra
someone critique/give opinions

[Anonymous No.19110760]

Write 5000 words today. I don't care if they ever get published.

[Anonymous No.19110780]

>>19107184
>>19110638
Thanks friends.

[Anonymous No.19110900]

>>19110690
>https://textbin.net/kwdfru07ra
gross

[Anonymous No.19111069]

I want to become a proper writer. But my current full-time job literally does not allow for that.

Should I quit and give myself a set period of time to write and/or join a funded MFA?

I want to transition from my full-time job to a writer so badly, but I just don't know how to do that. I don't have anyone I can speak to that can help me.

[Anonymous No.19111077]

>>19109829
The Fault in Our Stars was a mistake.

[Anonymous No.19111118]

>>19107071
bump

[Anonymous No.19111125]

>>19111069
You don't have even an hour in a week to sit with any autosave text field? If you do, schedule that, for it to become a habit.

[Anonymous No.19111179]

>>19107071
I like it. Cool exterior conflict with society and also family.

[Anonymous No.19111235]

Should i stop writing every chapter around same word length? Recently i posted the thread that archived that i write 6k words per chapter, but this chapter got around 5k and i felt like there was nothing to say more. I just started writing new chapter but it kills me inside that i couldn't come up with 1k word. Should i go back and fill in the blanks with 1k word?

How much word you guys write a chapter? Does it always stays consistent? If it finishes before word count what you do?

[Anonymous No.19111261]

>>19111125
I could try doing that, but I think it's a more structural change I need.

In my experience, writing is a more holistic process where I think about a line or a character or a book for a sustained period of time. In college, I could afford that mental energy and time to write and was fairly successful given that I got published a couple places. But working rn, I simply find myself unable to dedicate my mind to my written work for any meaningful amount of time. My mind is always filled with work responsibilities.

[Anonymous No.19111264]

>>19111235
I am like you, I had a hard limit of 5k words per chapter, sometimes I would be under or over though and I just left it. I wouldn't worry about it until editing the entire draft. Aim for your target but don't force anything in or cut anything out as long as it is close.

By the time you finish the story you should have a better idea what to add or remove.

[Anonymous No.19111279]

>>19111264
That's like one of the greatest advice i heard so far in these /wg/ threads. Thanks fren

[Anonymous No.19111342]

>>19111261
Schedule it then, so it becomes a habit. Losing income doesn't make writing easier.

[Anonymous No.19111481]

>>19109549
Based.

[Anonymous No.19111614]

2,200 words. please excuse the placeholder names. let me know what the most glaring issues are.
synopsis: two siblings on the journey to the ashes of their little brother
https://ghostbin.com/z0fiZ

[Anonymous No.19111887]

>>19108040
>He only has enough time to write 80 words a day.
Yeah, you're not gonna make it if you keep up that pace. Your post was 76 words, alone.

>Verification not required

[Anonymous No.19111890]

>>19109646
Shelby Foote wrote his civil war trilogy at 150 words per day.

[Anonymous No.19112070]

Thoughts on my atmosphere/tone?

[Anonymous No.19112081]

>>19111890
Today I learned I wrote about 255 words a day for my most recent book (140,000 words, about 1.5 years including editing)

[Anonymous No.19112114]

>>19111614
>The urn, with his little brother’s ashes and metal braces and bleached pieces of bone and teeth inside

Bone and teeth? Surely they would have turned to dust? And don't they remove things like braces and metal teeth before incineration? They would melt in the furnace and I imagine cause havoc with the machinery.

[Anonymous No.19112125]

>>19112070
You don't really learn anything in that about the character, it's all just a summary. Better writing would have those details naturally occur through moment to moment details and scenes. Not sure why you list all those countries like that either, it doesn't add anything.

[Anonymous No.19112135]

>>19112114
Yeah, there is a thing called AskAMortician and she goes into depth about the topic of death and funeral rites.

[Anonymous No.19112193]

>>19112135
Okay, fair play if the detail is accurate. I'd personally be very pissed off if I had someone cremated and there was bits of bone and braces and false teeth left in there.

[Anonymous No.19112312]

>>19112114
teeth taking the longest to burn is common knowledge (or urban legend).
a friend recently had someone cremated and she helped the crematorium people pick up the ashes to put into the urn. most of the ash came from the casket. she had to pick up the bones and bone fragments with pliers and put them into the urn and i saw the pictures. the crematorium people explained that smokers usually have yellow bones.
what do you think of the story otherwise?

[Anonymous No.19112486]

I see anons are reading what I linked:
>>19107979

Any comments or questions are appreciated.

[Anonymous No.19113172]

>>19106600
Is his mother an alien?

[Anonymous No.19113269]

>broadly outline next chunk of novel
>get intimidated by the sheer amount of ground to cover

I have to just take it one thing at a time, I guess

[Anonymous No.19113381]

>>19111077
This book sounds unironically comfy.

[Anonymous No.19113595]

>>19113269
I know that feeling. You got this man.

