/wg/ Writing General

[Anonymous No.21320562]

"Flow Model" Edition

/wg/ AUTHORS & FLASH FICTION: https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQ
RESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS: https://pastebin.com/nFxdiQvC

Please limit excerpts to one post.
Give advice as much as you receive it to the best of your ability.
Follow prompts made below and discuss written works for practice; contribute and you shall receive.
If you have not performed a cursory proofread, do not expect to be treated kindly. Edit your work for spelling and grammar before posting.
Violent shills should be ignored and reported.

Simple guides on writing:
https://youtu.be/pHdzv1NfZRM
https://youtu.be/whPnobbck9s
https://youtu.be/YAKcbvioxFk

Thread Theme:
https://youtu.be/eZpliatJMGs

Previous Thread:
>>21305010

[Anonymous No.21320571]

First for Jester's privilege.

[Anonymous No.21320578]

Everyone writes.

[Anonymous No.21320745]

Has anyone else read (or is reading) this book?
I find it to be a very good reference for what keeps the reader's attention and the underlying rules of what makes a compelling story.

[Anonymous No.21320917]

>>21313858
>He winced.

[Anonymous No.21320928]

>>21320745
Yes retard. This is the quintessential writing book, I imagine literally everybody here has read it. I see it recommended at least twice every thread at least.

[Anonymous No.21320949]

>>21320928
No need to be so prickly.
And maybe I'm the one recommending it at least twice every thread.

[Anonymous No.21320985]

>>21320928
>literally everybody here has read it
based on the lack of story structure i see in almost everyones writing...no they havent

[Anonymous No.21321001]

>>21320745
I've read it several times along with many of its descendants (Jack Bickham's book, Deborah Chester's book). It attempts to codify and abstract the fundamentals of genre fiction. I remember when I first read it, I was very excited because it felt like all the secrets were finally being laid bare. It was akin to the feeling I got as a kid reading through a strategy guide on gamefaqs. The style is a bit outdated, but the tools are not. MR-units, Goal-Conflict-Disaster, Reaction-Dilemma-Decision, scene/sequel, are all still relevant. I sometimes review the extensive notes I took on the book, although nowadays I can appreciate how the knowledge itself doesn't really help you get better. You have to actually analyze your weaknesses and do drills to improve them. The book offers limited advice in this regard, but, in general, I've found imitation to be a good method.

[Anonymous No.21321011]

>>21320985
you're only reading excerpts. nobody has posted an entire story here yet.

[Anonymous No.21321021]

>>21321011
there are several completed works here
the author pastebin is full of them
and many of them have no grasp of story structure

[Anonymous No.21321169]

>>21321021
which ones? You've read all of them?

[Anonymous No.21321172]

3.4k of the worst shit ever put to paper today. basically spewing out my first draft as fast as possible just to give me something to edit and work with.

[Anonymous No.21321175]

>>21321169
Which ones have an intro, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion?

[Anonymous No.21321199]

>>21320562
Ah, Czikszentmihayli.

[Anonymous No.21321208]

>>21321199
That's highly significant.

[Anonymous No.21321212]

>>21320571
whoa I'm literally the Joker.... this rules

[Anonymous No.21321247]

>>21321208
I know. His work, 'Flow', is probably one of the most useful and accurate descriptions of the state that he calls 'flow', others call the 'zone', etc.

[Anonymous No.21321357]

>>21320571
I CAN DO ANYTHING

[Anonymous No.21321386]

>>21320562
There sits a man in a chair before a desk. His hand holds a pencil scribbling paper splayed on wood. The scratch of graphite in the white pulp is the only sound in the room. Words are etched and sentences written of a profound story. Perhaps an old man is met while thresholds crossed into the cosmological. A large whale eats unsuspected prey, digesting the neurosis of an audience. Maybe three totems are found, medallions, or keys, and brought to an expansive door. The man’s pencil is interrupted by a knock. A door in the room opens and a woman enters carrying coffee and a cigarette. She sets the drink on the man’s desk and gently kisses his cheek then politely leaves the room. He replaces the pencil with the cigarette and reclines in his chair; A lighter swings in his free hand toward the fag. The cigarette ignites as he inhales and exhales smoke. A moment pauses as he enjoys the nicotine and abruptly coughs once. The man thinks, this will kill if I don’t stop, when he brings the cigarette back to his mouth. He retrieves the pencil and continues the fiction. He knows a rescue from without is next and without, the story cannot return the threshold. He considers a moment, and writes another sentence, and another, as he finds mastery of his smoke and the pencil. Finally he leans back and stares down the paper. There, he thinks, the story is finished. The last sentence reads, “You just lost the game.”

[Anonymous No.21321393]

You were trying to keep your mind pure, but you couldn't help looking at her, that pretty little fourteen-year-old girl. It wasn't despicable, you were only sixteen yourself. What was silly was the intention, to keep your mind pure, as if a sixteen-year-old on a Wednesday night with school in the morning could have done such a thing. You hadn't been pure since the days you spent sleeping snug in your mother's distended belly.

You got home and you started munching them down, slimy and tasting of horse shit, the golden fruiting bodies of a fungus which had proliferated through a dung pile in the paddock. At first you felt alive, every cell in your body screaming for sex, the psilocybin mingling with your adolescent hormones to put you in an intense, primal state. You thought of her, not the long-forgotten pretty girl from before but a real girl, a girl you really had a connection to, and covered your pillow in slobber.

Coming up for air, letting your sex subside, you went wandering, stumbling through dark hallways, chasing lightning midges across the walls with your fuckeyes. You didn't watch where you were going and your jelly legs couldn't stop you from tripping. You fell through the floor, spinning, spinning like the hands of a clock, lost in a timeless void. You saw them all now, everyone you feared and hated, too ugly for words, their presence in your life like a miasma you couldn't hold your breath against. God, please make it stop. For fuck's sake, just make it stop, please!

***

You pass out briefly waiting for the bus. You sit down beside your easy friend and he starts asking questions. You'd be happy never to talk to the cunt again.

[Anonymous No.21321578]

>>21320571
>Mfw living in this guy's head rent free
>Literally days after we had our spat

[Anonymous No.21321596]

>walking on the street while listening to music helps me the most to come up with the stories i'm working on
>can't take notes because i'd need to look at my phone and where i'm going at the same time
>too self-conscious to talk to myself to record what i just came up with on my phone
What do I do?

[Anonymous No.21321599]

>>21321596
memory palace

[Anonymous No.21321603]

>>21321596
Literally me

[Anonymous No.21321735]

>>21321393
Mushrooms do not work that way.

[Anonymous No.21321741]

>>21321011
Even the short excerpts show that people aren't using motive-reaction units.

[Anonymous No.21321764]

>>21321596
Looks like you know what to do--you even said it!
So now it's time to overcome that needless insecurity born from presuming assumptions of random people who have no impact or influence in your life so it can no longer hinder your efficiency, and so you can then be one step closer to more freely pursuing your goals without needless inhibitions that anything but permanent.

[Anonymous No.21321868]

>>21321596
You want to be a writer and don't know how to record ideas? Anon, the clue is in the name. What did people use before the iphone existed?

[Anonymous No.21321932]

>>21321735
>implying there's a "way" mushrooms work
That's an autobiographical account you daft cunt

[Anonymous No.21321945]

>>21320745
I'm not a salesman, I'm a writer.

[Anonymous No.21321970]

>>21320745
>His first published story was "Henry Horn's Super Solvent", which appeared in Fantastic Adventures in 1941. He contributed stories of the genres of science fiction, mystery, Western, and action adventure to a variety of magazines of the pulp variety. His first published book was The Transposed Man (1955), which appeared as Ace Double D-113, bound dos-à-dos with J.T. McIntosh's One In Three Hundred.[2] He published several more novels, including The Horde From Infinity, vended as another Ace Double with The Day The Earth Froze by Gerald Hatch. During the 1960s, he scripted a motion picture, Stark Fear, featuring Keith Toby and Beverly Garland.
Imagine giving the slightest shit about what this goofball says about writing. He is the archetype of the "writer about writing" whose only even semi-notable work was a book about writing. Books about writing are such a fucking grift.

[Anonymous No.21321983]

>>21321932
You jack off on shrooms? Yuck. No wonder you have bad trips.

[Anonymous No.21321992]

>>21321983
Where in the story did I say that I did? Either critique the writing itself or fuck off

[Anonymous No.21322001]

>>21321992
>the writing itself
Well, you chose to write in second person for some reason, and what you wrote isn't If on a winter's night a traveler, and you definitely aren't Calvino. There's not much to say about it, really. Are you writing in second person because you're afraid your writing won't stand out enough if you don't use a gimmick?

[Anonymous No.21322013]

>>21320562
Attempt 2

[Anonymous No.21322017]

>>21322001
I'm trying to put the audience right into my shoes, to give them the experience. It's like refreshing an amnesiac's memory. The vague nature of the narrative is so that the reader can fill in the blanks themselves. The girls, the easy friend, they're whoever you want them to be.

[Anonymous No.21322024]

>>21322017
>the audience right into my shoes, to give them the experience
This is better done with other narrative frames. Writing "you," ironically, never lets a reader forget the fact that someone is dictating to them. It prevents a reader from actually engaging with the text because there is always that layer of "the author is telling me his diaper fetishes" or whatever. It's next to impossible to pull off on anyone more sophisticated than a child.

[Anonymous No.21322027]

>>21322024
I value that reply, but I do think you're an especially sensitive cunt.

[Anonymous No.21322031]

>help someone
>they call you names
Regret.

[Anonymous No.21322035]

>interact with someone
>they turn out to be Australian
Life just isn't worth living.

[Anonymous No.21322053]

>go to /lit/ for cultured discussions
>Whoa, Dostoevsky was a midwit author because he was mean to hookers!
Never takes anything anyone says on this board seriously

[Anonymous No.21322119]

>>21321741
>motive-reaction units
qrd on these and how to use them?

[Anonymous No.21322129]

>>21322119
They're what screenwriters used to create Sheldon from your favorite show, the Big Bang Theory!

[Anonymous No.21322131]

>>21322119
Those are like the power converters you pick up from toshi station

[Anonymous No.21322222]

>>21321945
The book isn't about selling per se.
And you need to be a salesman if you're going to make it as a writer, even if you get tradpubbed.

[Anonymous No.21322224]

>>21322119
Read the damn book. >>21320745

[Anonymous No.21322228]

>>21322224
no
o

[Anonymous No.21322244]

>>21322222
Its primary focus is on selling you a roadmap to Sell the Product, as pitched by a guy whose greatest success was a couple of pulp novels and the screenplay of a completely forgotten movie. So he wasn't even that great at Selling the Product himself. The best thing you can learn from On Writing books is how to write On Writing books. If you want to learn how to write good books, just cut out the fucking middleman and read good books instead.

[Anonymous No.21322248]

>>21322244
Are we reading the same book?
It discusses characteristics of books that maintain the reader's interest.
>>21322228
>won't make an effort
NGMI

[Anonymous No.21322258]

>>21322224
>motive-reaction units
it's okay i found some thot on yt to explain it for me

[Anonymous No.21322313]

How do I write hentai?

[Anonymous No.21322315]

>>21322248
Already published nigga and I’m a better writer than literally anyone in this thread

[Anonymous No.21322329]

>>21322315
No way the petty mind that made this post could be a good writer, just no way.

