/wg/ - Writing General

[Anonymous No.21986870]

Female Antagonist Edition

Previous thread: >>21979660

/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, relentless shill-spammers, and grounds keeping prose, should be ignored and reported. Cultivation posters should be firing squaded.

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

Thread theme:
>https://youtu.be/pbQuJFC-Ieg

[Anonymous No.21986882]

>>21986870
first for Ms Domestic

[Anonymous No.21986922]

How important is good prose in erotica/fetish works?

[Anonymous No.21986934]

What are the plot qualities of a good protagonist

If the protagonist's ultimate contribution to the plot is something any other character could've/would've done, were they a good protagonist

Which character in a plot deserves to be the protagonist

[Anonymous No.21986945]

I was looking through an old impregnation fetish archive and I found an old erotica that I find hot but it's about incest. The prose is sexy but the incest part takes me out of it. Is there anything I can learn from this or am I just being a coomer?

[Anonymous No.21986952]

>>21986922
Imagine if Hemingway wrote porn.
>He took off her clothes. Then he inserted his penis into her vagina. And he moved his hips back and forth.
>I'm cumming, he said.

[Anonymous No.21986955]

>>21986870
Rolling. If 0, I get to make one up.

[Anonymous No.21986968]

>>21986870
Can someone make a new thread
>>21986922
depends. if you're just generating shit for KU bucks, completely unimportant.

[Anonymous No.21987084]

>>21986870
can we stop with the identity politics already

[Anonymous No.21987137]

How would you guys go about writing losing your own culture?

I have this story about a character who's the last of his kind and his culture dies with him. How would you write the feeling of losing your heritage and history and trying to make sense of it?

[Anonymousn No.21987149]

>>21987084
This guy gets it.

[Anonymousn No.21987158]

>>21986922
As important as in anything else. Why wouldn't it be? Even in 'serious literature', if someone's writing intricate, beautiful prose for no reason other than to be intricate and beautiful, then it's bad prose. If it's charming and evocative and intensifies the details of plot and character, then it's good prose, and why wouldn't you want those qualities in erotica?

[Anonymous No.21987161]

>>21987137
you can read about this actually. ursula k le guin's mother wrote about a native who was the last of his kind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin

[Anonymous No.21987196]

Any one else feel like they don't employ enough devices? I feel like I seldom use literary techniques found in more poetic prose. Is this making my writing blande and beige? Most of the time I think that it's simply not the place for flowery descriptions or simile. Is this a sterile and flatchested way to write?

[Anonymous No.21987209]

>>21986952
have you read James Joyce’s letters to his wife?

[Anonymous No.21987247]

>>21986945
>Is there anything I can learn from this
Fetish porn seems especially vulnerable to having elements that either attract or repulse people, almost at random.
Unsure about the practical takeaway. Keep things ambiguous if it doesn't cost you, so people can read into it what they want? Try to signal upfront where you're heading? Find a good niche and hit that dopamine button? Or take care not to lose people?
How much does this apply outside porn? Is porn a special case, or does it just make a general principle unusually visible?
I'm sure some insight can be mined.

[Anonymous No.21987248]

>unemployed
>should be writing
>lay around bored and miserable all day instead

[Anonymous No.21987452]

>>21987137
I am writing (it's been in perma hiatus since a few months ago but is still, technically in the works) a tale about something similar. A fantasized Roman aristocrat seething about the fact he's a subject to first fanta-germanics and now Fanta-Avars/steppe people.
The way I was doing it was by small or big details, the MC reminiscing over ruins he sees the countryside, the fact the endonym of his ethnicity is never revealed, instead everyone else just calls him "the walhaz" walhaz is a placeholder term at the moment. Decrepit fountains, lack of energy. The fact the MC himself shies away from anything that doesn't have to do with obsessively reading books (usually about the good times) or letters.

[Anonymous No.21987542]

Can sex change a character? Should it?

My (virgin) mc is supposed to be rather autistic during the first book, but I've found the perfect scenario for him to have sex for the first time (the chapter itself would be worth it on its own).
The thing is, I don't want him to change him too much for now.
I'm not saying that "if a character has sex for the first time, they will change." I'm ASKING it: is it true? Necessary? Poetic? Stupid?

My first time, for instance, was very bland: not good, not bad, just sex. Nothing changed about me at all.
But what about from a literary point of view? Isn't sex supposed to have significance? What will the readers expect? What will they think of my mc after that?
Would it be weird if he continued being an autist after that? Not changing at all? Or should he gain some confidence? Progress/develop into manhood?

I'm worried about adding this chapter just because it would look great, but not actually fit with my mc (I take his development seriously and don't want to rush things).
But... maybe sex isn't that special and I can add this without worring too much.

[Anonymous No.21987545]

>>21987542
It's your story. Write it however you want.

[Anonymous No.21987556]

>>21987542
It really does depend on the genre your writing and how important the two characters relationship is. In a romance novel sex can be a good thing and change the character and be part of his arc but for some genres it just doesn't matter They had sex wow, Its up to you as the author to deside what it does.

But if the romance part of the story is important then yes sex should have some sort of postive impact but in some genres it can just not matter. Even if its not romantic yes sex can again be part of the chracter arc.


Really it depends on your character and the relationship to the character they are having sex with.

[Anonymous No.21987565]

>>21987542
It would be stranger for it to cure his autism than for it to not affect him at all.
You can draw from your own experience. Being realistic is almost always okay.
You can make it anticlimactic, have him wonder these same thoughts after realizing that it didn't affect him all that much.
Most of all you can do what you want. If you don't want it to be a big change then don't have it cause a big change.

[Anonymous No.21987566]

>>21986870
rolling

>>21987542
Sex can change people. It doesn’t necessarily have to. You could maybe have the autist reflect briefly on how having sex wasn’t actually the great, life changing event he thought it would be.

[Anonymous No.21987581]

>write in Google docs
>Internet is out because of construction
>Can't continue story with nothing to do
Help

[Anonymous No.21987597]

>>21987581
>zoomtoddlers

[Anonymous No.21987608]

>>21987581
I can't believe that offline editing is only an option on chrome. Or so I've heard. I even downloaded the desktop program, but that just opens up the documents in my browser anyway, so I don't understand what the point of it anyway.