[Anonymous No.19113647]

>>19108162
>The thing was massive. This was going to be difficult to pull off, but by God I was the man to do it.

wink wink

[Anonymous No.19113678]

>>19113269
Any time you think something is too big to handle, you need to simplify the tasks into things you can handle. If there's a question that's too big to understand, answer more simple questions until you have all the answers you need. Given enough time you can give things plenty of depth, even if your first pass at those scenes seem shallow, you'll see it all come together.

A lot of people don't accomplish long-term plans because it doesn't come natural or they don't see the path forward, and they get frustrated because they didn't know that every one else also struggles. There are writers that struggled for years and it doesn't reflect in their bibliography at all.

[Anonymous No.19113706]

>>19107482
>I just don't think I can write like that anymore.
Good, cause it's garbage.

[Anonymous No.19113786]

>>19111118
Why are you even bothering? No one here writes or reads. Go to some forum if you actually want critique.

[Anonymous No.19113897]

>>19112070
the vibe of the story is very interesting and I'd read more...

"preserved forever in a suspended animation"
great image

"I was the last remaining..." This sentence has wack grammar...
"I was the last remaining keeper of humanity's linguistic skills and knowledge. When I eventually die, the English language will become a dead language like the rest."

Reads better imo. Quite a few other grammar issues throughout, but yeah, I like where the story was going.

[Anonymous No.19113932]

>>19108730
I have the same problem with over extending my sentences in my own writing. It’s the only reason why I was able to recognize it.
Good luck with the rest of your stuff bro. Like I said, I really liked what little I’ve read of your world building. That post apocalyptic stuff/medieval stuff is always kino.

[Anonymous No.19113990]

>fell in love with a character's powers
>it's a side character that got killed quickly
>author isn't doing anything with him or the property anymore
>feel like I could construct an entire plot around just the powers

What's the over/under on copying it blowing up in my face? How much should I change, I really like them the way they are

[Anonymous No.19114050]

>>19113990
Just contact them if you can make a fanfic? Unless you're thinking commercially; then you're kinda fucked. Look into really good lawyers I guess.

[Anonymous No.19114065]

>>19113990
You need to synthesize enough things to where it will be different. The characters, goals and some of the things aren't exactly the game. Sometimes it's safer to hang a lantern on it in your writing to acknowledge your inspiration so you don't come off as a pretending to be completely original if you're getting way too similar to the source material. People love to reread stories they've heard before in new light, and stealing ideas from the past has been par for the course for centuries, there's no shame in it whatsoever. What people really want to hear is how you will tell the story.

[Anonymous No.19114066]

Any good resources on writing mystery?

[Anonymous No.19114095]

>>19114066
https://mysterywriters.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Ephron_-_Plotting_-_Website.pdf
https://writingexcuses.com/2016/06/05/11-23-the-element-of-mystery/
https://writingexcuses.com/2016/06/19/11-25-elemental-mystery-is-everywhere/

[Anonymous No.19114105]

>>19114095
thank you anon

[Anonymous No.19114324]

Always baffled why I get into stories at all when the main character is put in peril. I know he is obviously going to survive until the end so why do I still get so sucked into stories even knowing this?

[Anonymous No.19114341]

>>19114324
the journey is pleasurable. i love formulaic stories that are well told and all the beats are hit on point.

[Anonymous No.19114351]

>>19114341
It's just somewhat magical stories can continue to do that even if formulaic

[Anonymous No.19114459]

>>19104810
Hey everybody. I'm writing a dystopian novel about China ruling the world in 2050. It's very 4chan influenced. I am not sure I am going to be able to sell it, but it is a lot of fun to write and gives me something to do for the time being while unemployed. About 20k words in.

Anyway, it has an odd love story in the middle of it. How do I learn how to write love stories that aren't completely shitty guys?

[Anonymous No.19114472]

>>19114459
what's the love story about?

[Anonymous No.19114484]

>>19114472
It's a kind of arranged marriage situation. She's attracted to him, but has some moral qualms about marrying him.

[Anonymous No.19114770]

>>19109544
Your covers are all so awesome

[Anonymous No.19114775]

>>19114459
This is next to useless but this exact material is heavily explored by novel threads on lihkg, maybe check out there if google translate handles cantonese

[Anonymous No.19114780]

>>19114770
Thanks, anon!

[Anonymous No.19114838]

I don't understand royal road. It's for anime fiction? fan fiction? Why do people post there, what do they get from it? Why not just self publish to sell it?

[Anonymous No.19114846]

>>19114838
it's mostly for progression fantasy
they don't self-publish because they're just trying writing out
some people do self-publish

[Anonymous No.19114868]

>>19114838
Writing site for amateur writers. I just might end up self publishing or working in private since its nearly impossible to build a following if your story isn't a fantasy or isekai.

[Anonymous No.19114947]

>>19114838
It's a site to publish free works on, and it has two options for supporting the author on Paypal and patreon. It's not uncommon for authors to leave behind stubs and publish on kindle instead. There's fiction on there that aren't light novels or influenced by anime or such. People post on it for a lot of reasons that I couldn't even begin to list off. Personally, I'm writing the story I want to read and don't care for the rabbit hole that is publishing. I don't want to make money off writing, either.