[Anonymous No.21322369]

>>21322313
Have the male fuck parts of the female that are not the pussy but refer to them as a pussy hyphenated with that part.

>breast-pussy
>foot-pussy
>ass-pussy
>pit-pussy
>thigh-pussy
>ear-pussy

and have the girl say "you're impregnating my -pussy" when he cums.

[Anonymous No.21322389]

>>21322329
The best writers who ever lived and will ever live are prissy bitches who hated every other writer around them.

I am better at this than you. That’s okay. Suck my cock and enjoy.

[Anonymous No.21322394]

>>21322315
70 page porn books posted on Amazon does not a published author make

[Anonymous No.21322399]

Did anyone do NaNoWriMo this year?

[Anonymous No.21322410]

>>21322394
I genuinely look down on erotica because it’s an adolescent misuse of milquetoast but readable prose.

[Anonymous No.21322411]

>>21322399
I'm going to go out on a limb and say "no".

[Anonymous No.21322424]

>>21322389
It's actually pretty genuinely pathetic that you're saying that without your trip on. We have all read what you've written and we all know that you're nowhere close to being a good writer, much less among the best who ever lived. Please tame your narcissism. Anyone with a brain knows it's just a front to conceal your withering insecurity.

[Anonymous No.21322440]

>>21322424
And yet no one, not a single anon, can currently critique my work. There are actual methods and techniques legitimate editors apply to their work (You) evidently do not or cannot comprehend. When a single and lone anon can provide genuine critique on spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and story, then I will temper my ego. Until then, I will continue being superior to you and your unwashed mass of smut and shroom masturbations.

[Anonymous No.21322452]

>>21322440
Post your work

[Anonymous No.21322455]

>>21322440
>Coach Blackman decided to wait and let all of this play out. His time in the military gave him a keen understanding of the dynamics among young men. They were like a pack of wolves deciding on the alpha. It would be made clear soon enough. Preventing it would only distract the team's focus, and he needed them focused if he was going to turn them into champions. But first he needed to earn their respect. Also his re-tarted daughter taught him patience and love. That would help him with coaching.
>Andy returned to the gym, wearing his basketball shorts and jersey, tying his hair back into a ponytail. He locked eyes with Sal who was stretching his hamstrings, the tension on his muscles showing his peak physical condition. The cut curves of each muscle could lead one to imagine a sculpture meticulously putting every fiber into place - starting at his ankles, ascending through his thighs and stopping at his perfect apple-smooth ass.
Sal grinned, then suddenly hopped to his feet and kicked a ball towards Andy in one smooth motion.
>It flew across the gym like a comet blasting through the heavens, but if this was heaven then Andy was a god. His hand reached forward and commanded the cosmic body to an instant stop. Only his jersey and ponytail were affected by the shockwave of the collision, but as master of this realm, he stood firm. The team gasped with amazement, then looked between each other grinning.
“I assume this means that it’s my ball first,” Andy said as he calmly dribbled over to the top of the half circle.
>Sal clicked his teeth and walked behind the freethrow line. “Yeah, that way you don’t complain. First to eleven, baskets are one and two points and scoring keeps possession. Must win by two.”
>“So I only need to make six shots? Works for me.”
>To that Sal laughed, “Check the ball, bitch. You ain't scoring once.”
>The entire team leaned in. For a brief moment all was silent in heaven.
>Coach Blackman watched, taking note of the two who he expected to be his top players. But first he would have to earn their respect. Also his daughter was re-tarted and his wife left him.
>The inimical silence was broken as the ball was bounced to Sal then back to Andy, and just like that the battle between the two titans had begun!
The sad reality is that nobody cares enough about you or what you say to actually engage. Everyone just wishes you'd find another place to sperg out when you feel manic and decide to get nasty and mean.

[Anonymous No.21322461]

>>21322452
This (>>21322455) is his work.

[Anonymous No.21322466]

>>21322455
You literally just engaged with me but okay. Also, what’s with all the green text? I didn’t write that. Is that your work? Did you post a thing and felt like tagging an insult on the end? Cute.

>>21322452
>>21321386

[Anonymous No.21322473]

>>21322466
I get that gaslighting is part of your disorder, but nobody is really gonna be fooled by that. There's literally only one bipolar narcissist who frequents this thread.

[Anonymous No.21322478]

>>21321596
Just hold the phone up to your ear and pretend to be in a call. Alternatively, actually call someone up and dictate to them.

[Anonymous No.21322479]

>>21322473
Nigga I write in present tense learn to read voice

[Anonymous No.21322497]

>>21322455
>His time in the military gave him a keen understanding of the dynamics among young men
Change it to "His time in the military had given him [...]". It makes more sense to use past perfect.
>They were like a pack of wolves deciding on the alpha. It would be made clear soon enough.
Find a more impactful verb than "deciding on". Also consider connecting these two sentences with a conjunction or a semicolon at least, it's choppy.
>Preventing it would [...]
"It" is a vague word, loose connections come off amateur. "Preventing this" is a little better.
>But first he needed to earn their respect
Comma after "first".
>Also his re-tarted daughter taught him patience and love.
Starting a sentence with "also" is sloppy. Also "re-tarted"? Really? Is this a reference to something, or did you mean to type retarded? Remove this sentence entirely or contextualize why it's there. The sentence afterwards is also too short, the rhythm of your prose is very bad, short sentences need variation to prevent it from feeling like a 4-year-old wrote it.
>Andy returned to the gym, wearing his basketball shorts and jersey, tying his hair back into a ponytail.
Misuse and overuse of participle. This comes off amateur to agents. Change it to "Andy returned to the gym. He wore his basketball shorts and jersey, and his hair was tied back into a ponytail."
>He locked eyes with Sal who was stretching his hamstrings, the tension on his muscles showing his peak physical condition.
More participle masturbation. "He locked eyes with Sal who was stretching his hamstrings. The tension on Sal's muscles showed his peak physical condition, the cut curves [...]"
>It flew across the gym like a comet blasting through the heavens, but if this was heaven then Andy was a god. His hand reached forward and commanded the cosmic body to an instant stop. Only his jersey and ponytail were affected by the shockwave of the collision, but as master of this realm, he stood firm. The team gasped with amazement, then looked between each other grinning.
This entire passage would immediately make me lose interest if I was an editor or agent reviewing your work. Purge this from your entire draft.
In fact I stopped reading there.
Hope this helps!

[Anonymous No.21322499]

>>21321386
Unbelievably pretentious and up your own ass, and present tense makes me want to shoot myself. Try and tone down the obnoxiously flowery prose and get to the point, unless you intend to write poetry for smug English Lit majors.

[Anonymous No.21322512]

>>21322499
And yet no legitimate critique on spelling, grammar, sentence structure, or story. It’s like you guise can’t genuinely edit. Maybe it’s because you’re too dumb to actually do it.

Seriously, your only actual editing is your feeling that you don’t enjoy present tense. That’s not an edit or critique, that’s a review. This is why I’m better than you.

[Anonymous No.21322521]

Alright people, move along. Sange is off his meds again. He's having an episode. Nothing to see here!

[Anonymous No.21322522]

>>21322512
The spelling and grammar is fine, did you want me to make up issues with them? The sentences are a little short, they could probably be abridged. As for the story, there literally isn’t one, hence my criticisms.
You’re not as smart as you think you are

[Anonymous No.21322525]

>>21321386
>The last sentence reads, “You just lost the game.”
Fuck you. Go die in a fire.

[Anonymous No.21322528]

>>21322522
There is actually a story and if you can’t see the story rituals literally named in the shitprose, then you are actually and bonafidely underqualified to provide critique… As in, you don’t know how. You do not comprehend the actual work an editor does. You cannot perform the function of an editor. Again, it’s these interactions which conclude and fundamentally prove to my ego that I am, in fact, better than you.

Even if you don’t agree with the work of Campbell, an editor with a rate, would at least be familiar with the theories. And this is what I mean. This is what I lack from you all.

[Anonymous No.21322532]

>>21322399
me write slow

[Anonymous No.21322536]

>>21322528
Then you can leave.

[Anonymous No.21322541]

>>21322536
No. I enjoy making you feel stupid. Writing is mine and you’re all just borrowing it.

[Anonymous No.21322555]

>>21322536
He is a literal bipolar narcissist. Both of these things he has himself said. "Take your meds" is not a meme. The guy is having a legitimate mental health crisis and he comes here to literally cope, by trying to make other people feel shitty about themselves.

[Anonymous No.21322574]

>>21322555
I think it’s more evident of your own mental illness you’ve confused me for another anon. As in, the assumption you can associate one anon with another, without trips, which is statistically unlikely. So much so, you or another ill minded anon, posted a wall of green text of terrible past tense and passive prose, with the obviously insane projection it’s mine. Honestly, between you and I, you seem the more diagnosed. I enjoy making terrible writers feel terrible is all.

No one, not a single person, is forcing any of you, to publish your work to this media. If Hemingway were alive today, he’d be shitting on you all too.

[Anonymous No.21322587]

>>21322574
Your manic episode is leading you to overestimate your ability to gaslight. Someone get this man his meds!

[Anonymous No.21322596]

>>21322587
Please, post another wall of green text so you can continue interloping with this imaginary anon in your brain. You obviously need it to function and interact with a better writer than yourself.

Actual, literal, and unironic cope.

[Anonymous No.21322629]

>>21321596
Buy one of these and write in it.

[Anonymous No.21322638]

>>21322521
It's Boswell. He's the guy who writes the gay basketball story.

[Anonymous No.21322672]

>>21322638
So wait, there are TWO other anons you guise think I am?!?!

[Anonymous No.21322734]

>>21322672
Okay I have to say this
*********guys
Not GUISE
guise
noun
an external form, appearance, or manner of presentation, typically concealing the true nature of something.
"he visited in the guise of an inspector"

[Anonymous No.21322765]

>>21322734
yes but we’re on chan so the local nomenclature contextualizes “guise” as appropriate vernacular

[Anonymous No.21322778]

>>21322765
No, it doesn’t.

[Anonymous No.21322859]

>>21322224
i'm reading it and it's good so far

[Anonymous No.21322987]

>>21322859
I recommend Bickham's book over Swain's. It's written less annoyingly and demonstrates its principles through analysis of published excerpts.

[Anonymous No.21323025]

>>21320562
irony is the lowest form of writing ever made

you just write the opposite of what you want to say
that is it
literally all there is to it

garbage

[Anonymous No.21323042]

Gardner is the best writer here.

[Anonymous No.21323057]

>>21323025
That's some top tier irony you have there anon, I agree that irony is a great literary device

[Anonymous No.21323062]

>>21323042
Nobody is falling for it anymore Gardner. Go self-promote on plebbit.

[Anonymous No.21323070]

>>21320562

[Anonymous No.21323176]

>>21323070
The real magic is the labor and care to raise a seed into a tree of substance

[Anonymous No.21323191]

I'm just going to leave my Adah story here and hope someone has the time to critique it. I'm at 50k words and probably should start wrapping up the story in 30k more words before it gets too long winded and pointless.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11q39jdlnZxvZe5jRuz8bpfESLQikJDOnV5ixJSht7uE/edit?usp=drivesdk

[Anonymous No.21323222]

>>21323191
>should probably start wrapping up the story before it gets too long winded
Let me get this straight, you've written 50k words and don't know how your own story ends? What kind of outlining have you done? I might critique it but I need to make sure I'm not just wasting time reading someone's meandering 50k word tangent that has no narrative. Are you able to say what your story is about in 3 sentences and articulate the main thematic question?