[Anonymous No.21987609]

>>21987581
Continue in notepad, copy/paste when the interweb returns

[Anonymous No.21987626]

>>21987137
doing something similar to this in a more dramatic story. I feel like the best way to maximize the dramatic effect is to pair the death of a culture with a character death, or some other kind of interpersonal tragedy. Cultural extinction is too ephemeral on its own for a good gut punch.

[Anonymous No.21987657]

>>21987556
>>21987565
>>21987566
Thanks.
It's high fantasy, but with lots of introspection.
I think I'll add the chapter. I believe sex needs to change him somehow (or make him realize something), even if not in a good (or big) way.

[Anonymous No.21987709]

>>21986870
I'm about 20% through my first novel, but it's only been 4 days; I'm already planning ahead when not writing for the second novel. Is it alright to swap my second novel ideas around a lot? There are threads from the last novel, but I pushed back my initial ideas for the second novel to be the third novel and also altered stuff about time passed. I'm not sure if it makes sense to be changing stuff so much.

[Anonymous No.21987753]

How is it that all of the great prose stylists(Joseph Conrad, Updike, Nabokov, Joyce, etc.) use relatively simple diction, yet are all able to so inescapably draw in the reader?

[Anonymous No.21987787]

>>21987265
>What does understanding a genre entail, in your opinion?
Typical plots, beats, settings, themes, characters, tropes. That kind of stuff. There comes a point where you read enough of a genre that you could riff together a random story that is convincing enough as a genuine story within the genre. At that point you've internalized enough of the genre that you should look for ways to introduce new elements that take it in fresh directions for you and hopefully your reading audience.

[Anonymous No.21987791]

>>21987753
Understanding syntax and implications are more powerful than memorising unusual, polysyllabic words. It's more to do with verbal intelligence.

[Anonymous No.21987805]

>>21986870
What is the key difference between writing female antagonists and male ones? And where do you look for inspiration with the former?

[Anonymous No.21987835]

>>21987805
Men tend to be more interested in things, and women people. If you have a female detective and a male detective working together, you might make the male detective rely further on the hard evidence (even if there's little) and the woman detective on the figures surrounding the case (not just the primary suspects, but their families and friends as well). Women also tend to be more manipulative because they lack the ability to physically dominate another person. An average man can outstrip an above average woman in a lot of physical activities.
How it would work with antagonists would generally be a woman that's incredibly manipulative, because they lack the same physically dominating presence that a man in her shoes would.
Ultimately you have to ask yourself why this person is an antagonist, their role in the story, and why they're set against the protagonist, then you can define how they would go about it based on their physical or mental attributes, gender included.

[Anonymous No.21987844]

I am so bad at describing what things look like sometimes. I feel like I'm a lot better at characterizing how characters feel and understanding motivations, that is most of what is in my first draft of anything I write. It is sometimes devoid of details that give life to the scene.

[Anonymous No.21987853]

>>21987844
I feel that sometimes I also have that issue, but you should also be aware of trying not to over describe something. I do spend the time to describe what I can, and while I'm not always happy with it and I keep going back to edit it, I don't think that it is the end of the world if it isn't perfect. Sometimes it is just hard to describe something, especially if in my case I'm trying to avoid drawing directly from other sources i.e I don't want to compare a roman style armor to rome, because I'm writing fantasy and my world doesn't have romans.
Also, based image.

[Anonymous No.21987882]

>>21987853
Right, I think I may stick to the basics in description, at least some synesthesia here and there. I do really like to get into characters heads and if I do describe anything I am trying to establish what is happening on a spiritual level. That approach comes off as really opaque at first but I try to build all those weird spiritual statements in a story and pay it off later.

There are times when I want to not do that, and even though I love to tell, there are key scenes where I won't because I have to trust the reader that he now has all the ammo to interpret what is going on. My favorite example of that is in C&P in the final chapter at the police station. The entire novel is filled with inner monologue and that scene basically has none. The feeling I got when I noticed that made it so dramatic, because I immediately knew what was going on when I realized I had to figure it out myself. People say show don't tell a bit too much, there is a time and a place for both.

[Anonymous No.21987932]

Anyone have any thoughts on writing in dialect? The region I'm from has a very distinctive dialect and it's trendy for authors to write in it, even writing the entire narration in dialect. I want to write a coming of age story set during the 2008 recession but I'm targeting a different audience than the one that reads novels in my dialect.

[Anonymous No.21987995]

>>21987932
If you want to be known or successful then go for what the audience likes. If you just want to write in your dialect then go for it. But dialect (specially marked dialects) kill reach. Even in places like Latin America, how famous do you think Garcia marques would be if he used a thousand Colombia-specific terms in narration?
And I say this as a person who holds a book written in a dialect very close their heart (technically a kid's book but child me had many good times reading it). That book wouldn't have had nearly the same effect on me if it wasn't for my parents explaining to me what all the words meant.

[Anonymous No.21988004]

>>21986934
If you're in that situation where you can put whoever as the protagonist, maybe just try and put someone in there who'd be interesting to follow.

Not perfect advice but not a perfect situation

[Anonymous No.21988022]

What is the type of audience of royalroad? Can something in the style of game of thrones be succesful or would it be too dense already?

[Anonymous No.21988023]

>>21987995
Both the audience I'm targeting and the audience that reads my dialect are pretty niche so it's not really about being known or successful. I suppose I should try to find a balance between remaining authentic to my experiences through dialogue but trying not to alienate the audience I'm targeting with too much local slang.

[Anonymous No.21988045]

>>21988022
Nope. Litrpg or harem self insert or bust

[Anonymous No.21988050]

>>21988023
Its going to be more work but you could publish both the dialect and the english(or whatever language) translation simultaneously

[Anonymous No.21988054]

>>21988023
Yeah, the dialect in dialogue is fine and helps set up the atmosphere in my opinion. If a man is from there, he will speak like it. But imagine reading an edition of say crime&punishment where the narration is in ebonics, patois, Pennsylvania Dutch English, or Cajun.

[Anonymous No.21988064]

>>21988045
Sad

[Anonymous No.21988089]

>>21988064
Don't get crabbed. Re:Trailer Trash, though I've never read it, makes the author enough money for him to live off of it and that isn't a litRPG. I think it is about a woman who has cancer and then gets transported to her younger body?