[Anonymous No.19114979]

I don't think I'll get anything out of my brain tonight, /wg/. I'm stuck on the plot B throughline and I'm almost thinking I should remove it altogether even though it sets up one of the major characters for the rest of the story. I just can't seem to find an action sequence that completes his arc narratively speaking, is exciting, and doesn't come off heavy handed. I'm going to think out loud.

Georgios is naive enough to think he can trust the Duke to watch out for him, but in reality the Duke is trying to quickly grab power while the king and all the armies are away, except the one traitor army who should... Storm the city? Staff the inside of the castle? In order for Georgios to realize the crisis of his arc, he has to have his naivety broken somehow, so the Duke has to betray his trust and best interests. It has to be underhanded since the Duke doesn't want to get implicated, so perhaps he frames Georgios for a crime- but why? Georgios poses no threat and as a young knight has no political power, except he has the ear of Amara (daughter of the richest noble), or would if they were on speaking terms.

So I could rewrite it so that Georgios tries to feed Amara information without the Duke knowing, information he thinks is useless but Amara knows is valuable, and the Duke finds out and has Georgios set up and framed and thrown in jail where he can't meddle with his plans. Then, wouldn't it be easier to just not have Georgios talk to the Duke in the first place? The Duke talked to Georgios because he knows the king isn't actually away (he's missing), and he might try to contact Georgios first since they're childhood friends. It is a pretty weak excuse to manipulate someone, I'd think.

>inb4 whoa nigger did you expect me to read "all that shit!" by you

[Anonymous No.19115012]

>>19110760
I wrote 1000 words today, and did so for 2 days before that. Am I gonna make it desu?

[Anonymous No.19115013]

>>19114979
read the trojan war epics, they have plenty of betrayal and senseless suffering because of it

[Anonymous No.19115353]

Tfw even Anne Frank got rejected for publication

[Anonymous No.19115500]

I'm working on the role of humans in this world I'm writing and I could use some help further ironing it out.
>Due to not having any inherent magical or powerful physical attributes humans are rarely dedicated fighters outside of the armed forces of their state governments
>Instead humans have become the backbone of development for most of the civilized world due to their plethora of skills as craftsmen and pioneers of infrastructure development
>While small groups of humans are generally able to set the foundations of a future prosperous and self sufficient town in a few short weeks one family capitalized on their industrious leanings and created the city of Holstrom (named after the family of course), the largest economic/trading hub in the world
>While the city itself is constantly expanding from the influx of business owners hoping to strike it rich the Holstrom estate has found an even more lucrative way to further cement themselves as the richest family in history
>After the First Cataclysm left thousands of children homeless, the Holstroms leapt at the chance to take them all in, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but as an untapped financial boon
>the kids would be raised by the staff of the family, and when they became of age they could work from dawn till dusk for 3 square meals a day and a place to lie their heads at night
>While it was indentured servitude they all developed valuable skills that allowed them to build their own businesses in the city when they became adults, the land on loan from the estate of course so the cycle of debt continues.
And that's pretty much the elevator pitch for this particular setting, how does it sound? I'm mostly just looking for advice to flesh it out more (and maybe give it more sinister undertones). Some suggestions for how the actual Holstrom family should be characterized are welcome too.

[Anonymous No.19115534]

>>19106852
lul i'm just waiting for the jannies to start deleting your retarded images again. Enjoy your fun while it lasts. We know it's the only fun you have in life.

[Anonymous No.19115568]

>>19115353
>800 rejections
Surely this wasn't for one story

[Anonymous No.19115609]

>>19115568
It was over his career, I think.

[Anonymous No.19116142]

I have a cracking idea for an alternate ending for one of my favorite works that could be a great setpiece on its own. What do I do with it? Assuming writing fan Fiction would be a bad idea and plagiarizing the story with my own IP would be worse. Make the setpiece itself a short story writing backwards with expository dialogue? Tucking it away in the good idea drawer should another story ever organically call for such a scenario?

[Anonymous No.19116165]

>>19116142
when is the original work from?

[Anonymous No.19116167]

>>19116142
Nothing says you need to keep this alternate ending a part of the canon you originally attached it to and there is no shame in basing a story around something you see as derivative. Creativity is just remembering what you've heard and retelling it in a way that hopefully prevents others from knowing where you heard it.
My story idea came from an alternate ending to Being John Malkovich and I know that but I also know that my job is to prevent anyone else from knowing that.

[Anonymous No.19116174]

>Have reasonable opening paragraph
>Literally got nothing else

This is harder than I thought.

[Anonymous No.19116227]

>>19116174
I read this in spongebob's voice

[Anonymous No.19116243]

>>19116167
Yay, synthesizing old ideas in with new ideas, cranking on the meat grinder until it's impossible to tell whence anything came.
>>19116165
American Beauty, but also Pulp Fiction and that episode of Frasier where Niles wakes up in bed with Lilith.
>>19116167
Imagine if someone found the /tv/ post where I first proposed the idea in lazy greentext, how embarrassing that would be.
>>19116174
Tuck it in your good idea drawer then, for safekeeping until you actually have a story to tell.