[Anonymous No.21323318]

>>21323070
>The real fruit was the friends who died along the way
whoa...

[Anonymous No.21323337]

>>21318231
Cool but what's that got to do with scheduling

[Anonymous No.21323342]

>>21321357
CHAOS
CHAOS

[Anonymous No.21323378]

>>21323222
Oh no I do. But I'm finding myself adding more story and twists. The ending is really simple, hero saves the world by killing her own brother.

>Are you able to say what your story is about in 3 sentences and articulate the main thematic question?
A cop tries to find answers to missing peoples only to find the culprit was her own brother all along. The theme is if one should be loyal to duty or to blood.

[Anonymous No.21323423]

When plotting a story one can think in tree diagrams. Like A steps into a train. a) The train derails. b) The train doesn't derail. Suddenly the story branches off into two different directions. Keeping track of all important branching points can be quite useful.

[Anonymous No.21323469]

>>21322455
>and he needed them focused
>But first he needed to earn their respect
Back to back "needed."

>re-tarted daughter
No need to be ableist. It's not even funny here.

>The cut curves of each muscle could lead one to imagine a sculpture
You ask the reader to "imagine," but you don't offer him any help. Your only description of this sculpture is limited to "apple-smooth ass." This is not enough for the reader to visualize the gay porno fantasies that inspire your writing. Most books and authors usually would offer here a more complete description of a character's physical characteristics. As a result of this lack, I felt surprised when I read the next line:
>Sal grinned, then suddenly hopped to his feet and kicked a ball towards Andy in one smooth motion.
In my head, I pictured Sal stretching his hamstrings standing on his feet and leaning forward toward the floor. The fact that he was actually sitting was never mentioned anywhere, despite having the opportunity to do so. This surprise was not the thrilling kind one might feel when the plot suddenly twists; rather, this surprise I felt was rooted in the discrepancy between the picture I created in my head, based on the writer's, yours, sparse descriptions, and what you yourself imagined and ended up writing.
You also, again, repeat yourself here:
>apple-smooth ass
>one smooth motion
I just don't like that the same word is used twice in two back to back sentences.

>Only his jersey and ponytail were affected by the shockwave of the collision, but as master of this realm, he stood firm.
There's no impact here. This doesn't read as if a kicked ball flew and hit someone. You invoked the heavens and god, but didn't use this imagery to your advantage. Why is there no talk of the roar of the comet, its raging flight through the gym, that is the heavens, and the impact—the slight sting of burning redness one feels when catching a fast-moving object, and the lack of all these beastly sensations in the pure immortal being Andy?

>calmly
Since you have already called him a god, could you please use a more god-like descriptor?

>“So I only need to make six shots? Works for me.”
No one talks like this.

>"You ain't scoring once."
Change "once" for "shit."

>For a brief moment all was silent in heaven.
Again, this would have been a good line had you earlier painted a picture of the deafening loudness of the thunder of the kick.

>Coach Blackman watched, taking note of the two who he expected to be his top players.
This is clunky.

>But first he would have to earn their respect. Also his daughter was re-tarted and his wife left him.
This is funny.

And in general, as another anon has already said here >>21322497 : misuse of participle.

[Anonymous No.21323539]

>>21323342
based deltabro

[Anonymous No.21323591]

>>21323423
>Can
I'm writing routes, I HAVE to think in tree diagrams. What's the best writing tool for someone like me? I've heard scrinever is good.

[Anonymous No.21323823]

>>21323378
Cool premise anon :)

[Anonymous No.21323863]

Any thoughts on writing children’s books? Seems like they’re all written by fat talentless women and accompanied by ugly illustrations. So since the standard is so low, I’d imagine it would be easy to get published if you really wanted to?

[Anonymous No.21323872]

>>21323863
It's a lucrative market. Advantage is very short drafts = high work output, so it's easier already just because of that.

[Anonymous No.21323901]

>>21322013
Will you fuckers stop shitting on each other and shit on this instead?

[Anonymous No.21323933]

>>21323901
Your prose reads like a puzzle. It's impossible to immerse myself into your writing because I keep having to backtrack and figure out retroactively what each sentence is trying to say when I finally find the subject at the end of a dozen conjunctions and connected clauses. Therefore it fails to evoke the intended effect. It would probably be more efficient if it was just 2 or 3 sentences. There doesn't seem to be any reason for the poetic language, it's hollow spectacle that feels like it has no underlying driving theme or purpose and is just flowery for the sake of being so.

[Anonymous No.21324067]

>>21321175
How’s this work if I’m starting my story in the middle?

[Anonymous No.21324082]

>>21323872
>It's a lucrative market. Advantage is very short drafts = high work output, so it's easier already just because of that.
Is it? Aren't parents these days just giving the kid a tablet or watch something with them? No one has time to read a book to a child these days. I honestly don't anything about the market for kids, but I can blindly assume it's dying or very small. Reading is simly outcompeted by less time consuming, easier to access behaviours.

[Anonymous No.21324113]

>>21324082
>Aren't parents these days just giving the kid a tablet or watch something with them?
Shit parents maybe. All the young couples I know are set on keeping thir kids away from screens until they're at least four.
Most of the parents of older kids (5-10) are always lamenting about how much time their kids spend on the phone/computer

[Anonymous No.21324240]

>>21322013
>>21323901
I like complex, difficult-to-read prose with long sentences that confuse the reader and make him stumble. However, this must be done with proper technique. Your way of complexifying the text is bad. In your text, it is done by way of mechanical repetition of synonymous words or by the insertion of clauses that could have easily been their own sentences or not written at all without losing anything. It is inadequate in terms of technical 'mastery.' In my opinion, for example, calling the torrent both "writhing" and "wailing," despite the alliteration being melodically and rhythmically pleasant, does not evoke a strong enough a response in the reader to justify the inclusion of more than one word here. The rest of that same sentence is, in this regard, much better. This further lessens the importance of that alliteration, which here only makes the sentence messy.

[Anonymous No.21324344]

>>21323933
Thank you. I use, or at least attempt to use, poetic language because I have a visceral disdain of the plain language of writers like Hemingway. It doesn't engage me. It bores me. If I wanted to read books or stories that are reminiscent of the everyday conversations that I have or hear in passing, then I would only read posts and comments on the internet, but I don't. I wish to heighten things, write of grand things

>>21324240
Thank you.
>repetition of synonymous words
How many were used? While I agree about their being an issue with the segment with "writhing" and "wailing", I would hardly call them synonyms.
>by the insertion of clauses that could have easily been their own sentences or not written at all without losing anything.
What are examples of clauses that couldn't be their own complete sentences in books? Let's say, Milton or Melville? I'm also trying not to go overboard either, like Proust, for example.
>which here only makes the sentence messy
I find that clause and the appositive in the first sentence ("one that could...") to be kind of messy in general.
Thank you again.

[Anonymous No.21324371]

>>21322778
Yes, it does. Evidently “vernacular” is not in your vocabulary.

[Anonymous No.21324511]

>>21324344
>If I wanted to read books or stories that are reminiscent of the everyday conversations that I have or hear in passing, then I would only read posts and comments on the internet, but I don't. I
This is a misunderstanding of Hemingway's mindset. Simple and concise prose isn't reminiscent of real life, in fact it's quite the opposite. Hemingway-style prose, done well, is packed full of powerful verbs and evocative images that punch hard in as little space as possible, and can be imagined easily. The narrative becomes grand when it's allowed to exist in its purest form without window dressing. In real life people meander and go on and on, and are inefficient with their language. It's easier to write something long-winded than it is to write something Hemingway would approve of.

[Anonymous No.21324533]

>>21324511
The iceberg theory is a filter between good writers and retards who don’t understand publishing is an industry of word counts.

I like when retards say they hate Hemingway because that means they’re less likely to get paid and makes it more likely I will

[Anonymous No.21324578]

>>21324344
>How many were used?
You are right. Rereading it now, there actually any. It felt like that though. "Writhing" and "wailing" are obviously an alliteration, as I said, and not synonymous words. Nevertheless, they contribute to painting the same picture. In this respect, the effectiveness with which they convey the message does not double, despite the two words. The feeling of synonymic repetition probably comes from this way they're used.

>What are examples of clauses that couldn't be their own complete sentences in books?
By this I meant that
>one that could not be said to be of milk and honey but of stone and storm
and
>through which they trespassed and travailed, under ruinous rand and hateful hail
could be removed completely 'without losing anything.' Alternatively, and more so in the case of the second, there is an opportunity to make it into a sentence of its own. Not as is, of course. If partly rewritten, the "ruinous rain and hateful hail" would be given more space and importance.

>>which here only makes the sentence messy
The messiness comes from some parts of the text feeling smooshed. This is the case with the rain and hail; and the writhing, wailing torrent. The highlights of your text are precisely those parts that surround these particular alliterations and which are made worse by them.

[Anonymous No.21324937]

>>21324511
>reminiscent of real life
I didn't say that, but reminiscent of the everyday conversations and language used by regular people. If the bulk of a book's writing draws from common words, then it loses my interest. Passages need to have words like lightning and thunder, flashing in my eyes and clapping my ears. I'm not going to find that by being reminded of ordinary vocabulary.

I do share the dislike of the inefficient use of language. I try to be compact, whether I'm successful or not is another matter.

>>21324578
I can see why you might see "writhing" and "wailing" as synonymous because when you writhe, you typically wail; that associative link might be what undercut it. There is added factor torrent in itself might lend the idea of writhing. My intention was to describe the motion ("writhing") and sound ("wailing") of the torrent. Before I posted, I reread that and something about that part felt inadequate, esp., "writhing".
>>one that could not be said to be of milk and honey but of stone and storm
Yeah, that part always bugged me on several re-readings.
>>through which they trespassed and travailed, under ruinous rand and hateful hail
I had never considered expanding this, but leads me to the biggest fault that I found in my writing: it's very compressed and I don't know how to elaborate on and flesh out the initial thing I've written. You've been tremendously helpful. I do appreciate your critique.

[Anonymous No.21324984]

>>21324371
Vernacular of one does not a societal vernacular make. You’re the only one who says “guise” as guys. Stop it.

[Anonymous No.21324997]

>>21324937
>I didn't say that, but reminiscent of the everyday conversations and language used by regular people. If the bulk of a book's writing draws from common words, then it loses my interest. Passages need to have words like lightning and thunder, flashing in my eyes and clapping my ears. I'm not going to find that by being reminded of ordinary vocabulary.
Common vocabulary can create complex meaning. Trying to rely on obscure words to evoke the images you want is a crutch. The purpose of language is to be understood. If you think everyday words can't come together to make something punchy and novel then you have a huge deficit of imagination.

[Anonymous No.21325005]

If you had to choose how people react to your bad work

would you do a So bad its good and your remembered forever?

Or make it so its forgetble and no body cares

Or some other 3rd thing

[Anonymous No.21325009]

>>21324984
>the only one
two seconds with google. face it, harlot, the English language exists in a role akin to your mother, the whore: she exists to be filled with perversions.

[Anonymous No.21325017]

>>21325005
First thing, obviously.