[Anonymous No.21988093]

>>21988050
My dialect is Scots which is basically English with some loan words and influences from Gaelic and North European languages. So it's not really enough to warrant multiple versions.
>>21988054
>But imagine reading an edition of say crime&punishment where the narration is in ebonics, patois, Pennsylvania Dutch English, or Cajun.
That's what got me thinking about this, I was reading a novel from my area and even I find it hard to read with the entire narration being first person dialect.
Here's an example:
>Obviously, A’ve hud ma hole. A’ve never lied aboot it. A pulled an elder burd, ma big cousin’s pal. Paula Cook, hur name is. A wis only thirteen n she wis sixteen, wee bit chubby A’m no gonnae lie. Cook by name, cook by nature n aw that. She wis heavy geein me the eye. Ma cousin wis laughin hur heed aff. Yass! The wee man’s gonnae pop his cherry n that wis it. We went a walk back tae hur bit. She hud an empty, hur maw n that wur away on a night oot. Easy does it, man.
But the whole thing is written like this.

[Anonymous No.21988094]

>>21988064
not necessarily true, you can publish anything really, but those are the genres that will make people pay you the most.

[Anonymous No.21988115]

>>21988089
>makes the author enough money for him to live off of
Bear in mind that he lives in a trailer himself...

[Anonymous No.21988143]

>just happily completed 3 hours of research for novel and stuffed a bunch of new content in based on my discoveries, turning it from bland to vivid
fuck yeah

[Anonymous No.21988177]

>people say AI is going to end writing
>meanwhile in reality: AI sites have to resort to pajeet spam tactics to harass and terrify people into giving them money
AI is just as retarded as NFTs. people were paying millions of dollars for ugly pictures of cartoon monkeys. why are techtards like this? overly excitable, gullible imbeciles

[Anonymous No.21988213]

>>21988177
What the fuck is that.
Why are there just random diacriticals everywhere.

[Anonymous No.21988218]

>>21988177
>why are techtards like this?
The extremely open-minded are also often gullible.
Also, I believe at least a few of them secretly want to create a techno-god or at least hope he comes into being.

[Anonymous No.21988223]

>>21988177
I trialed Sudowrite and maybe I'm an idiot but I couldn't get it to write anything worth crap, and I'm guessing a lot of writing AI is equally frustrating if you already have a vision for your story. It seemed too desperate to jump into melodrama, escalating scenes and making caricatures, suggesting repeats of beats I already wrote in a previous scene. I have no idea what writing they fed the model and it seems too stubborn to teach to even suggest interesting literary techniques. It's disappointing because you'd think with how heavily documented hundreds of literary devices there are that it could figure it out.

[Anonymous No.21988244]

>>21988218
Don't discount how mercilessly nerds are tormented by normies, even into adulthood.
That just may lead them to favor a massive die-back of the human race.

[Anonymous No.21988247]

>>21988143
cool cool
so how much actual writing did you do? as far as, you know, words added to the manuscript

[Anonymous No.21988248]

>>21988177
>why are techtards like this? overly excitable, gullible imbeciles
I'm form /g/ and even I don't know. I just want /sdg/ to drink bleach so I can have my comfy tecno shit posting back.
>>21988218
>want to create a techno-god or at least hope he comes into being.
I did call them a cargo cult so maybe you are right. They do seem VERY anti social/human, even outside of 4chan.

Back on topic, I don't know if it's a good idea to reference Saint Davis in my fantasy story about a fictional cat religion. I have a feeling this will attract kids somehow.

[Anonymous No.21988264]

>>21988223
My brother told me that I should use chatGPT as a writing aide, so I tried to have it describe the effect of a spell that turned gravity to 100 times for just a second and crush a bandit camp. First it gave the driest and more boring description of just the spell and how it would just instantly crush anything in the area. Then I tried again and it told me this. I guess crushing people is fine, but I want to make it tell me how it would effect a forest and it thinks I'm some kinda reverse eco-terrorist.

[Anonymous No.21988278]

>>21988264
Oh, right I should also say that I asked a similar question to the bing chat AI and it gave me an answer that was more about how much it takes to crush a human into a paste, then it stopped writing and went 'I made a fucky wucky, I am not supposed to say things like this, beep boop.' So I told it to answer my previous question and it did so without much problem but it did change how it phrased the answer.

[Anonymous No.21988282]

I've gotten to the point I can recite a summary of every scene in my novel in order from memory. Feels weird, but I guess that's supposed to happen if you put thought into it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? When I started some of my draft had so much filler in it that I would forget parts of it. I don't think a good story should be lacking purpose in that way, it ought to keep resonating with you.

[Anonymous No.21988290]

>>21988282
can't relate, I can recite a summary of every scene of a book or movie just after reading/watching it once. It's a party trick that impresses old friends and family when I summerise and give exact quotes of movies I watched like 11+ years ago. Every thing I've written I already have burned into memory.

[Anonymous No.21988291]

>>21987581
use libregen

[Anonymous No.21988295]

>>21988177
techtards think they're the gods of the universe because they can shoot a laser at a chunk of metal and cause a piece of glass to glow funny colors. They conceptualize all of history as a line graph slowly ascending upwards. Everything will get better over time, we just need to shoot more lasers at more chunks of metal, and then we'll be able to control reality.

[Anonymous No.21988297]

>>21988247
not that anon but eventually every writer needs to conduct hours of research if they're exploring an unfamiliar setting. hell, even if the setting is familiar. unless you want every novel to be paint-by-numbers shlock

[Anonymous No.21988302]

>>21988264
I sometimes use it in research at work because it can work better than some search engines at locating information. I do agree with you on using it to brainstorm whether you are gonna put something in a story that makes any sense at all. I tried to ask it recently about a scene I put together in which one character blackmails another without any telling whatsoever. I just use pure show to portray the elaborate threat. But I asked the model if this would be perceived as a threat.
The answer it gave back was in bold red text with a warning at the bottom that I may have violated terms of service. I guess it was afraid I might be asking advice on how to commit a crime. Would love to have an AI that doesn't preface everything it says for legal reasons, it's the most annoying thing about it.

[Anonymous No.21988315]

>>21988213
to get past spam filters. have you never seen spam scammers before?
>>21988223
literary critics can't even write down in plain language what makes a good novel good, and you think some undereducated hentai-masturbating basement-dweller can put the secret formula into code lines?
>>21988218
>The extremely open-minded are also often gullible.
valid and correct
also why they all believe in climate change and took mRNA jabs for a head cold

[Anonymous No.21988323]

>>21988295
TIL what smart people look like to stupid people.
You won't be missed.