Actually hold the phone on the good idea drawer idea, because I just found a way to recontextualize my setpiece to join together two concept-phase stories of mine and I do not like it at all.
>spaceman comes to Earth looking for his brother he misplaced some time ago
>brother is a half-breed of a race of elf-like people with a strong bow and arrow culture and is now the greatest marksman in the world
>and also the manservant to the sibyl of a borderline evil deity
>spaceman enlists the help of the protagonist who is the very human second-best marksman in the world
>bob's your uncle the protagonist ends up in bed with the sibyl
>everyone screams at the top of their lungs, guns pointed at each other, trying to figure out what the hell just happened and what to do now

[Anonymous No.19116249]

Publishing house said If I send them another grocery bag of diarrhea they'll take legal action.

[Anonymous No.19116275]

>>19116243
Can't tell if schizoposting or just retarded.

[Anonymous No.19116279]

>>19116275
what are you even doing on /lit/ if you're too dumb to read

[Anonymous No.19116283]

>>19116279

[Anonymous No.19116310]

>>19114838
>what do they get from it
Royalroad (and similar websites) should be viewed as a "freemium" publishing platform. If you write well and target the niche, then you get to earn more money than some nobody who got in the traditional way. Refer to pic related.

[Anonymous No.19116380]

>>19116275
>>19116279
>>19116283
kek

[Anonymous No.19116896]

>>19115500
Sounds like a perfectly rigid setup for a conflict to start developing in to me.

[Anonymous No.19116957]

>>19116310
I can't understand why people are willing to pay just to read a short chapter of some fantasy trash a week or two in advance. Patreon's post formatting is so fucking primitive too.

[Anonymous No.19117126]

post your excerpts for us to critique so i can also get some for mine

[Anonymous No.19117248]

>>19116896
I definitely want them to have a strong influence in the world as the characters progress through it, especially since one of the protagonists comes from the city itself.

[Anonymous No.19117263]

/wg/ is shit
Think about it. It doesn't even matter if these people write
Or if they offered critique on your writing
Does it actually help anyone? Does your skill really improve by seeking advice from self-important idiots?
The "Just write" polysyndetic chant in all likelihood is motivated by performative elitism but it cuts close to the truth. You can't get better by asking for other people's opinions. You need to write and read and edit and review and steal and syncretize until you hate the act of creation, but you pull forward anyway simply because you're bull-headed and you don't care if you can't structure a plot or if the premise has been done a million times. You need to disregard the opinions of others to create art. None of you are going to make it

[Anonymous No.19117276]

>>19117126
Thoughts plz anon >>19107979

[Anonymous No.19117304]

>>19117263
I don't need to make it. It's enough to write.

[Anonymous No.19117527]

>>19116957
There's one born every minute. Do you want to make money or not

[Anonymous No.19117538]

>>19117276
I like these memes but the "they have played us for absolute fools" line ruins the meme for me every time

[Anonymous No.19117540]

>>19117276
i don't normally read sci-fi so take this as you will.

>The creative vanguard
terrible. unless it's some title or something.
>That quiet man
there are better ways to describe a character's disposition than starting a sentence with something like this.
instances where a new paragraph should be introduced.

ch2sc2 is riddled with dry and padded description. sentence structure needs variety. reading the same exact kind of compound sentences gets tiring, and it is noticeable.
it's little things like these
>The door frame in the hall came off in pieces as Claud pried them off with a crowbar, stacking the pieces in a nearby closet.
that was quick, jumping from one place to another in a single sentence, but then everything went terribly slow as you detailed his thoughts and this change in pace is jarring.
>Claud dropped the tool and it clattered against the floor, scraping ivory paint off the wall.
the tool? just say crowbar. and it fell to the floor before scraping paint off the wall?
>In his mind, a muffled scream begged him to help.
unless this is some telepathic/sci-fi bullshit, this is not how [screams internally] works
>coldness
weak
>Bending at the knees
bending down is enough. better yet, kneeling. but you're trying to say that he avoids moving his back because it hurts. if so, you need to rewrite this.
in the end i'm not sure what this scene is trying to say. that his back is frail? that doesn't warrant an entire scene. we see nothing of his character, of phoebe's, or their relationship.

>Treichler frantically analyzed
weird how you went through such efforts to describe a home repair manual in such detail but glossed over this. how was he frantic? did he keep clicking the wrong tab? is he distractingly fidgeting waiting for the numbers to load? etc.
>on the bench-top carrying the monitor
on the bench-top where the monitor rested
>They had shut down the Gatherer through this computer...
i don't care about the technobabble paragraph explaining how passwords work. don't know if your audience would feel the same. in any case, that small part sounds like an article, not a narrator.
from what i can piece together it seems these men have a double rogue AI apocalypse upon them, but instead of panicking they seem to be sitting around throwing shrugs.

comma splices in dialogues.
tense issues.
as far as description go the last paragraph is the strongest so far.

[Anonymous No.19117628]

>>19117540
Thanks, I'll note these as common issues in my writing for the next draft. I was more interested in what you thought about the story. As far as the three old men, they helped create the Gatherer/Demiurge to manage the world, which it could only do if it killed most people, which they were on board with. Waldvogel seems nonchalant because he anticipated what was going to happen, the other two actually did panic that'd they'd never see their dream come true, but perhaps it didn't come off that way. Glad you liked my first pass of Phoebe having her ego destroyed, it's one of the most important disasters in the story.