[Anonymous No.21325025]

Excerpt for the thread. Working on my second chapter so here's the opening. I'm doing a lot of symmetrical kind of writing in the second paragraph. Using a word and then trying it again for some impact. Like the word "tangled" near the start and then again by the end. But I'm wondering about the "dampened with the damp memories" part. Is this actually coming off alright or do I just sound redundant? Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.

Also thanks for putting my story up in the pastebin!

[Anonymous No.21325039]

>>21324984
Another word for “societal vernacular” is slang, which is what guise is, guise. Again, evidently, these basic tenets of language are beyond your grasp, so much so you obviously just googled the word “vernacular”.

[Anonymous No.21325040]

>>21324937
>Passages need to have words like lightning and thunder, flashing in my eyes and clapping my ears.
This is hilariously bad and ironic. You would have got this point across better if you just said "Passages need to captivate me." or even some pretentious word like "enrapture" wouldn't have been as bad as what you came up with in this comment.

[Anonymous No.21325079]

>>21323070
>Will you fuckers stop shitting on each other and critique this instead?

[Anonymous No.21325103]

I'm glad you agree. Let anyone reading this be a lesson. When your protagonist finds out his house has been burned down after he lost his wife and children, ending the POV chapter with "He fell to his knees and wept." is always going to be more impactful than a paragraph of pretentious overstated garbage like "His world fell apart around him and memories flew by and he shook in sorrow, he screamed out into the abyss, the icy wind blowing through him, his soul shattering in two as the last thread of hope holding him aloft was severed by the cruel claws of fate, sending him plummeting into unseen depths of despair and self-loathing"

[Anonymous No.21325373]

If you can’t have people talking because it’s boring then how can anything meaningful happen?

[Anonymous No.21325482]

>>21325373
People talking is literally the most interesting thing there is. That's why nearly every single story in any medium has people talking in it. I remember a certain cartoon which depicted a hypothetical movie theater for cats. On the theater screen was displayed a ball of yarn, just a ball of yarn, yet all the cats were enthralled. That ball of yarn is to cats as people talking is to humans. If you can't make people talking interesting, it might be time to start a stamp collection.

[Anonymous No.21325561]

>>21325373
> People use words to talk.
> Words are used to write.
> If words are written when people talk or to convey something then... nothing meaningful happens?

[Anonymous No.21325650]

>>21325561
Are you new to the concept of drama? There are entire influential stageplays where an entire story is told from 2 people talking in a room. There are entire mediums, like radio drama, that are comprised of 90% dialogue, that's where all the tension comes from. You have zoomer brain movie syndrome where action is the only way to convey meaningful things happening. Relationships are the at the center of human existence, the stakes in a conversation are 10 times more fascinating than the stakes of a life-or-death battle or a high speed chase or whatever you think carries a plot along. The latter just serves to spice up the former in good scripts.

[Anonymous No.21325689]

>>21322638
No, it's not me.
I wasn't even online at that hour.
Sange wrote "Balls Around The World" or whatever it was called...supposedly coming to Netflix.
But Sange usually posts with a tripcode.

[Anonymous No.21325697]

>>21322987
Do you mean Jack M. Bickham?
He seems to have a lot of books on writing.
Were any better than others, in your experience?

[Anonymous No.21325708]

>>21323062
He can't...his Reddit account was suspended.
See https://reddit.com/comments/j7poea

[Anonymous No.21325726]

>>21324997
And it often doesn't have much staying power, nor did I say anything about avoiding common words and only using obscure ones, but if you're only using the maximum vocabulary of the lowest common denominator, then it's insult to the language. I'll go further to say that it boils my blood that we have such a vast and rich language but are unable to use such words for fear of being "pretentious". Take the word "vespertilian", why do we even have that word in our language if it'll never be used in a serious way? Bat-like is tasteless. Or "aerobate", for that matter, whose definition cannot be found on the web apparently? I told you, anon, I'm viscerally opposed to the sensibility, whether termed Hemingwayan or something else.

>>21325040
Well, anon, I'm not interested in filtering myself to appeal to you. But you bring up a good point: there is no place left in literature to be exuberant with language.

Now if I merely said "captivate" or "enrapture", then the "what" is missing. Now imagine if this sentence without any elaboration existed by itself in some work:
>She captivated him.
How did she captive him? What was captivating about her?

>>21325025
I'd omit the repeated "damp". I'd link the first sentence with the last by using the same word, either "perish" or "die". I'd go for "perish" only because it would draw attention to it as it seems to me that you're intentionally using a parallelism in your verbs. I'll see about getting to the rest tomorrow.

>>21325373
That's misconstruing what I've said. It's boring when literature talks like everybody else, on the lowest level possible.

[Anonymous No.21325728]

>>21323591
I use TreeLine for such things.
It's a free, open-source outline editor.

[Anonymous No.21325736]

>>21325005
the first one sounds like it pays better

[Anonymous No.21325740]

>>21325726
Language evolves. You're falling into the trap of believing that just because a word is uncommon, it's somehow special. In reality words fall in and out of popularity as needed, and the most popular words tend to be the most useful ones. There is nothing inferior about them. It's an insult to the language to avoid using it in the manner it was meant to: to communicate effectively. What you are doing is obfuscation because of warm fuzzies you get from seeing rare words like they have some kind of special value. In a few hundred years the words you consider "mundane" will be rare and pseuds like you will be using them to seem smart, it's all the same.

[Anonymous No.21325742]

When writing a mystery, how do you drop convincing red herrings without making the audience believe too much in the red herrings and write off the potential of the mystery entirely (despite in being extremely well foreshadowed in retrospect and cleverly hidden in plain sight)?
Most mystery authors in popular literature are free to coast off reputation, but an amateur author can't guarantee readers will actually last to the reveal. I understand that making readers emotionally invest in a mystery, I can increase retention, but I've already done my best in that.

[Anonymous No.21325747]

>>21325726
>>She captivated him.
>How did she captive him? What was captivating about her?
"His smile captivated her." "She was captivated by his piercing gaze." See how easy it is?

[Anonymous No.21325761]

>>21325742
This is an irrational fear. Seasoned mystery readers are familiar with red herrings and won't actually believe they've "solved" it until they see the end. Unseasoned readers will still be captivated by the red herrings, and their mind will be blown by the reveal. This is what people read mystery for. Just get out of your own head and make sure you have interesting drama leading up to the climax.

[Anonymous No.21325781]

>>21325728
I checked it out. It's great that it's open source. What's the difference between this and a bunch of .txt files in a directory structure? It looks like it's just a filesystem but fake and inside a UI, seems more limited than just a bunch of loose organized files.

[Anonymous No.21325815]

>>21325726
>>21325740 (Me)
If you haven't seen it, the prologue the The Name of the Wind by Patrick Ruthfoss is a great example of simple prose (with very common words and simple sentence structure) pieced together in a creative way that evokes novel and profound feelings in the reader. That's why he blew up and got so popular despite being an amateur plotter. He single handedly blows purple prose writers out of the water with that prologue alone, plus a couple other scenes later in the book. His writing reads artistic and evocative due to the way it combines ideas and senses, but it's accessible to anybody with a basic reading level because it's comprised of basic vocabulary and the grammar doesn't get all tangled up in itself. That's far harder than writing with a thesaurus.

[Anonymous No.21325833]

>>21325781
You can create nodes representing any data format you want; the nodes don't have to be simple text.
Browsing the hierarchy is also a lot easier than if they were a plethora of text files.
The single .trln file can be put into version-control as a unit. (All versions of my writing are managed with git.)

[Anonymous No.21325837]

>>21325815
Pic related. Every single word here is middle school reading level. It oozes with creativity but there are no fancy words or complex sentences at all.

[Anonymous No.21325843]

>>21325815
*Pic related. Every single word here is middle school reading level. It oozes with creativity but there are no fancy words or complex sentences at all.

[Anonymous No.21325853]

>>21325833
What's the point of version controlling a single file? Isn't the whole point of git to manage branches of a project comprised of multiple files? With a single file you're just doing a needlessly complicated backup with the wrong tool for the job.

[Anonymous No.21325870]

>>21325853
I don't just version-control my outline, I version-control all the stories/novels/etc. that spring from my outline. Those are each their own text file.
I write in Markdown format, and use pandoc, and a LibreOffice template, to convert them to formats that can be turned into paper books and e-books.
Version-controlling prose is a great way to restore things I removed, should times change & I want to bring back something I decided against earlier.

[Anonymous No.21325884]

When you write for Roy*l R*ad, you need to start with a strong scene, right?
What kind of scene should I be aiming for?

[Anonymous No.21325890]

>>21325884
He woke up from a bed, or he died in a fiery plane crash only to awake in front of a god giving him cards and/or stat points

[Anonymous No.21325897]

>>21325884
I know nothing about RR, but when you write in general you need to start with a strong scene.
The general advice is to identify a place in your plot outline where a lot of interesting conflict is happening, and begin there. Either that or start with an unexplained scene that draws the reader in to understand the context of what's happening.
The trick is to avoid starting with an exciting scene to hook the audience only to just dump them into boring exposition afterwards.

[Anonymous No.21326051]

What's the deal with conjunctions? When I was a kid, my teachers and my parents beat into me the idea that you should NEVER start a sentence with a conjunction, or your sentence would be a dependent clause until it's supported by another independent clause.
But, when I look at books, news articles, websites, journos etc., all I see are people who begin their sentences with conjunctions.
So what gives? Were my teachers and parents simply wrong? Or are all of those people just blatantly using conjunctions as a sentence starter, even if it's grammatically incorrect?

[Anonymous No.21326075]

>>21325890
>awake in front of a god giving him cards and/or stat points
Do I have to? I really dislike the not!DnD stats meme.

[Anonymous No.21326100]

>>21325697
The I meant was "Scene and Structure" which covers much the same ground as Swain's book. Note that Bickham was a student of Swain but (imo) a much better writer and teacher. That book has an extremely useful appendix where he takes excerpts from published work (his own work iirc) and breaks it down in terms of his techniques. The chapters on variation of scene and sequel are also very useful.

[Anonymous No.21326170]

>>21326100
Thanks for the tip; I'll check it out.
A big plus that it's on archive.org!
https://archive.org/details/scenestructurejackbickham

[Anonymous No.21326176]

>>21326051
>my teachers and my parents beat into me
Abusive authoritarians, all of them.
Do what you want.
I seem to remember the Bible started a lot of sentences with "and".
That oughta shut them up.

[Anonymous No.21326393]

>>21325689
>called...supposedly coming to Netflix.
Wow... He got a deal ? I didn't even think his writing was all that great either

[Anonymous No.21326461]

What is, in your opinion, the one single most vital part in being a human? Something that if taken away would leave the human without it a sorry imitation of one, who deserves to treated by his better as inferior and even worthy of being enslaved, tortured and murdered without remorse. I want to write a protagonist who starts out being unrelatable by nature, something like a fae, but then gradually learns how to be more human like. Should it be the inability to love, to feel pains, or something more like his appearance, lack of mortality or sympathy?

[Anonymous No.21326490]

>>21326051
You've noticed the difference between academic writing and creative writing. Grammatical rules matter when writing professionally or in an academic setting. When writing creatively or informally (e.g. fiction or journalism) there are still conventions that come and go, but academic style guides no longer apply. I sure hope you aren't tabbing the beginning of each paragraph or using double spaces in your manuscript, that would be embarrassing.