[Anonymous No.21988326]

>>21988302
>I tried to ask it recently about a scene I put together in which one character blackmails another without any telling whatsoever.
this would not work. just use the ol "you care about your family/reputation, don't you?" veiled threats for plausible deniability

[Anonymous No.21988330]

>>21988302
I've used the bing AI just to have something to bounce an idea off of. I asked it about maglev trains and how they might fit within a magical setting, the issues with this system, and lastly, about how one could convince the noble class to accept a public rail system and not a private one.
The last answer I found the most interesting because it went on for a long time and even played devils advocate for the other side, saying that the noble class might feel threatened and resort to sabotaging the system or even convincing the commoners that it is actually better that they have a private railway system instead of a public one. It got me thinking about propaganda and how there are cultural ideas about the heavenly mandate and kings of old being appointed by god.
Now, on the other hand, it is really bad at making metaphors and keeps repeating throwing salt into wounds and something about quicksand.

[Anonymous No.21988333]

>>21988315
climate change exists and the problem with the covid vaccine isn't the mRNA it's the spike protein. without mRNA life couldn't exist. leave it to americans to politicize high school level science.

[Anonymous No.21988336]

>>21988323
t. seething tra/g/ny

[Anonymous No.21988341]

>>21988326
No I mean I don't have any lines in the scene that say
>the protag is now being blackmailed!
>did you just threaten me?!
There are absolutely veiled threats for plausible deniability in the scene, I just try to create an atmosphere so the reader can come to the realization that it is a threat on their own. There are some things like I've said before you may as well just go ahead and say it, but some scenes like that work way better when you don't directly tell what is happening.

[Anonymous No.21988347]

>>21988333
>the problem isn't the mRNA, it's the direct and intended product of the mRNA
Ah, and being pushed off a building doesn't kill you--the landing does.

if they actually believed in "climate change" they would demand we all work from home and switch to a one child policy. instead they're shoving us back into offices and banning abortion. climate change was always a scam to sell outrage porn and green branded toilet paper to bored retarded housewives who upgrade their phone every year and their SUV every other year.

[Anonymous No.21988366]

>>21988347
you're too far gone
>>21988341
>some scenes like that work way better when you don't directly tell what is happening
i usually don't. readers like when you respect their intelligence and let them figure things out on their own

[Anonymous No.21988379]

>>21988366
YOU CAN'T FORM A RESPONSE
YOU HAVE NOTHING
TECH BUGBOY
DIGITAL LEMMING
the reason you're a shitty coder and microshit won't hire you is because you idolize digital gadgets as your new god's pantheon but lack the fundamental logic needed to write a line of coherent compileable code, because you're just an expensively outfitted midwit clutching a nintendo switch pretending you're in the circle with steve jobs and bill gates. meanwhile you waste your body away consooming and being lied to for profit.

put down the phone and pick up a book you dumb fucking retard

[Anonymous No.21988403]

>>21988379
just go away. you're an attention whore, no response of mine will satisfy you.

[Anonymous No.21988410]

>>21988403
>no response
you can't form even one counterargument you simpering fagweed

[Anonymous No.21988423]

>>21988410
you don't even write. teaching you how to use your brain is not my job

[Anonymous No.21988449]

>>21988423
AHAHAHAHAHHAHA
die angry

[Anonymous No.21988450]

>>21988323
Nice LARP.

[Anonymous No.21988454]

Once again, I've written a chapter, but then I realize that it is better to tack it onto the previous chapter so that the next one can have a better start.
In this case, my main character has killed people, justly I might add, and decided his life path is one where he puts his own morals above everything else. The issue is who he killed, and so he calls a close friend of his to pick him up and help with a cover story. The issue is that I want the next chapter to have some comedic elements and while a little bit wouldn't clash too harshly, the amount that I have is too much too soon.

[Anonymous No.21988456]

>>21988449
you want that to be the case, don't you? it was very important for you that i read this post, wasn't it?

[Anonymous No.21988472]

>>21988454
if he killed people justly then i'm guessing it's self-defense? why does he need a cover story then

[Anonymous No.21988494]

>>21988472
The issue is that he killed a noble, and while he considered it just, and might even be able to get away with it anyway using his own influence as a noble, he did this under a different identity and arguably went beyond self-defense.
It is less that he needs the cover story to get away with it, and more that he will be avoiding a lot of headaches and making enemies of anyone allied with said noble. At an earlier point in the story he declared that he would remain neutral in the currently behind the scenes, but soon to be full blown civil war, so killing a noble who is anti-royalist, when it is known that he is more closely aligned to the royalists would also make him look like he is flip-floping on his position and can't be trusted on his word.

[Anonymous No.21988502]

What's the difference between litfic and genrefic?

[Anonymous No.21988507]

>>21988502
One is for smart fellas, the other is for fart smellas.

[Anonymous No.21988512]

how do you find the right word to use

[Anonymous No.21988527]

How would you guys write a characters who's socially awkward but charismtic?

Someone who doesn't have good social skills however is well liked by strangers.

(Autism or no autism)

[Anonymous No.21988535]

>>21988527
Make him quiet and surface-level badass but has hectic internal monologue or eccentricities that other people enjoy because he appears or is accidentally cool.

[Anonymous No.21988538]

>>21988494
then make sure the planned humor fits with the themes and tone of the chapter, keeping it dark but still at the cost of the protagonist. if his self-importance gets criticized it will make him seem more relatable and add irony

[Anonymous No.21988557]

>>21988538
I think that it works best if I keep the humor in the next chapter as a way to show his own nonchalance about the killing. The only thing he regrets is killing a guy who he only knew for a month, but who tried to kill him because the noble put a bounty on him during the fight.
This kinda goes into a longer running theme about his distrust of adventurers, because he considers them barely better than bandits, the man in question was the local guildmaster and the main character thought that he finally found an adventurer who could be his friend, that he might've been wrong to consider them all scumbags.

[Anonymous No.21988622]

>>21988527
handsome/pretty
agreeable

[Anonymous No.21988711]

>>21988527
Stupid but well intentioned.

[Anonymous No.21988717]

anons, I got my first publication, it's a short story in a sci-fi magazine. It's not super big, but it's something, and I'm proud of it. I want you all to know that anyone can make it. Just keep trying.