[Anonymous No.19117646]

>>19104810
There's a thread about it but I may as well ask about it here. What do you guys use to keep a consistent timeline? I've got a lot of characters and my mind is not what it once was.

[Anonymous No.19117651]

>>19117646
Unironically Microsoft Excel

[Anonymous No.19117664]

>>19117628
>you thought about the story
the excerpt jumped between scenes and i can barely make anything out. i had no idea what ch3sc2 was even about without context.
>having her ego destroyed
again, without context, i didn't know this. to me it seemed that she was initiated into some sort of collective consciousness / cult. but if by ego you mean the freudian ego then i guess it checks out.

[Anonymous No.19117725]

>writing various terms and characters for a fantasy book
>mesh a variety of words across different languages with similar meanings to form names and sneak in as many puns as possible
>wrote a cool sounding name late one night based on a variety of Old English names
>forgot to take notes on the words I used
>have no idea what the origins of this name are once I get back to it
>but it still sounds cool so I don't want to axe it
Maybe if I make it big, I can just tell my readers to look up the name origins themselves as a scavenger hunt...
>>19114838
Mostly fiction for lowest-common-denomiator and newbie authors. A few skims through the site reveals a lot of dumb litRPGs and somewhat amateur writing. I've considered publishing there since I'm writing fantasy but have never finished/published a story before, and I'd like more experience and building up a following before self-publishing.
>>19117646
Absolutely use MS Excel for keeping your characters together, especially if you put a lot of detail into them. For a timeline of events, I start with a Word or Google Docs sheet and just write all the major events I want in first. From there, I look at what I have and ask, "How can I build up to this?", or, "How does the world react to this?". I also tend to jot my thoughts down in a bullet point format.

[Anonymous No.19117729]

>>19117646
A textfield with autosave. Also, not having too many characters.

[Anonymous No.19117732]

>>19117664
Yeah it's my fault for not sharing all the scenes between it. Most of those scenes may explain some but have far more glaring continuity errors that I noticed as I was writing, set to be fixed later.
What I mean by ego is that her entire concept of self gets erased, so when she does things they are no longer in reference to herself but to the machine and eventually everything connected to it. The utopia that's being built needs her to give away her self in order to harmoniously fix human nature. Since she desires connection with others and what she believes to be God, she goes through with it.

[Anonymous No.19117820]

>>19117732
>What I mean by ego is
alright, that's the similar feeling i got too.

[Anonymous No.19117827]

>>19117646
If you work on Mac (lol) there's a cool program I use called Timestory. It's served me well for years in my hobbies, school projects, and now writing. My only problem with it is that you can't get spans of time to butt right against each other, there's always a blank space between.

[Anonymous No.19117994]

Lightning bolts light up the sky,
black, black shadow flashes by before me.
Thunderclaps peel back the night,
I count the seconds, oh my, this ones coming for me.

I'm waiting on,
A new day to come.
Because stormy hearts
calm in the sun.
But I know the night is young.

Darkness takes away my sight,
but I feel the world outside, oh man, its reeling.
Trouble troubles me at night,
so I hide my dreams way up in that old ceiling.

A restless tune,
finds my tongue,
as the impatient moon,
beats the drum,
but I know the night is young.

I've been waiting all my lonely life for this,
this quietness.
I never saw why you'd need any more than,
as I give you one last little kiss.
But I know the night is young.

[Anonymous No.19118118]

bump

[Anonymous No.19118365]

Sup /wg/
bout a month ago we released a short story anthology featuring stories from /lit/ users. We had fun and it was such a painless process that we're going to do another one, but this time with stories from anons on /lit/ who weren't in position to submit to to the last edition
Accepted Short Story submissions will be published in the fall anthology and the writers will receive 25 dollars. I'm not a rich man but it bothers me that most lit journals don't pay you anything. If you aren't accepted you can still receive feedback on your story, so it's a no lose situation!
Send final drafts to [e-mail]
Word Count: 3-5k
Themes: Wrath and/or Beauty. The theme is a very loose guidepost for your story, don't feel constrained by it
Ask questions and give feedback of any sort please.

[Anonymous No.19118472]

>>19118365
Cheers, hope you get good submissions.

[Anonymous No.19119131]

Im writing two stories at the same time, and one is going way better then the other.

One is like really smooth to write, while the other one feels like pulling teeth

Anyone else have this problem?

[Anonymous No.19119293]

>>19116249
guess its time to get some fiber in your diet old boy

[Anonymous No.19119444]

>>19119131
I am writing twelve stories and they are all going very good

[Anonymous No.19119473]

Is it just me, or do a lot of literature communities feel like feel like they have a "fuck you, got mine" kind of dynamic where people are willing to help with only the most general advice? It feels like everyone is protecting the tiny patch of land they have from any person who might possibly carve out their own niche.