[Anonymous No.21326511]

>>21326490
Um, you dumb retarded infantile faggot, if you submit a manuscript without double space, it will immediately be thrown in the trash. Immediately. Instantly. In fact, if your manuscript isn’t in courier, 12 pt, double spaced, and indented paragraphs, you’re an actual mentally crippled retard garbage boy living in a mire of trash and fecal mass drowning in a tub of piss and cum ejaculated from pozzed Dubai escorts.

Fuck you

Fuck you

Fuck you

Please die

Respect the craft or go fuck a diaper

[Anonymous No.21326519]

>>21326461
None of those things. Inability to feel love being inhuman is a cliche, the ability to feel pain is a little more creative but still misses the mark. Philosophically speaking, especially when thinking of an alternate universe where there are non-human imitators like fae, I would say the futility of mortality is the single most vital element of human experience. Not just in an abstract way, I mean truly understanding the permanence and inevitability of death, and experiencing the how the survival instinct takes over in times of danger. Look up terror management theory. The will to live is responsible for everything that our culture is comprised of, from religion to law to basic societal customs art, etiquette, political affiliation, national identity, and even the basic building blocks of our own psychology.

[Anonymous No.21326526]

>>21326511
Actually it's times new roman, not courier. And you're wrong about the double spaces and paragraph indentation. Modern word processors take care of margins and paragraph breaks. Faggot.

[Anonymous No.21326538]

>>21326526
Nope. Courier faggot. 12 pt. Double spaces provide enough margin for editors to mark notes. Indented paragraphs organize the text when double spaced. Double space also defines the text as you the author cannot actually edit the text without reindenting the text.

Seriously. You actual small dicked prepubescent manchildren. Manuscripts are manuscripts. Manuscripts have always been manuscripts. Manuscripts will always be manuscripts. Type whatever the fuck you want in your little word processors. All font all sizes any colour. Whatever. When you make it a MANUSCRIPT. You make it a manuscript. Which is:

Courier
12 pt
Double space
Indented paragraphs

This is the way it’s been post wwii. It will always be this way. Arguing about this, is like arguing with a mechanic, if you put orange juice or oil in your car engine. If a firefighter should spray water or gasoline. If a chef should grill a steak or a piece of cow shit.

You dumb milquetoast mediocre imbecile fucking upright chimps

[Anonymous No.21326541]

>>21326519 (Me)
To simplify/expand on this, I would go as far as saying the human soul is made out of a fear of death. Understanding our own mortality and having a preservation instinct are the two necessary building blocks of true human experience. When combined, they create discomfort and cognitive dissonance, and that discomfort is what sits at the bottom of our psyche and spurs us to create the vast cultures and share in our experiences. A fae wouldn't be able to understand, even if it knew what mortality meant on a basic conceptual level.

[Anonymous No.21326543]

>>21326519
Thanks for the input anon, I was already planning to give my protagonist immortality, or something similiar that would make him return to life even when killed.

[Anonymous No.21326545]

>>21326541
Yes we know we’ve read Joseph Campbell thank you next

[Anonymous No.21326549]

>>21326538
I work in the industry, you are a manchild and your advice has been outdated practically for more than a decade.

[Anonymous No.21326564]

>>21326549
I also work in the industry you fuck and the idea editors don’t want double spaces is the single most retarded and stupid and dumb and low iq and mentally crippled and trailer trash and special Ed thing I’ve ever fucking heard in realm of literature and publishing

MANUSCRIPTS, YOU FUCK, ARE WHAT YOU SUBMIT TO PUBLISHERS AND EDITORS

a properly formatted manuscript is easier for editors to read and work in BUT it also distinguishes you and your work as PROFESSIONAL and DISCIPLINED, which most writers are not. if you can do the bare minimum and actually correctly format the manuscript, as ITS ALWAYS BEEN, and ALWAYS WILL BE, then the editor will actually read your work, at bare minimum. Even if it’s actually terrible

Fuck you. Eat your cow shit.

[Anonymous No.21326569]

>>21326538
No, you're still wrong.
If a mechanic puts orange juice in the car, the car won't run. If a firefighter sprays gasoline, the house will explode. If a chef grills a piece of cow shit, it won't function as food and will make people sick. If I submit a manuscript with Times New Roman 12pt instead of Courier 12pt, nothing fucking happens.

[Anonymous No.21326579]

>>21326564
Are you talking about paragraph spacing? It's hard to tell with your chimpout. I am talking about the amount of spaces between sentences. That's what the conversation was about, but I understand if your reading comprehension has reverted to elementary school level, that's what editing does to a person. Teachers used to hammer it into students that they should press the space key twice after a period, just like they say you shouldn't start sentences with conjunctions. Both pieces of advice are incorrect.

[Anonymous No.21326581]

>>21326569
times new Roman didn’t become colloquially accepted in manuscripts until the rise of the laptop in the late nineties and early aughts. it’s technically fine, but technically incorrect, as simply choosing courier in the font table takes literally one second, and is the correct format. go ahead submit your ntr manuscripts and maybe you’ll get paid but if you don’t and you continually don’t maybe just take that one second to do the correct thing and see what happens. it is reality most submissions today are written by dumb people. set yourself apart by not being dumb

[Anonymous No.21326597]

>>21326581
Times New Roman is the de facto industry standard. It's literally what is recommended on the majority of publishing house's submission guidelines. Either you're on the autism spectrum or you haven't submitted a manuscript since 1998.

[Anonymous No.21326630]

>>21326597
Oh yeah, editors, with all their stodgy English and liberal art degrees, LOOOOOOVE when people molest and abuse the establishment of language and literature and rules they’ve spent their lives learning. Not like they’re drowning in an ocean of submissions filled with god awful prose and incorrectly formatted manuscripts.

ntr became colloquially accepted when it became the default font on word processors. that’s it. Courier is a facsimile of a typewriter font, which became established in the publishing industry post wwii, and is still recommended in all those English and liberal art programs. find me a link nigga. Find me ONE where any major publishing house recommends ntr over courier. do it faggot

[Anonymous No.21326658]

>Noo, you're writing your own character wrong in this early chapter where you're defining his character!
>NOO HOW DARE YOU MAKE YOU CHARACTERS MAKE MISTAKES AAAA
These faggots are really, really starting to make me rethink my "don't delete people's comments" policy.

[Anonymous No.21326671]

>>21326658
RR? Just pre-write your entire novel and submit on a bi-weekly basis. Explain somewhere that the whole thing is already written and is being put out on a release schedule. Then nobody can complain.

[Anonymous No.21326690]

>>21326630
Major publishing houses don't allow unsolicited permissions, retard. You really are living 2 decades in the past. You're like the equivalent of the tech grandpa who thinks he is tech savvy because he is familiar with Windows NT and removed a 32mb ram module once. If you actually worked in the industry you would know that agents are submitting their clients' manuscripts to the big 5 publishers in Times 12 pt. Find smaller publishing houses submission guidelines and they all recommend a serif font, if not explicitly Times. Find one that recommends Courier, aside from an outdated style document that your liberal arts professors still teach because they never made it in the industry and had to resort to an academic career once reality set in.

[Anonymous No.21326696]

>>21326690
>unsolicited permissions
submissions*

[Anonymous No.21326703]

>>21326671
I basically did and they still do complain. I mean I edit and revise before release but my drafts are done more than 6 months out at this point. This dude was also complaining on a chapter from 8 months ago. I don't get it.
If it wasn't for the fact that it would be letting down the people still reading along, I'd probably just lock comments on everything and post exclusively to a blog or something, only crossposting batches of chapters back every month or so. I can't stand the ratings games and retarded expectations of parts of the RR audience. I swear to god if you're not writing some shitty generic perfect Gary Stu isekai protagonist some people literally just do not understand your characters at all, nor do they attempt to.
>write a character who is as "fish out of water" as you can possibly be, to the point that he can't even speak to anyone at first and has to learn their language
>have backstory where it's clear he's been conditioned to being micromanaged to the extreme (and now isn't being managed at all)
>people expect this person to make good choices and never get beaten by anyone just because he's big, strong, and can shoot guns that don't exist in the setting
>people expect this person to be socially competent even though he's completely ignorant of local social norms
I think a lot of this comes from audiences just seeing certain plot elements and expecting formulaic shit, but fuck me if it isn't still irritating.

[Anonymous No.21326708]

>>21326703
>I think a lot of this comes from audiences just seeing certain plot elements and expecting formulaic shit, but fuck me if it isn't still irritating.
Learn lampshading, then.
Or maybe your presentation is actually just shit. I haven't seen your story so I'm not sure.

[Anonymous No.21326730]

>>21326690
>asks for link
>”No!”
>”You gib me link!”

courier is monospaced you hick fuck. ntr is proportionally spaced. courier is inherently easier to read when double spaced and indented, as all manuscript will always be. Funny, you moved on from the general format of a manuscript, because you were wrong as a dumb fuck, and are now zeroing in on the one thing that’s adapted to word processors. courier is monospaced and ntr is not. no insult or retardation will never change that. enjoy being the lesser writer

[Anonymous No.21326740]

>>21326708
See that's the best part, the specific thing that this guy was complaining about is lampshaded in the literal first sentence of the next chapter after the one he commented on, which is available because it released months ago. Dude is pre-emptively complaining about something as though he's on the latest release when there are almost a hundred more chapters ahead of him.
>Or maybe your presentation is actually just shit
Well, it's entirely possible, but I also have people who say the opposite or do "get it" and understand. I mean, maybe they're all retarded too, but I'm obviously biased towards thinking people that agree with me have more correct opinions.
Not gonna link shit here directly because damn I do not need more schizos in the comments.

[Anonymous No.21326760]

>>21326730
>Well, it's entirely possible, but I also have people who say the opposite or do "get it" and understand
Anon, have you ever read reviews on Kindle or goodreads? Go to any bestseller and sort by 1 star reviews. I think your problem is just that you don't expect retards to exist at all. I was under the impression that these were all you were getting, but no, it sounds like just 1 guy getting on your nerves. Learn to handle lowest common denominator criticism especially if you're otherwise getting good ratings.

[Anonymous No.21326762]

>>21322399
I did. Got to 50090 words today. I paced myself through the whole month and even wrote extra in the days up to Thanksgiving so I could take that day off. It's part Demian, part Ishmael, part Clerks and 100% hot garbage.

It was an amazing learning experience, though. The last 10k words are WAY better than the first 10k words and it shined a light on my weak points are as a writer:
- Descriptions
- Character voices
- Vocabulary (this may or may not be a bad thing. I come from a technical background so writing simply is something I've honed over my career.)
- Style (I regret doing first person present tense because it made jumping forward in time awkward.)

[Anonymous No.21326769]

>>21326760
You clicked the wrong post nigga

[Anonymous No.21326777]

>>21326760
You quoted the wrong guy my dude.
>I think your problem is just that you don't expect retards to exist at all
Yeah I think you're hitting the nail on the head here now that I consider it. It's not just one guy, it's like ~5-10% of guys, but otherwise basically true. I just always try to make the effort to reply to comments and read them (and not delete them ever), so when retards show up it's fucking annoying. I guess I could just not do that, but changing behavior rapidly would probably alienate the people following along who are used to it.

[Anonymous No.21326787]

>>21326777
Well you've backed yourself into a corner then. When I start my RR serial I'm going to leave comments, but just scarcely reply to them, and I'll make it clear up front that it's all pre-written.