[Anonymous No.21988733]

I can't continue... I keep reading and seeing other people 10+ years younger than me (30), getting praise, publications, and accolades for their stories and writing. I can't even get 1000 readers on Royal road or a 10 followers.

What am I doing wrong? Why is my writing so shit?

[Anonymous No.21988734]

>>21988717
Happy for you, anon. I will keep trying. And you keep trying, reach those great heights you dream of.

[Anonymous No.21988735]

>>21988717
Very nicesu.

[Anonymous No.21988756]

>>21988717
Congratulations, that's very cool

[Anonymous No.21988793]

>I kept writing
>I never turned this gun around on myself
>I killed myself with booze, instead
>But first, I made it
>We can all make it
>Get to work
>Write

[Anonymous No.21988803]

>>21988733
Caring about other people's age when the made it is such a 20s thing to do, just keep writing

[Anonymous No.21988851]

I'm so burned out that I find myself dreading writing every night.

I keep having to backtrack because a scene went in the wrong direction and if I don't redo a week's worth of work I'll instead have to redo a year's worth instead. I haven't made progress in months and it feels endless

Yes I've taken a break. Yes I'm getting mental help

[Anonymous No.21988858]

>>21988527
>socially awkward but charismtic?
Impossible

[Anonymous No.21988869]

>>21988302
>I sometimes use it in research at work because it can work better than some search engines at locating information
lmao you do realize it outright makes up shit, right? It's not an intelligence, it just produces content based on the prompt. What the fuck is going to happen to our society if grownass adults start to use a glorified lore ipsum generator to give them INFORMATION?

>I asked the model if this would be perceived as a threat.
How the fuck would it know? The program doesn't understand emotions. Jesus, you're officially dumber than a chatbot

[Anonymous No.21988910]

I have personally read less than 10 books in my life, am I going to make it as an author?

[Anonymous No.21988912]

>>21986870
How do you get over first draft perfectionism?
I have these ideas for stories, but I end up just not writing them and hating myself for not writing them out of fear of not being 'ready' enough.

[Anonymous No.21988922]

>>21988851
We believe in you George

[Anonymous No.21988957]

>>21988793
Thanks Fitz, got two chapters edited today in-spite of tele-confrencing for too long!

[Anonymous No.21988962]

>>21987137
Writing notes for something like this but for fantasy subculture's and artforms. For me I would really emphasize how central it is to ones identity the society was, really make sure to show influnces of the environment on the individual; not just basic hobby or small lifestyle stuff. I'm also showing an alternative society that's the opposite in many ways, in order to get intresting reactions from the cast I have, too add some more drama in the story. Might be a good approach for you as well

[Anonymous No.21988968]

>>21988910
Frankly, not if you don't start reading a ton more. I don't know how often you read now, if at all, but start by committing to finish a book per month. Practice writing in the meantime, but don't worry about trying to make anything publishable at this point. You'll just end up doing massive re-writes as you get a better grasp of the craft.

[Anonymous No.21988982]

>>21988512
Always go for simplicity and elegance. Readers are not impressed by words. They are impressed by what you communicate and by how well you communicate it.

[Anonymous No.21988985]

>>21988717
Which magazine?

[Anonymous No.21988993]

>>21988910
> t.

[Anonymous No.21989026]

>>21988177
AI isn't retarded and neither are NFTs. People, however, are INCREDIBLY retarded, and quick to dismiss/accept new things simply because they are new without bothering to further explore the subject

[Anonymous No.21989030]

>>21988177
By and large it's not the engineers saying this, I can tell you that. I've seen companies that use ""blockchain"" for the sweet sweet investor money and then downplay it in their job ads because so many programmers fucking hate it.
I won't say there's no overlap, somebody has to do the technical work, but the average monkey JPEG proprietor is merely in the technology fandom.

[Anonymous No.21989032]

>>21988450
is it really a LARP if this is all online?

[Anonymous No.21989035]

>>21989026
I dont like technology

[Anonymous No.21989164]

>>21986870
>tfw no Ms. Certain
What are these based off of I'm retarded.

[Anonymous No.21989170]

>>21988910
Fewer.

[Anonymous No.21989188]

So if my intended primary audience is young adult males, am I just better off self-publishing/publishing on RR? After discovering the shitshow that is modern YA and how exclusionary it is toward male protagonists, I was going to try my hand at the adult demographic, but most of my characters are teenagers and aging them up to adulthood would fuck up too many things. I know there are adult series where the protagonist is or at least starts out as a teenager, though with women buying 80% of novels and boys barely reading, it seems like a male dominated series is an increasingly hard sell.

[Anonymous No.21989196]

>>21989188
You don't actually need a female POV to attract female audiences, see Harry Potter. However, it is true that modern publishing is cringe and gay, you are unironically better off self-publishing unless you can get an in with some off-the-reservation publishing house.

[Anonymous No.21989227]

>>21985177
For the record, I really like language jokes so I hope the project goes well for you anon.

[Anonymous No.21989524]

Would you count forum roleplaying as writing? It's about the only writing I do nowadays.

[Anonymous No.21989600]

I love reading, but sometimes when I'm reading something that is really fantastic, I feel like shit knowing I'll never have one tenth the talent or success of the author.

[Anonymous No.21989622]

>>21988502
The shelf that it goes onto and style expectations in the reader who finds it. Litfic has less tropes usually but there are certainly things people expect, it's harder to pin down.

[Anonymous No.21989647]

>>21988793
Thank you FSF anon. This season is probably the strongest writing I have ever felt. I have a lot of room to improve but I had some kind of epiphany last month where those big themes suddenly made way more sense. There were times when I was reluctant to write because I felt I was talking about something I didnt understand, yet I was trying to be honest about what I did. And now that I feel I'm beginning to grasp why I cared so much, I am so glad I trusted myself that my story was worth it. Less and less I find myself looking at a page and not knowing what comes next, now my characters know what they are doing.

[Anonymous No.21989663]

>>21988912
in the moment, when your pen is hesitating in the middle of the sentence because you simply can't word something the way you want, or cant remember the word you're looking for, just shake yourself loose and put *something* down and move on. That's literally it - the number of works that have stopped mid-writing because people could not just put anything down on the page and save that problem for a later editing stage is immense. Trust me, you'll be in a much better position to tackle it during editing than during drafting, and you won't have any fucking work to edit if you don't just push through the drafting stage to begin with.