[Anonymous No.19119519]

>>19119473
those who can't teach

[Anonymous No.19119664]

i like to write and i think im a good writer but i can only write fanfiction, i cant really come up with anything i feel like is worth writing on my own with my own plot or characters or research. now that i type this out i realize one demotivating factor is that i really like writing about sex, and sex should never be interjected into an actual serious literary work as it ends up sounding retarded like stephen king at best or at worst contributes to cultural depravity like lolita. the only place i can do it and it seem either kind of tasteful or humorous is fanfiction

[Anonymous No.19119700]

>>19119664
what

[Anonymous No.19119745]

>>19119664
>TFW I don't like writing about sex at all in my novels
>TFW I'm pretty good at it and I've made girls cum with just my words
Now I know what non-furry drawfags feel

[Anonymous No.19119818]

>>19119664
>sex should never be interjected into an actual serious literary work as it ends up sounding retarded like stephen king at best or at worst contributes to cultural depravity like lolita.
lmao shittiest take on /lit/ this year

[Anonymous No.19119824]

>>19119664
r u tard?

[Anonymous No.19119833]

>>19119664
have you read anything by mishima?

[Anonymous No.19119882]

>>19119473
pretty sure that's just people not willing to take the time to do detailed critique because a) the writer didn't take the time to address the most basic issues (the same that "general advice" addresses) b) they're doing it for free.

once money starts trading hands the quality of critique jumps up an order of magnitude.

[Anonymous No.19119909]

>>19119745
heyyy be nice i used to get those kudos on ao3

>>19119818
show me a good sex scene anon, ive never read one that didnt seem jarringly unnecessary for the force of plot. what i have in mind right now particular is book of the new sun. i remember feeling like i was breaking through the fourth wall and looking into the authors pervy mind

>>19119833
nope does it pertain?

[Anonymous No.19119934]

>>19119909
mishima often writes about sex or other debased acts but it is alittle different
perhaps there is some insight there
maybe not

[Anonymous No.19119937]

>>19119882
It's not actually writing advice I'm looking for, it's advice on how to approach the business side of things. People always seem perfectly willing to critique most writing, but when you start asking them about monetization plans and how to actually build a following for your stuff, they all clam up.

[Anonymous No.19119946]

>>19119934
ok yea looks good ill check out

[Anonymous No.19120119]

I know this is a thread for more traditional writing but I'm having a problem with my Fallout Pen and Paper game. Writing a plot seems almost impossible and planning for every possiblity equally as impossible. Should i just plan only a few sessions ahead?

[Anonymous No.19120204]

>>19120119
I think you might get better responses on /tg/

[Anonymous No.19120230]

I have a problem and I've had it for a while now, but my doubts are just now reemerging in my head after being buried for a while.

My fantasy series takes place at a fantasy school. The first book is 89k words long. For the first 6000 words, the narrative takes place at the school and in the surrounding area. However, after that, it flashes back to the protagonist's childhood for 17.5k words. The rest of the story takes place back at the school.

In the past, I was primarily concerned with agents taking issue with this, but I decided that I'm just going to dump this online when the entire series is written out. But would the average reader take as much issue with it as an agent? That's what I'm concerned with now. Would you be bothered with all that time spent away from the main setting?

[Anonymous No.19120320]

>>19120119
you're not supposed to plot things out since that would just railroad players. instead setup a bunch of situations that are entangled with each other (the original fallout games were actually pretty good with this) and let the players loose on it. so it's not so much "this happens and then this happens if the players do this" but "this npc wants that and has these things by which to get it but there's this other npc that also wants that and has these things by which to get it and that's making these npcs want that other thing etc."

[Anonymous No.19120355]

>>19120230
Is it not possible to intersplice the flashbacks to childhood throughout the book? What's the purpose of the flashback?

[Anonymous No.19120433]

>>19118365
where can i read the last anthology?

[Anonymous No.19120488]

>>19111614
bumpin

[Anonymous No.19120498]

>>19120119
writing for those games involves seeding scenarios and then starting to steer towards one of the seeded stories as you learn the motivations and weaknesses of your players. You have time between sessions to develop how it goes.

[Anonymous No.19120675]

>>19104810
>writing a short story to post on here
>trying to make it free-flowing and emotional
>it's really fucking sad

I'm torturing myself by writing this shit.

[Anonymous No.19120686]

>>19120119
make goal
make npcs
occasionally railroad them into dungeons or towns you've designed to end the quest

rather than trying to emulate disco elysium or critical role you should attempt to provide a fun game

[Anonymous No.19120758]

>>19120686
What about themes? Can they be done in this medium

[Anonymous No.19120857]

>>19120675
I consider that a sign that you've at least created something worthwhile.

[Anonymous No.19120877]

>>19120758
sure. the quest itself, the ultimate resolution of the quest, NPC dialogue, and etc etc can all be built around whatever theme you have in mind.

[Anonymous No.19120964]

>>19120857
Seems unlikely, but I hope so. It was a pain to write but I couldn't stop doing it. Just finished, I'm going to wait before I edit.

[Anonymous No.19120982]

AHA! You thought I wouldn't catch you, Cringe Dialogue That Reads Like Schlocky Anime/Film Fagshit, but I did! Get deleted, nerd!