[Anonymous No.21326805]

>>21326787
I'd also highly advise deleting overly negative or stupid comments, since you can do that.

[Anonymous No.21326834]

>>21326805
That feels filthy. I don't want to do something stigmatizing that makes me look like a sensitive immature ego tripping author to anyone who notices. I don't mind the existence of retarded criticsm. It's like how there's no book on kindle that doesn't have at least one 1 star review.

[Anonymous No.21326847]

>>21326834
Yeah the problem is that when one retard makes a comment, other retards will latch onto it, creating a vortex of retardation. I've seen it happen.

[Anonymous No.21326872]

you guys got any tips for writing smut?

[Anonymous No.21326889]

>starting a project to get some of that royal road money
>accidentally put an ultra orthodox jew among my main characters
Uh... I have to remove him, right?

[Anonymous No.21326894]

join this writing discord
https://discord.com/invite/mQrs2Zcvut

[Anonymous No.21326931]

>Greeting you maladapedted groundskeeper enablers.
>Its been a bit since i informed you with my non information.
>1k words a day still stronk.
>102k into bookarino 3.
>The year isn't even yet.
Remember to write what and when you want and not when some site or month tells you to.

[Anonymous No.21327075]

>>21326847
That just mean it's not only one guy who hates your shit. Forcibly silencing them isn't going to undo the problems in your work. It's a sign to do some self-reflecting.

[Anonymous No.21327092]

>>21326889
no one cares

[Anonymous No.21327115]

>>21326931
Writing when I want to is the real problem, though. I'm finally sitting down to write this after months of having came up with it because I'm a serial procrastinator.

>>21327092
Okay then. I'll give it a try.

[Anonymous No.21327132]

>>21326889
99% of projects on RR don't make money.

[Anonymous No.21327152]

>>21327132
It's fine.
I'm at a point in life where it might be worth a try.

[Anonymous No.21327205]

>>21327152
That's what I said half a year ago. Haven't made a cent. But at least people are reading my story. Which I guess in the end makes me happier.

[Anonymous No.21327213]

>>21327205
Hey, it's something.
I'd tell you to drop a link but I know I wouldn't read it. I'm just going full speed until I have things ready to start the three chapters a week routine.

[Anonymous No.21327217]

>>21327213
I meant to say won't. Sorry.
If I had more time I've give it a shot.

[Anonymous No.21327229]

>>21327213
>>21327217
I'll link it anyway in case anyone here's interested.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/55012/almas-dreams-are-default
I've been doing an update a week but you might fare better with more frequent updates. I had a fair bit of it written out already when I started but I'm a slow writer.

[Anonymous No.21327251]

>>21320562
Question: why does no one mention Clarke in these threads? I know they’re mostly about Bakker vs Branderson shitposting, but occasionally people poat about old (good) sci fi, but it’s almost never Clarke. Is it because he’s the obvious top dog or is he actually not appreciated on here?

[Anonymous No.21327340]

>>21325650
Was I supposed to put an /s?

[Anonymous No.21327462]

This is what writing advice books are, portrayed as an analogy in form of a recipe:

1. have an idea about what you want to eat
2. get good raw materials, the main part of the dish
3. prepare the different utensils you'll need to cook the food
4. start cooking the food
5. here's the unique part - try to blend in some unique spices into your food. Something that breaks a bit from what's expected
6. finish off with a twist of some unexpected but suitable desert

wow. So fucking good!

[Anonymous No.21327675]

>>21325761
Its not a mystery genre work though. Its a mystery undercutting a coming-of-age adventure epic (think one piece).

[Anonymous No.21327748]

>>21320562
So when people recommend Save the Cat, which book is it that would help a writer? Because I found several with Save the Cat in their titles, picked one called Save the Cat Write a Novel. And in the first few pages it
>states the obvious elementary shit that the hero should not be flawless, and went on to elaborate the point for several pages
>uses Ready Player One to illustrate the author's point multiple times
>the author also writes like a goddamn redditor pointing to anyone with the right amount of ears how awesome star wars is
Did I pick the wrong version or did you fuck have no idea what the shit it is that you're recommending?

[Anonymous No.21327758]

How long should an opening chapter be?

[Anonymous No.21327768]

>>21327748
I'm pretty sure it's just one guy who keeps recommending these books (Swain, STC and the Weiland one). I'm not even sure if he's trolling.

If you're writing short stories, I recommend Kardos's book above all others. You can find a pdf of it online for free and it covers all the bases in a more coherent fashion without succumbing to reddit-speak.

[Anonymous No.21327783]

>>21327768
Thanks for the rec, I'll keep it in mind. But I'm looking for something to aid me in writing a novel at the moment.

[Anonymous No.21327863]

>commit minor crime
>write a short story about the motivations, preparations, the actual crime and the mental strain of the guilt it caused, followed by a short essay on why crime is so alluring
I now have to wait until the statute of limitations on this crime expires, but when it does, this is going to be a fun read.

[Anonymous No.21327881]

>>21327251
No one actually reads ITT. They only know meme and pop authors.

[Anonymous No.21327921]

>>21327251
>no one mention Clark?
Meant for /sffg/? Regardless I've personally recommended him several times across /lit/ and have seen other anons do so as well. Abominations of Yondo is probably my favorite short story of all time but it is tough for new writers to pull that voice off. Clark also had some fantasy poetry that is good I only recently started checking out.

[Anonymous No.21327942]

>>21326461
>What is, in your opinion, the one single most vital part in being a human?
The ability to use language.
>>21326461
>deserves to treated by his better as inferior and even worthy of being enslaved, tortured and murdered without remorse.
Nothing. Why would any disability make you deserve these things? Deserve pity maybe.

[Anonymous No.21327971]

>>21326658
You'll have to learn to ignore that shit. Don't engage. Deleting comments will just cause more sperg fury.

[Anonymous No.21327976]

SWIFT roll the Rhine's billows, and water the plains,
Where Falkenstein Castle's majestic remains,
Their moss-cover'd turrets still rear;
Oft loves the gaunt wolf midst the ruins to prowl,
What Time from the battlements pours the lone owl
Her plaints in the passenger's ear.

No longer resound through the vaults of yon hall
The song of the minstrel, and mirth of the ball;
Those pleasures for ever are fled;
There now dwells the bat with her light-shunning brood;
There ravens and vultures now clamour for food,
And all is dark, silent, and dread!

[Anonymous No.21328001]

Holy shit dialogue is fucking hard.
I've even played indie vidya and dialogue out there is so long while I have no idea what to put on mine. Now imagine a book

[Anonymous No.21328012]

>>21327251
I dislike Arthur C Clarke. There's not much science in his science fiction. His stories are meant to evoke a feeling religious awe, when mankind brushes against the divine and unknowable. Ultimately, it's just repackaging angels as aliens.

His famous quote "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is the basic recipe of his work and a statement which could only come from a profoundly superstitious mind.

[Anonymous No.21328035]

Could I get any critique on a really short poem?

Gifts from a fading sun tumble
Through trees and cascade
Through canopies,
Like sand seeping through fingers
From one thousand begging hands.

A land burns alive.

[Anonymous No.21328048]

>>21328001
Like what do I even write and fill out spaces with?

[Anonymous No.21328051]

>>21327921
Oh nvm I was thinking of CAS. Fuck ACC

[Anonymous No.21328157]

>>21326051
>Were my teachers and parents simply wrong?
Yes.

[Anonymous No.21328177]

>>21320562
>discord
anyone got nesmer's writing discord?

[Anonymous No.21328199]

>>21328035
added to my upcoming poetry book. thanks!

[Anonymous No.21328246]

>>21323191
This is oddly decent.

[Anonymous No.21328396]

>>21327229
NTA but I'm in the same boat
>Slightly more followers but terribad star rating because its a lot more controversial and i killed off muh darlings.
Point is that writing for writings sake is actually more fun than i thought and i'm glad i'm not alone in this.

[Anonymous No.21328415]

>>21328035
bretty good, now take a gander at mine:

>roses are red
>violets are blue
>haha funny
>peepee poopoo

[Anonymous No.21328418]

>>21326872
Penis in vegana

[Anonymous No.21328446]

>>21326872
Context makes sex hotter.
Two people having missionary sex through a hole in a bedsheet for the sole purpose of procreation is suddenly lustier when they are siblings, or one is a racist and the other belongs to the race they hate, or if they're doing it in public, or when you've spent pages developing their complex personalities and relationship.
The context of the narration itself can add to the experience. Maybe there's a blind voyeur listening in on the sex act and you only narrate the sounds and the whispers coming from beneath the blankets. There's only so many ways to describe a rimjob, but if the butthole belongs to an interesting person, or is described from an interesting perspective, you can still reach the reader's loins

[Anonymous No.21328540]

>>21325815
>Cuckfloss
Opinion disregarded

[Anonymous No.21328621]

>>21325843
>oozes with creativity
Eh, it's not terrible, but from what I've heard of this dude I expected something more. Is this the book about the roasty friend?

[Anonymous No.21328641]

>>21325843
Why would you want your writing to be inaccessible?

[Anonymous No.21328815]

What do you think about the beginning of my fantasy novel? Does it grab your attention enough?
>The sun was setting on a warm summer evening in the Empire of Teleria. The bustling streets were filled with merchants and traders, all eager to make their fortunes as they sold their wares in the ever-growing city. But amidst this hustle and bustle, one man stood out from the rest.
>His name was Darian Winters, a businessman and mage of some considerable power. He had come to Teleria from a far-off land many years ago, seeking wealth and opportunity that his homeland could not provide. And he had found it here – through hard work and dedication he had built an empire of his own within the city walls.
>But now things were changing; Teleria was at war with its neighboring nations, sending troops into battle against those who would oppose them or take what wasn't theirs by right. This conflict posed both danger and opportunity for Darian – if he played his cards right it could mean great profit for him... but it also meant putting himself in harm's way if need be to ensure victory for his beloved empire.

[Anonymous No.21328954]

>>21328815
Cliched opening. Not immersive. Okay for YA.

[Anonymous No.21328960]

>>21327675
Then you shouldn't care what people think of your mystery. The main elements of your genre should be up front, if they're done well then even if the mystery WAS formulaic nobody would care. Since it's not a mystery genre work. Get it?

[Anonymous No.21328976]

>>21327748
You picked up an adaption of the original Save the Cat. Keep reading. The beat sheet is at the heart of the Save the Cat methodology. It's basically a very advanced dramatic template. Figure out what your STC genre is and make sure your story has the listed elements for that STC genre, then line up the events in your story with the beat sheet, figure out your A Story and B Story, etc. It's meant as a diagnostic tool where the beat sheet is a prototype for a very good market-performing story.

[Anonymous No.21328977]

>>21325897
But can I exposit a little? Is that okay? I had like a couple paragraphs explaining what was going on and I'm worried about boring people with it.

[Anonymous No.21328984]

>>21328641
Did you reply to the wrong person? The point I was illustrating was that you *don't* have to make your writing inaccessible to make it poetic or stylish.

[Anonymous No.21328988]

>>21328977
A literary agent or editor would probably trash your manuscript if it started with several paragraphs of exposition. RR is a lot more amateur and you can easily get away with it, I wouldn't worry.