Any time you hit that wall just find an acceptable shitty placeholder that will allow you to move on. You will have immense output after incorporating this into your process.

[Anonymous No.21989676]

>>21988912
I used to get really bad. The important thing is to tell the story that you feel at the moment and then revise later. You cant edit a blank page. Even if the writing is bad, you learn something vary valuable about the story you want to tell. I think of it like an iterative process or scientific experiment. An experiment is based on literature and hypothesis in the same way our books are based on stories of the past and our own feelings. Surprisingly often, a research does an experiment that fails. But if he understands why it failed, his next experiment will have a more informed design that may succeed. And if you disprove your hypothesis, it does not mean you were wrong, it means you have learned. So whenever you are afraid to write something, feel free to write it anyways so you can begin to articulate how you feel about an actual story than hurt yourself imagining that you will never write one.

[Anonymous No.21989687]

>>21989663
Seconding that writing and moving on. It's good to focus on that parts you find most compelling first, not all the boring parts inbetween. Once you are certain of those things you must write about, then it will later be more clear what happens in the rest of the story.

[Anonymous No.21989749]

>>21988115
FortySixtyFour here. I do live in a trailer, and it's a shitty 40+ year old one that's not really fit to live in. That said...

Making a living off of your writing can have less to do with making more money and more to do with spending less money.

The crux of the problem for most writers I think is that they don't have time or energy to focus on their writing, because they have to work full time jobs or several part time jobs to survive. That's just how life is.

In my case, to attempt to live off of my Patreon income I left my full time job working the hot knife at a production plant, left my decent-ish apartment, got rid of my phone and car and moved into the sketchy trailer park in town where rent was dirt cheap.

The mobile home was free (technically, just had to pay some $2.7k back taxes owed on it), lot rent was $250/month or so when I first moved here, has gone up some since. Power runs as low as $50/month and as high as $250 in the real cold months of winter because electric heat here. Internet is a consistent $75 or so. My first couple years I was only paying half of those because my gf and I were splitting the bills.

Is it a great place to live? Fuck no. But I was able to devote way more time towards writing and it saves me a ton of money. I have fair confidence in being able to afford a home in the next few years if I publish my other book series to KU.

[Anonymous No.21989752]

>>21989663
This. I literally write (THING HAPPENS) or (SAYS SOMETHING) in parentheses when the words won't come and revisit it later. Sometimes I even do this with entire paragraphs. 2/3 times I fill it in when I return to it, and the other 1/3 of the time it turns out whatever I was going to write didn't need to exist in the first place.

[Anonymous No.21989760]

>>21989524
where do you rp? im gonna start doing it on aurorastation, an ss13 server, but beyond that the internet seems devoid of anything worthwhile

[Anonymous No.21989782]

is anybody else doing that notebook challenge some anon planned last week? i missed yesterday due to stuff, but am back on it today. not sure if ill complete the whole book in time (~80 pages) but i fully intend to, maybe the pace will pick up after a solid few days without forgetting to do so.

[Anonymous No.21989795]

Remember to show and not tell.

[Anonymous No.21989800]

>>21988985
It's called Sci-Fi Shorts. They do flash fiction under a 1000 words that has some scifi element to it.

[Anonymous No.21989820]

anons, how many words are in your work's longest sentence?

[Anonymous No.21989833]

>>21989795
>Writing all that nonsense
>Purple as shit
>Bible is brief and to the point
>Bible's line is attention getting
>Not exhausting to read
That redditor failed

[Anonymous No.21989860]

>>21989820
70 words. Two commas.

[Anonymous No.21989933]

>>21989782
Is the challenge supposed to be for May? I forgot about it but wrote some stuff on my notes app every day, so maybe I'll transpose it and join late.

[Anonymous No.21989961]

>>21989933
>Is the challenge supposed to be for May?
yes it is.
i highly recommend joining in.
the best part is, its almost entirely just for yourself and your own benefit, you don't have to play some retarded social media 'look at me' nonsense. i only brought it up to see if any others actually are doing it.
oh and, it cannot be stressed enough how you must do it every day, even if its only a page. its the habit-building that will carry you far, my friend.

[Anonymous No.21990036]

>>21989961
Thanks anon. I happen to have a blank notebook in front of me right now. I'm joining.

[Anonymous No.21990042]

Not even RoyalRoad was safe, Anon typed on 4chan's /lit/, a blue board. It's filled with the same writing style as YA: declarative sentences, minority main character, ordinary language. He cringed at the soulless prose and the terrible art.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/65629/the-game-at-carousel-a-horror-movie-litrpg

[Anonymous No.21990089]

What's a good crazy direction I could take this in? MC's sperm is special because it isn't affected by radiation and he potentially could save humanity but he's the ultimate coomer

[Anonymous No.21990370]

>>21989749
No wonder you can connect so well with your readers, your one of them.

[Anonymous No.21990393]

>>21986870
ms pedo desu

[Anonymous No.21990399]

>>21989749
living the dream and don't let anyone tell you different. happy for you

[Anonymous No.21990415]

>>21986945
You can link the story and the archive

[Anonymous No.21990521]

>>21989663
Yep, I wrote a chapter, though about scrapping the entire thing but I rode it out anyway and by adding the chapter that came after that I liked the chapter before it enough that I didn't end up rewriting the whole thing.

[Anonymous No.21990532]

>>21989749
What do you do with retards commenting on your stuff like pic related? You just ignored them, but what if there's too many?

[Anonymous No.21990554]

>>21990532
lashing out at retards will never be productive. the most you should ever say is: thank you for the feedback

[Anonymous No.21990568]

>>21989622
How does one know if they wrote litfic or genrefic

[Anonymous No.21990583]

>>21989749
so, what? should i start writing harem erotica on royalroad? can i quit my job if i do it?

[Anonymous No.21990601]

>>21990532
>The instant she is no longer fat everyone likes her and wants to be her friend
I can see why this basic truth would make fatties seethe

[Anonymous No.21990628]

>>21990601
Fat fucks who piss and moan about having to stop being fat fucks piss me off. My spine got fucked up going on 8 years ago now, and I've gained about 30 pounds, going from 200 to hovering between 220 and 230 at 6'1. I get out of bed for probably an hour in total every day because past that I get spasms and my legs will just give out. If I can maintain even a relatively healthy weight, then they can drop some pounds and stop acting oppressed for their own choices.
I wish I could work out again, but I can't, these people have the chance to get better and simply refuse to do so.
DRINK SOME FUCKING WATER AND STOP EATING SNACKS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0oDJDHmPhY

[Anonymous No.21990627]

>>21990583
erotica doesn't do great on rr. if you feel like writing it to make money you'd be much better off tailoring it to appeal to women (more domination) and self pubbing on amazon.