[Anonymous No.19121034]

With You being YYYYY, I'm trying to say "stares at your soul" in a weirder way. It just doesn't flow very well:

XXXX closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, that steel-eyed glare doesn't look at you, but looks through you, slices into you, peels back the layers of your defenses, and, there at last, lays bare the still-quivering heart of the man called YYYYY.

[Anonymous No.19121093]

>>19120675
Same. I've grown empathetic over the years. Writing the downward spiral section of a tragedy is really difficult. I need to make sure those sections are given a lot of care.

[Anonymous No.19121160]

>go in to start working on plot, have no motivation
>line edit, discover the dialogue is meme tier and needs reworking
>end up just reading the rest of the book, get bored
I've got my work cut out for me.

[Anonymous No.19121371]

How do I go about being paid for writing erotica

[Anonymous No.19121374]

>>19121160
It's okay, no one here writes anyways.

[Anonymous No.19121429]

>>19121371
By including my very specific fetishes in your work.

[Anonymous No.19121437]

>>19121374
I just wrote some edgy shit where a guy takes his son out boozing with the intention of having him lose his virginity to a hooker but they pass out, his son is kidnapped, he goes to pursue the kidnapper. He kills two innocent people due to a misunderstanding, then loses an eye and sees his son's throat cut.
Edgy shit, don't know why I do this.

[Anonymous No.19121564]

I' ve been thinking of starting to write, and first writing up fanfiction type of deal to practice before trying something a bit more serious. So I' ve been wondering wether for this purpouse it is better that I finish the entire thing, or post it in chapters as is tradition for fanfiction?

[Anonymous No.19121610]

>>19121564
Finish the entire thing first, or come to point where you think you're almost done and then publish each chapter piecemeal, usually this means 1 chapter every day until you catch up to your current chapters wip, this is for maximum front-page exposure. Fanfics usually go on AO3 so I don't know how exposure works on there though.

[Anonymous No.19121612]

>have novel ideas for several years but too unmotivated to start
>just starting to write in the past month
>knew what I wanted to happen in a scene
>found it really hard to translate that to words on a page
>consistently getting 500 words a day now
>it's small, but it's something
>proud of the prose and dialogue i'm writing
>know that I'm going to return to this when the novel is finished
>when I'm better at writing
>going to eventually fix the mistakes that I don't know that I'm making right now
What is this warm, fuzzy feeling. I go to sleep feeling happy about people that don't exist.
This is fun. I wish you all luck in your writing, anons.

[Anonymous No.19121760]

>>19121612
Very good anon!

[Anonymous No.19121769]

I will start to read 20 minutes a day from today
I will probably start a journal too my mind is all dead and fuzzy maybe it'll help clear it up a bit

[Anonymous No.19121807]

How the fuck do I write Chronic-Pain without even knowing what it even feels like? I feel like I'll fuck up descriptions and alienate my audience with an unrealistic depiction of it.

[Anonymous No.19121818]

>>19121807
Then don't write about it, problem solved.

[Anonymous No.19121823]

>>19121807
go to a support group

[Anonymous No.19121840]

>>19107071
>It is the only reason the Elithian restorationists have an inkling of support some 50 years since The Timeless Emperor deposed Duran II and slaughtered the royal family.

This feels kind of jarring. Like an exposition dump. None of these groups or people mean anything to me (although this really depends on how much info I know but this point in the story), but I think you'd be better of just saying "exemption from the games is the only thing sustaining support for the Elithian restorationist" or something, then dropping more info about who they are and what happened to the previous king later.

>I even heard the last boy from the House of Morav came back completely intact, but missing his entire skeleton.

Is this supposed to be funny? Because honestly, it reads like one of Bernard Manning's cake facts from brass eye

[Anonymous No.19121953]

>>19104810
>Have 5 different groups characters on different routes for my second novel.
I dun fucked up, didn't I?

[Anonymous No.19121995]

>>19121807
honestly I had it and after it ends you forget how it feels. it's an extremely hard feeling to replicate in writing even while you're experiencing it

[Anonymous No.19122183]

>>19121953
At this point you just write seperate books I think.

[Anonymous No.19122236]

>>19107071
>When I was nine years old, the Star League told my father to fuck me up the ass. While it's considered a divine honor to provide tributes to their precious league for the glory of humanity, I did not appreciate the way his crooked penis, swollen up to inhuman proportions by our bloodline magics, was tearing up my previously virginal insides. "Father," I pleaded, "this is a science fiction story. We're ripping off Dune and Ender's Game - not Hogg." He only pushed himself deeper into my perfect colon, the product of millenia of careful breeding. "Even the Metabarons wouldn't do this, and their writer is pretty much crazy." Father reached out for the Space Scepter, the sacred symbol of our ancestral power, and shoved it into me alongside his penis, stretching my anus further than a boy had been stretched since the Elithian restorationists got their hands on the crown prince during the ascent of the Timeless Emperor. "We're not winning any Hugos for this one," I whimpered.