[Anonymous No.21328992]

>The tavern was alive with laughter and movement. Situated in what was normally a quiet corner of Al-Hudir, the capital of the Dhadir Empire, the alehouse had become home to four dozen revelers who had come to the city for the Festival of the Merchant King. Bar wenches ran to and fro, desperately trying to keep up with the demands of their customers. One patron, a stern looking man wearing the green cloak of a ranger and sporting a masterfully crafted blade at his hip, scanned the room. His gaze settled on a woman, also alone, seated at the opposite end of the tavern.
>Her sleek black hair was pulled back into a ponytail that was draped over her shoulder. Blue eyes, though common among the Dhadiri, were seldom as fierce as hers. As she looked over the crowd, she met his gaze. For a moment, they simply watched one another. Finally, she looked away. She flagged down one of the barmaids, flashing a dazzling smile as she pointed toward him. The barmaid nodded and rushed to the bar. A moment later, she was at his table with a fresh tankard of ale.
>The ranger raised his glass to the mystery woman, who raised hers in turn. She rose from her seat and strode across the room, maneuvering through the crowd with grace and ease. She came upon his table and took a seat. They sat in silence for a moment, each one sipping their drink.
>“To whom do I owe this fine drink?” he asked.
>“I am Saheera.” She reached across the table, running a finger over the back of his hand. “And you are?”
>“A stranger to these parts.” He took a drink of his ale, watching her from over the rim of the tankard. She seemed unfazed by his non-answer. “My name is Baldwyn. I am a wanderer of sorts.”
>"I thought so. You stick out, even among this crowd of foreigners.” She looked him over. “Merician? You have their build and the dark brown hair so common there.”
>He nodded.
>“Then you truly are a long way from home! What brings you so far South? I would be surprised if a Merician knew of the Merchant King.”
>He pointed at a particularly loud group seated next to the bar. “I was hired on to escort those fine gentlemen so that they might peddle their wares in a new market. Where they hail from I could not say. Nor do I care. All that matters to me in this exchange is whether or not their gold spends.”
>“And does it?” she asked, flagging the barmaid down for another set of drinks.
>“Indeed, though it seems that yours spends just as well.” He finished his ale.

[Anonymous No.21329008]

>>21328992
Your prose and dialogue writing is above-average, but you are under-explaining. Why was the man so interested in the woman? The reader will have no idea what's going on unless you explicitly tell them with some POV thought narration or something.
Also I would remove this, it breaks the flow of the sentence and isn't descriptive enough:
>masterfully crafted

[Anonymous No.21329016]

>>21328984
Nah. Just missed the point. Thanks for clarifying.

[Anonymous No.21329030]

>>21329008
> Do this.
> Get told you're a bad writer for telling and not showing.
At least some critics may say this. Not the author btw.

[Anonymous No.21329034]

>>21329008
>Why was the man so interested in the woman?
I was trying to get that across in her description. She beautiful, shockingly so. That's what catches his eye. Perhaps I should throw in a few more lines describing her looks and how she stands out among the crowd?

>Your prose and dialogue writing is above-average
Thank you for the compliment.

[Anonymous No.21329041]

>>21325815
>>21325843
the only novel or profound feeling that prose evokes in me is boredom. it's just workmanlike prose. any slight semblance of rhythm is lost within a sentence. it is more "accessible" in the way that britney spears is more accessible than john coltrane. sure, it's implessive on some level as an engineering feat that someone (or a team of someones) can create something so blandly inoffensive that if you squint at it from far enough away you might catch yourself humming for a second, but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny for people who care about the art of music. it's a little funny still to me that even here on 4chan there are people who support full-throated the dominant, commercial approach to writing from a position of almost insecurity. the market has made its decision, bro. you don't need to be so constantly defensive of your decision to chase money over artistic integrity.

[Anonymous No.21329046]

>>21329034
>Perhaps I should throw in a few more lines describing her looks and how she stands out among the crowd?
Yeah, I'd do that, especially if that's the only reason they start talking.

[Anonymous No.21329054]

>>21328815
Needs to have a lot more specificity, read some writing craft articles on that, concrete description, and grounding scene in character. Has moviebrain flow - we don't need to see an estaishing shot of a generic medieval market and then be told "a man stood out (for some reason)" just open with Damian doing things and us experiencing him trying to profit from the chaos.

[Anonymous No.21329060]

>>21329041
>it's a little funny still to me that even here on 4chan there are people who support full-throated the dominant, commercial approach to writing from a position of almost insecurity. the market has made its decision, bro. you don't need to be so constantly defensive of your decision to chase money over artistic integrity.
This sounds like a "you" problem anon. Literally nobody cares what you think. The posts you are referring to give market-friendly advice because we want to be successful and make money. This is a writing general. You are one of the 2% of lost anons who think this is a thread for pretentious artfags who have no interest in succeeding in the industry. The rest of /lit/ is for you, so fuck off.

[Anonymous No.21329071]

>>21328199
Np anon, I hope it makes you happy.

[Anonymous No.21329076]

>>21329041
That kind of prose is outdate because the television now shows you what used to have to be described in vivid detail.

[Anonymous No.21329121]

>The kingdom of Luthenia is a prosperous and peaceful land, thanks to the wisdom of its rulers and the strength of its economy. But beneath this veneer of prosperity lies an uneasy truth: The kingdom’s wealth is founded on powerful magic that has been kept secret for centuries. When a rival kingdom discovers this hidden power, it threatens to destabilize Luthenia's economic system and plunge the entire region into chaos. A young mage named Alden must use his wits and magical abilities to save his homeland from disaster while navigating a complex web of politics, intrigue, and economics. Along the way he will discover secrets about himself—and uncover ancient mysteries in the process.
What do you think about my fantasy novel?

[Anonymous No.21329182]

>>21329121
You mean your fantasy novel blurb? Looks fine. I could write the same thing in 10 minutes. Now go write a novel retard, stop posting here.

[Anonymous No.21329228]

>>21329121
>The kingdom of Luthenia is a prosperous and peaceful land, thanks to the wisdom of its rulers and the strength of its economy
The land is prosperous and peaceful thanks to being peaceful and prosperous?
>The kingdom’s wealth is founded on powerful magic that has been kept secret for centuries
So it wasn't thanks to wisdom and economy after all?
>When a rival kingdom discovers this hidden power
The secret hidden power stopped being secret and hidden in the very next sentence.
>destabilize Luthenia's economic system
You'd think enemies learning about this allegedly powerful secret magic would have worse consequences than a market crash.
>A young mage named Alden must use his wits and magical abilities to save his homeland from disaster while navigating a complex web of politics, intrigue, and economics.
A mage must use magic to get by in the most un-magical, mundane setting imaginable?
>Along the way he will discover secrets about himself—and uncover ancient mysteries in the process.
There are awfully lot of hidden secret mysteries in this synopsis.

[Anonymous No.21329293]

>>21327863
>minor crime
Not gonna make it

[Anonymous No.21329297]

>>21329121
>The kingdom’s wealth is founded on powerful magic that has been kept secret for centuries
What is it and how does it relate to their economy?

[Anonymous No.21329333]

>>21329297
It's probably magic that relies on consuming people's souls or something. Just like how real-life world leaders come into power.

[Anonymous No.21329349]

I finished my book on Scribble hub. Now what? Should I KMS?

[Anonymous No.21329368]

>>21329041
If you’re bored reading a good book then you’re probably a low attention span idiot who actually doesn’t like to read at all. Saying it’s boring it’s not the pretentious insult you think it is you literally said you get bored reading

inb4 bUt ItS bAD

nah bruh you’re just a dumb dumb

[Anonymous No.21329388]

>>21329368
I'd tell you to say that again without the rothfuss dick in your mouth, but pat would probably prefer to watch you get facefucked by another man

[Anonymous No.21329395]

>>21328988
Oh no, it's exposition after the big scene.

[Anonymous No.21329430]

>>21329388
Again, that’s not the pretentious insult you think it is. You keep saying “I’m a big dummy who hates reading.” I even like reading shampoo labels. You evidently hate Rothfuss which is a weird thing to hate. I hate mosquitoes, and taxes, and people who don’t like reading, because they don’t pay me

[Anonymous No.21329449]

>>21329430
I'm a different guy, can't hate rothfuss because I haven't read him, just having a giggle over your furious defense of the guy.
>>21329041
Gave an articulated criticism you may disagree with, but you're at the point of name calling m8. Take a step back and collect your thoughts

[Anonymous No.21329457]

>>21329449
Furious defence is apparently “good book”. I think lesser writers get jealous and project their neurosis on more successful and educated writers like rothfuss, personally. Just like… look at /lit/

[Anonymous No.21329486]

>>21329457
Again, I don't hate rothfuss beacuse I haven't read anything from the guy. You obviously idolize him to the point that any criticism on his work immediately shuts you down, so there's no point in talking with you unless it is to jerk each other off about how super we think he is

[Anonymous No.21329502]

>>21329486
Um… I know I don’t have trips. But the only and single thing I’ve said about his work is “good book”. Would you like me to write a glowing review of his work? I mean, I can, but I only read his books once each. I liked when his protagonist had sex with an Amazon, that was cool

[Anonymous No.21329517]

>>21329502
>But the only and single thing I’ve said about his work is “good book”
>If you’re bored reading a good book then you’re probably a low attention span idiot who actually doesn’t like to read at all
>nah bruh you’re just a dumb dumb
>You keep saying “I’m a big dummy who hates reading.” I even like reading shampoo labels
You're a liar, so I'm disinclined to trust your judgement on the book
>I liked when his protagonist had sex with an Amazon
Just like in my japanese animes! Is he also the strongest, smortest and most handsome of them all?

[Anonymous No.21329557]

>>21329517
Yes, the single thing I’ve said about his work is “good book”. Everything else is an insult to the anon for being bored while reading said good book. Evidently you have poor reading comprehension and cannot discern context. Which is unfortunate and likely explains why you get bored reading.

[Anonymous No.21329582]

>>21329557
Again with the name calling, how rude! You at least must admit that jumping to the defense of a book with nothing but "shut up it's goood" and a tirade of personal attacks could be interpreted as being, like the cool kids say these days, "mad AF"

[Anonymous No.21329583]

>>21328992
>whether or not their gold spends.
wut?

[Anonymous No.21329596]

>>21329582
Being told you have poor reading comprehension and cannot understand context is name calling? Chan fights were much better like ten years ago. This is just limp

Maybe you’re just sensitive. Like a zoomer, perhaps. Perhaps you realize, openly declaring you get bored reading, is a pretty stupid person thing to say. And now you feel stupid.

[Anonymous No.21329603]

How do you write COMFY moments? So may classic works of fiction have scenes that are incredibly comfy to me and almost lull me into daze, Tolkien's work in particular. How can I write comfy scenes with soul?

[Anonymous No.21329620]

>>21329596
Toothless name calling in lieu of an argument is still name calling in lieu of an argument. The only thing you have to say about the book is that "its good" and that you liked a sex scene. If THAT is what you took away from a fantasy novel it speaks poorly either of the book itself or of your capacity to interpret it beyond the most shallow level.
>>21329430
>people who don’t like reading, because they don’t pay me
Hey, this implies you actually write stuff. Point me to it. This ought to be fun

[Anonymous No.21329624]

>>21329603
Just be specific. Describe a scene that makes you feel comfy, focusing on the most specific elements of that comfy-ness that you can. Activate senses.