[Anonymous No.21990664]

You did write your 2000 daily words today, right /wg/?

[Anonymous No.21990689]

>>21990568
Ask an alpha reader what they would shelve it as. Also consider the inspiration for the subject and style may be a strong indicator of what you are imitating.

[Anonymous No.21990696]

>>21990664
its too much

[Anonymous No.21990699]

>>21990696
ngmi

[Anonymous No.21990704]

>>21990699
I will though

[Anonymous No.21990705]

>>21990664
I wrote 2000 words in a short story but 0 in my novel, so I have to get back to work after work.

[Anonymous No.21990755]

>>21987995
>Garcia marques would be if he used a thousand Colombia-specific terms in narration?

Actually Cien Años is notorious for exactly that. even Colombians say it's hard because it's in Costeño, the coastal dialect

But of course once translated into English, you're not going to notice

[Anonymous No.21990759]

>>21990664
3500 words, which slowed down from my average of 4250 words this week.

[Anonymous No.21990786]

>>21989752

same here. there's no excuse for writer's block. you have to keep moving.

[Anonymous No.21990965]

>>21986952
Imagine If Camus wrote porn
> I took off my clothes
> Or did she?
> I'm not sure
> We had sex
> I had a cigarette and stayed in for the day
> Boss called
> I'm not coming, I said.

[Anonymous No.21990979]

>>21986870
Does anyone else have the problem of letting what they're currently reading influence their prose. I just finished the novella I was writing, and going back to edit, I feel like I can pinpoint exactly in the novella when I was reading Steinbeck, Austen, Orwell, etc.

[Anonymous No.21990989]

>>21990979
I don't have this problem because I don't consider it a problem.
As long as it still reads well a little heterogeneity is fine by me.

[Anonymous No.21991019]

>>21990979
No I have no problem with it. I edit to make my style more consistent, but I love to steal, challenge or develop statements from other writers all the time.

[Anonymous No.21991026]

any of you tried trad publishing?

[Anonymous No.21991027]

>>21990979
yeah, it happens, but it just means you're absorbing what you're reading and it's helping you improve
you just need to pave over any awkwardness in editing
if you're autistic enough, you can make a style guide

[Anonymous No.21991061]

>ok time to write
>suddenly become drowsy

[Anonymous No.21991067]

>>21991061
why the fuck this so real. And then I sleep for hours and when I wake it's way too late to get started now

[Anonymous No.21991071]

Why does the nig nog?

[Anonymous No.21991073]

Is it possible for people to be friends and not want to fuck or is that unrealistic?

[Anonymous No.21991078]

>>21991073
I have several friends that I do not want to fuck

[Anonymous No.21991094]

>>21991026
I will when I'm done writing a novel. I have a pretty decent professional life so I think that may give me a decent shot besides having money to polish my manuscript before I pitch it. I already know agents and screenwriters second hand, didnt go to school for writing either. I'll finish the book one way or the other.

[Anonymous No.21991110]

>>21991078
Even ones of the opposite sex (or same sex if you’re a faggot)?

[Anonymous No.21991112]

>>21991110
Yeah

[Anonymous No.21991122]

>>21991073
its possible but most people (men) won't buy it

[Anonymous No.21991142]

>>21989800

[Anonymous No.21991157]

>>21986870
I'm having some trouble getting this description of a refinery right and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on it.

[Anonymous No.21991164]

>>21988717
Congrats bro! Huge accomplishment!

[Anonymous No.21991174]

>>21991157
too many metaphors
try rewriting the paragraph without any metaphors at all and observing the effect
then mix the two effects so you can provide better concrete detail and flourish with a metaphor or two to bring it home

[Anonymous No.21991180]

>>21991157
>workshop like hell
>doesn't use Hell imagery
Also you did that thing I see and hate in my own writing of X but actually Y. Is it pitch black or is it blinding beams of light? It's a contradiction. It's so retarded to backpedal like that.

[Anonymous No.21991183]

>my RR story has a 20% retention rate from chapter 1 to chapter 2.

Guess I know where it's going wrong

[Anonymous No.21991197]

>>21991183
lol that's impressively bad, anon. I assume you have to be vastly misrepresenting what your story is in your summary for it to be that low

[Anonymous No.21991268]

>>21991197
No clue no clue at all

[Anonymous No.21991385]

>>21991268
Maybe someone here can help me out. I'm at a complete loss. Maybe it's far too generic and chapter 1 should be place elsewhere? I don't know . Or it's just so shit it's better to delete it.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/67568/a-knight-of-valora-serenity/chapter/1190010/chapter-1-the-knights-of-valora

[Anonymous No.21991413]

>>21991385
I remember you posting this. I think the insane drop off rate is from anons clicking it with no real intent to read the story. So it skewed the stats from what's typical (40-65%ish range)

[Anonymous No.21991424]

>>21991413
Possible, still, there can't be that many anons here curious enough to click it to skew it that badly. I still think there's something horribly wrong with it.

>300 clicks on chapter 1
>70 for chapter 2.

[Anonymous No.21991432]

>>21991385
no lit-rpg or cultivation

[Anonymous No.21991437]

>>21991385
To be honest, it isn't great but it is definitely salvageable. I think there's a slight typo in your second sentence.
>She spent grueling years of training, exams, and other rigorous tests
This just doesn't make sense to me, maybe rewrite it as
>She spent years suffering through grueling training, countless exams, and a mountain of other rigorous tests in preparation to become a defender of peace and an elite member of the citizenry. Ten years of hard work did not prime her for the monumental task that befell her, filing and sending away mounds of inglorious paperwork.
Also, you don't need the word "Inglourious" there, it's paperwork, it's rarely ever glorious. I noticed with some other lines as well that you probably can cut quite a few descriptive words that the reader can assume. There's also a pattern I noticed of repeating uncommon words. You have "pastry" and "pastries" in back-to-back sentences, and you don't really need both there. Maybe drop one of them. In the dialogue scene, one of your tags has the protagonist taking bites of their food, and you explain it's her breakfast a second time, again, not needed since you already mentioned that. If you haven't tried already, I suggest reading it out loud or putting it through google translate or something to read it for you. Some sections just read a little awkwardly.
I know I had a lot to say, but it's really not that bad. I've also seen you post a lot of work before, and you are getting better. Keep up the good work, and take your time.