[Anonymous No.19122283]

>>19121807
I had toothache due to an infection for weeks. In my case, the pain didn't feel like a burn but more like something was constantly expanding inside my gum and was playing the violin with my teeth nerve. It didn't feel like a burn and it was almost itchy on top of being extremely painful, it's a very distinct type of pain and I can remember it to this day. It was impossible to ignore, to the point I sometimes couldn't think clearly and couldn't sleep at night. I knew there was something wrong with my tooth and the thoughts of grabbing a knife and butchering my gum or stabbing a needle into the cavity of my tooth hoping it could 'kill' the source of the pain were daily occurrences.
I think you have to experience some stuff to describe it faithfully, for example, the need-to-cut-gum feeling is the most vivid memory I have of this experience, and if I wanted to write about tooth infection without mentioning this, it would have felt off to the people that went through it. But even then, it's hard to write an apt description of something you had years ago. For your case, you need to read testimonials and watch documentaries, that's the only way to not write something blatantly wrong. Also, watch out for inconsistencies between testimonials since most people will have a hard time giving an apt description of something so abstract as pain.

[Anonymous No.19122347]

>>19104810
Hey OP, just a friendly request: in case you create the new thread, is it ok if the OP image isn’t anime or anime related? I’m thinking then we can alternate without it being such a big deal?

[Anonymous No.19122354]

>>19122236
fucking lol

[Anonymous No.19122364]

>>19122236
>Even the Metabarons
>Not meatbarons
meh

[Anonymous No.19122462]

Help my dialogue is autistic

[Anonymous No.19122597]

>>19107285
Keep going, fren

[Anonymous No.19122758]

I am actually failing to identify the best way to punctuate this for the given effect. Thoughts?

>Humans would probably be surprised too by their friend getting buckshot driven through their chest, but humans weren’t always so observant.

[Anonymous No.19122789]

>>19122758
I'm just confused by why the word "humans" is being used here

[Anonymous No.19122814]

>>19122789
Comparison to bird-like aliens

[Anonymous No.19122845]

>protag randomly encounters an old internet microcelebrity at work, forgotten by everyone but her
>not long after, protag gets in an anonymous fight online, tracks down the person and finds a selfie, it's the same microcepeb
Does this sound too hard to believe since it's 3 coincidences? Tone is kinda surrealist but I want the narrative to feel coherent

[Anonymous No.19122855]

>>19120982
>>19121612
>>19121769
right on, anonymous. that's the spirit.

[Anonymous No.19122880]

>>19122814
I see. I'd write it as
>Humans too would be surprised by their friend getting buckshot through their chest, but then again humans weren't always all that observant.

[Anonymous No.19123002]

Can you guys please recommend me a proofreading tool, which is not Grammarly? I simply don't have enough time to check my stuff more often than once at max.

[Anonymous No.19123042]

>>19123002
https://hemingwayapp.com/

[Fuck communists No.19123135]

Are copywriters allowed

[Anonymous No.19123198]

>>19121612
good shit anon

[Anonymous No.19123518]

>>19121840
>This feels kind of jarring. Like an exposition dump. None of these groups or people mean anything to me (although this really depends on how much info I know but this point in the story)
This is supposed to be like the 1st or 2nd chapter, following up from the prologue, which is Elaine's PoV leading up to her death in the duel with her aunt. So some of this is pretty rough because I haven't finished writing the prologue yet, but the "geopolitical climate" will get introduced there and expanded upon here.

The idea is that their royal family was killed, but because their tribute turned up among the dead, they still believe he can return and restore the throne. I'll have to plan out how to make the exposition dumps more fluid and seem in place.
>Is this supposed to be funny?
I was aiming for something grotesque and mysterious, so I clearly missed the mark.

Thanks for the feedback
>>19122236
lolwut

Yea, I can understand why you'd get the expectation that it's Dune meets Ender's Game but I'm playing it off as more of a fantasy than a scifi if we're gonna go by "the furniture rule," but I don't think "Ackshually, the guys claiming to be gods are ayy lmaos" needs to be played off as some ebin twist and should just be inferred to the reader, while it should still have significance to the characters when they abandoned their traditional religions for several generations. Religion is a major theme I want to write about. I haven't decided on the period yet, but I was thinking either post-Enlightenment or Antiquity.

[Anonymous No.19123572]

Okay, boys. I've reached a point in my writing process where I consistently journal, take notes, scribble ideas, and little lyrics and such on a daily basis. Now, I'm trying to combine my ability and talents of songwriting and story telling, but I'm unsure how to simplify and synthesize these ambitions while working a 9-5, balancing life-stuff, and still getting the proper reading and word counts in.

So, I'm buckling down to get serious and work on my chops - have a weird prose-poetry style that I believe would lend itself well to a quasi weird fiction mode - and master writing short stories before getting into novels, while still making music; recording, etc..

What I'd like some guidance in is scheduling: what's a good weekly goal to hit? Figure, my target word count is around 15,000 words per story. Just feel a but frazzled, and I have piles of disorganized notebooks to sift through, and it can all feel a bit overwhelming.

[Anonymous No.19123575]

Is anyone here writing progression fantasy? What percentage of my word count should be devoted to explaining power systems and power scales?