[Anonymous No.21329638]

What are the best books on character and plot types? Also, this might be a more important request, what are the best books or websites with a collection of themes in literature?

[Anonymous No.21329647]

>>21329638
>What are the best books on character and plot types?
The seven basic plots seems good, but I just skimmed over it.

[Anonymous No.21329655]

>>21329620
Reading comprehension and context isn’t name calling. They’re literal metrics you can even be tested on. They’re not abstract ideas but genuine quantities which define a person’s capacity to understand any piece of text. And you are scoring low on said metric when you confuse it with name calling. If I said you’re a dumb and retarded lab chimp pozzed with aids, that’s name calling. If I say you don’t understand the difference, that’s an observation. The fact we’re even arguing this, evidently proves you have poor reading comprehension.

Furthermore, Rothfuss doesn’t need me or anyone in some lit thread to “defend” him. He is a popular and successful writer. This is a fact. He is factually a popular and successful author. Your negativity toward his work is indicative of a neurotic envy which betrays your own insecurity toward your own lack of success and popularity. Especially since, all I’ve said is “good book”. That’s how sensitive you are. That’s how thin the skin around your ego is. “Good book”, two words, and eight letters, is all it takes to pump cortisol in your brain into madness. It is, actually, self evident

[Anonymous No.21329656]

>>21328001
anyone?

[Anonymous No.21329668]

>>21329638
The 36 dramatic situations is pretty good and in the public domain. Plotto is another good one which is even more detailed and also in the public domain. They will at least help you take on the notion of a story as being an amalgam of many plot elements instead of just a pattern of a specific plot type.

[Anonymous No.21329720]

>>21329395
A couple paragraphs of exposition after the big scene (as long as it's done in a clever way e.g. through characterization or dialogue) is fine, if not expected. There's basically no other way you can do it.

[Anonymous No.21329721]

>>21329655
Some dude dude gives a negative opinion on rothfuss and you jump off to say the only reason somebody could not love his work is because they're stupid. That's textbook ad hominem my man. You're behaving like a rabid fanboy.
>Rothfuss doesn’t need me or anyone in some lit thread to “defend” him
Good, because you're doing a poor job at it
>He is a popular and successful writer. This is a fact. He is factually a popular and successful author.
We're not discussing financial success. By that metric stephanie meyer and the fifty shades broad are eminent writers of our time and the MCU truly is the modern Illiad.
>Your negativity toward his work
Here's a fun game. Find any actual negativity I've shown towards Rothfuss himself. Here, this is where I started posting: >>21329388
As I said, many posts ago, I'm just being entertained by your truly rabid response to some guys one-paragraph critique of rothfuss' prose. I haven't read rothfuss, I don't plan to read rothfuss any time soon because I don't find his stuff appealing. I just find it funny that the only explanation you can find for this is some kind of psycho-emotional disorder.

[Anonymous No.21329727]

>>21329603
Comfy scenes are moments of rest and contemplation between big epic climactic resolutions.

[Anonymous No.21329745]

>>21329638
Save the Cat has a masterlist of every major theme that literature tends to cover, regardless of the culture or period of time the literature is from:
>forgiveness (of self or of others)
>love (includes self-love, family love, romantic love)
>acceptance (of self, of circumstances, of reality)
>faith (in oneself, in others, in the world, in God)
>fear (overcoming it, conquering it, finding courage)
>trust (in oneself, in others, in the unknown)
>survival (including the will to live)
>selflessness (including sacrifice, altruism, heroism, and overcoming greed)
>responsibility (including duty, standing up for a cause, accepting one's destiny)
>redemption (including atonement, accepting blame, remorse, and salvation)

[Anonymous No.21329750]

>>21329745 (Me)
To clarify, these are presented as things that a character needs in order to solve their internal struggle. They don't HAVE to reach those needs, you can write a tragedy covering these themes where realization of the theme is never explicitly accomplished.

[Anonymous No.21329754]

>>21329721
Not love. Bored. Being bored while reading. Again, this poor reading comprehension of yours is extremely prominent. The context, which you missed, was the previous conversation about conventional prose being boring compared to flowerly prose with obtuse words.

Reading comprehension. Context. You’re really bad at these. It’s like… Really obvious bruh.

[Anonymous No.21329776]

>>21329668
This is great, thanks! [:

>>21329745
>>21329750
I read this long ago, but these seem vague and overlapping.

If anyone has more to add, please do.

[Anonymous No.21329847]

>>21325025
I promised you that I'd finish my analysis of your excerpt. I find the parallelism of “tangled” is somewhat poor. I think trying to link "tangled" or another word to the snowstorm he’s lost in with the blurring confusion of his memories would work better.
>Hills...
I’d finish this sentence fragment with a question mark. The sentence after I don’t particularly like; it feels like a restatement that doesn’t add much. Personally, I’d combine it with the next sentence kind of like this:
>This/The landscape he knew only in spite of the storm swarming his eyes from his horse’s climb (trudge?) uphill?
That’s just rough jotting of the idea, mind you.
>A spec.... stone cold.
First is a typo; the second, a cliche pairing.
In summary: death and betrayal are the two of greatest themes of literature. Now, this is a forewarning; the way you pair words could weary people because of how on the nose it is. I suggest trying to find way to integrate that more seamlessly throughout the work. Now these are my suggestions; if you disagree with them and wish to defend your choices, then you're free to.

[Anonymous No.21329883]

>"Mrs. Bowman checked in last night, sir," said the concierge.
>The hotel manager tilted his head.
>"She said she was your cousin?"

Here's a small question: in the above excerpt, is the action of tilting ones head sufficient to indicate confusion? Should it also include the action of squinting?

[Anonymous No.21329991]

>>21324240
>Your way of complexifying the text is bad

This is the most ironic sentence I've seen on /lit/ for some time.

[Anonymous No.21330177]

not many people know about this, but I believe a writer can find a tremendous amount of value in this book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarne%E2%80%93Thompson%E2%80%93Uther_Index

[Anonymous No.21330186]

Is there a definitive guide for writing conflict?

[Anonymous No.21330220]

>>21330186
Set up a character's goal, the threat, and the stakes of failure. That's it. It's basic psychology.

[Anonymous No.21330221]

>>21330186
Conflict: The Definite Guide by W.S.H. Fulthinkin

[Anonymous No.21330246]

>>21320562
Can a passive protagonist works if the events around him are interesting enough, and the story are all about how he reacts and adapts to his environment without actively seeking out new troubles?

[Anonymous No.21330266]

>>21330246
You say passive but what the fuck is passive in life? If he is 'passive' then he is actively avoidant and that is his desire, to shy away from whatever. The conflict, then, is obviously when his desire is not able to come to fruition and he is forced into an active role or situation of which he cannot escape.
And why are you asking before you've written it? In 15 minutes you could have the first scene down and know the character in your head and know exactly the only real answer you'll ever get.

[Anonymous No.21330272]

>>21330246
There are only two kinds of conflict: chases and escapes. What you're describing seems the latter.

[Anonymous No.21330280]

>>21330246
The Stranger by Camus has a very passive mc.

[Anonymous No.21330284]

>>21329349
That's one hell of a non sequitur.
Write another book, post your existing book on a different site, take a break, etc.

[Anonymous No.21330299]

>>21330266
Well, I asked because some people are very adamant about the hero needing to have a concrete goal, and according to them "to be happy" and "to have a peaceful life" are not concrete goals.

I already am writing, and as my hero is a soldier, all he has done so far is reacting to his company's movement, having small night chats with his comrades and all that. Seems to me it isn't interesting enough when he isn't particularly patriotic or courageous to stand out from his peers

[Anonymous No.21330302]

>>21330246
No one is passive. Maybe your character wants to sit around and smoke heroin or surf or think about a novel he will never produce. Let's say that your character is like these people. However, the world keeps interrupting what the protagonist wants, so now the protagonist just wants to solve the problem of the local village, the recent murder, or whatever, just to return to what they really want to do. If you want to tell a story about a passive observer then your protagonist must observe other people's conflicts, otherwise you passive observer is merely sharing exposition. That's what exposition is. Exposing. Sharing what you observed.

[Anonymous No.21330327]

>>21330302
Oh that's true. So for what I'm writing here >>21330299 the hero doesn't have to be the most interesting character as long as the other soldiers and what they do around him are? Something like the Great Gatsby's Caraway I guess, like a narrator. Thanks

[Anonymous No.21330350]

>>21330299
the train is on time - boll

a soldier is on a train to the frontline. he talks, panics, tries to avoid his fate.

[Anonymous No.21330352]

>>21330299
Wouldn't the mission be the concrete goal? To be happy doesn't really make sense. Does this guy never smile? Never laugh? Constantly miserable? Sure, maybe he wants a peaceful life with the wife and kids and a decent income, but you are telling a story about a soldier in the field. Are we going to witness his struggle in getting his wife, raising kids, and supporting the family? No. It sounds to me your story could be about the soldier wanting to complete the mission so he can go home to his family or alternatively go home so he has the opportunity to start a family.

[Anonymous No.21330360]

>>21320745
I know it says it in the title but these books should only be used by people who want to make money rather than pursue writing as an art form. I, myself, have no interest in making money or ever selling a book, if no one else ever reads my work I will die happy knowing that throughout I remained true to my expression and was untainted by commercial desire.

[Anonymous No.21330381]

>>21330360
Far better, I think, to take the Todd Rundgren approach.
He's a musician with two big hits to his name: "Bang On The Drum" and "Hello, It's Me".
He made enough money on those to spend the rest of his career doing weird experimental noncommercial shit.
Truly an inspiration to me.

[Anonymous No.21330382]

>>21330327
Don't think about your character is being interesting. That has nothing to do with storytelling. Storytelling is about keeping people intrigued. This is why everyone talks about conflict. Perhaps, I shouldn't have even said that your protagonist can be a passive observer watching other people's conflicts. I suppose I would rather call that a narrator rather than the protagonist. The agonist part of the word already implies conflict.

[Anonymous No.21330405]

>>21330382
People write fables about talking animals. Storytelling has nothing to do with your character being interesting or whatever. There are a lot of uneducated people without interests in the world, but you can still find them interesting if you open yourself up to understand them.

[Anonymous No.21330407]

>>21322222
>make it as a writer
I'm an artist, not a salesman. I write because I enjoy it. If I were to model my work on the strategies of others it would no longer be my work, just a shadow of it. I would rather die penniless and unrecognisable than carve my work to conform with what the common denominator would enjoy.

To me, making it as a writer is all about that ultimate expression of vision and the exercise of my will. The value of art isn't lessened by it being unrecognised or inaccessible.

[Anonymous No.21330420]

>>21330407
I think you can still make great art that people enjoy.

[Anonymous No.21330488]

>>21330407
>I would rather die penniless and unrecognizable
I don't hate myself enough to do that.
But to each his own.
Even if yours is indistinguishable from suicide.

[Anonymous No.21330617]

>>21330407
Hey, anon, I have similar views as you. Have you posted anything in this thread I could look at? I'd like to see if our aesthetics are as resonant.

[Anonymous No.21330765]

New
>>21330744
>>21330744
>>21330744

[Anonymous No.21331351]

>>21322244
Fuck you. His concept of MRUs single handedly saved my writing.

[Anonymous No.21331450]

>>21321393
Pretty engaging. Thanks anon