[Anonymous No.21991438]

>>21991385
that opening is not terribly engaging

[Anonymous No.21991439]

>>21991073
Anything but yes is retarded incel or nu-alpha males (also incels.)
Men and women are people, yes, we have our differences based on sex, but I've only ever heard that it is literally impossible from people who view reality as a business where being friends with the opposite sex and not fucking is seen as some weird failure because they only place value in how many of the other sex you sleep with. Funny enough the only person I've personally heard say this (friend of a friend) has no GF and is a virgin who is coping about how he can't be friends with women because he is too alpha.

[Anonymous No.21991442]

>>21991385
Its strange how the first paragraph majes you feel that the story its going to be a light and comedic reading but then the rest of the text has a more flowering style that perhaps would fit something more dramatic

[Anonymous No.21991447]

>>21991437
Thank you anon. I see it. Now I know what they mean about being too close to your own work.

[Anonymous No.21991451]

>>21986870
Rolling for Ms. Attached

[Anonymous No.21991456]

>>21991424
If you're trying to write for genre fic audiences, much less web fiction, ignore anyone giving you prose advice (though credit to the anons trying to help), because unless it's offensively bad (yours is not) readers simply don't care.
The issue is 1.) it's not a story people on RR are looking for, and 2.) it doesn't stand out enough to appeal to the much smaller audience looking for regular fantasy.

[Anonymous No.21991479]

>>21991456
Thank you for the kind words anon. I appreciate ate criticism of prose. Tells me how much more I need to improve I think I want to reach the level just being half as good as rothfuss.
>>21991438
I thought so too. I knew having a "wake up in the morning" intro would be bad. Maybe I'll start her off just guiding traffic and she is the one that brings in the donuts for the office

[Anonymous No.21991514]

>>21991479
>rothfuss
What so you can not finish a trilogy too?

[Anonymous No.21991518]

>>21991385
I don't use Royal Road so I don't know what's typical and I don't know what's important.
But your prose strikes me as fancy but unpolished, which could be a bad combination (contra >>21991456). If somebody's prose is kind of shit but it's all short sentences with lots of line breaks then it's easy to put up with if you like the content. If the paragraphs are long and a little tedious then you might get bored sifting for the good stuff and we don't want that.
The more verbose your prose, the more words you have to cut, counterintuitive as that sounds. So it could use more editing. You can go back and deduplicate words, delete them, move them around, replace them. Make them all count. e.g.
>An earthy aroma entered inside the office of a group of three under-worked knights. The smell drifted around the room—immediately awakening the three in the vicinity.
There are some redundancies here:
>aroma/smell
>entered/inside
>office/room
>group/three/three
In this case I don't think the repetition is valuable. So you can juggle it around until the words merge so it takes less space. Maybe:
>An earthy aroma drifted into the office, immediately awakening the three under-worked knights.
All the same information, but without the mental stutter.
It really is something that's best done during editing, not writing. You have to re-read your work with fresh enough eyes to notice the wrinkles. Some people say to change the font and the text size and color. That might be worth a shot.

Other small issues that you'd be likely to notice during a careful reread:
>Darius scratched the back of his head, unable to formulate a response nor could he think of a way to remove Cassandra’s guard.
This reads weirdly—not sure if there's a formal rule, but the verbs on the left and right side of the nor don't match. "unable to formulate a response nor think of a way" works better for me.
>Usually, that job fell to Cassandra, the Striker of the group. Reeves was the Chariot, or one who generally led the front, and Adah herself was a bombardier, or a knight that specialized in long range attacks.
"Bombardier" isn't capitalized here.

It doesn't feel bad, only unfinished. Do keep going!

[Anonymous No.21991538]

>>21991518
Wow that's very helpful. Thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.21991539]

>>21991073
Well, yeah. Though it really depends on how attracted those two people are to one another, how much will power they both have and if they have any reasons not to hook up. Upbringing, being burnt from pervious relationships, already being in a relationship, plenty of reasons not to get together even if there is some attraction. There's also the case that your two characters get on well, but there's something about one or either of them which the other finds unattractive. It only becomes unrealistic if they're a good match and there's no reason not to get together.

[Anonymous No.21991578]

>>21991518
>Some people say to change the font and the text size and color.
with rr I paste from my word doc into the program and then do an editing pass in the window. then I paste it back into my word program and edit again. the change in style/font really does help

[Anonymous No.21991579]

>>21991385
Honestly anon, I think Royal Road is an absolute sham. Your not going to take off from there unless you're writing for a niche group and all those readers flock to you. Writing generic fantasy you're getting the numbers I'd expect.

>>21991424
I just accidentally clicked your link twice and it took me straight into chapter one each time, still haven't read a word. You should link the main page and not the chapter next time.

[Anonymous No.21991593]

>>21991157
1. It's awkward to close with a simile to "perdition" when you opened with a simile to "hell".

2. Words ending in -ing get old quickly when overused. They are abstract and force the reader to imagine several moments at once, rather than a single image. I would to cut back. E.g., if you have to add modifiers to "steel" you could use "molten".

3. You are too wordy in general. A lot of these these descriptions would be better with less information. You are trying to depict something as stark and brutal, and you would be better off letting that come through in your language.

4. Not to be a persnickety bitch, but lava is melted rock. I don't have context, but I would just call it melted metal, or maybe "slag".

[Anonymous No.21991600]

>>21990628
You've got plenty of time then, yeah? Read You are the Placebo and start healing your spine

[Anonymous No.21991608]

>>21991593
I second this. Only rather than lava, slag or melted metal I'd go with
>molten metal

[Anonymous No.21991610]

>>21991579
Oh sorry. I just figured people would want to read chapter 1 before anything else.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/67568/a-knight-of-valora-serenity

[Anonymous No.21991651]

>>21990089
First paragraph got me keking fine. Pls continue and keep posting pls.

[Anonymous No.21991665]

>>21990089
Most logically he meets a woman. But utterly confused why he's so attracted to breasts ass and pussy.

[Anonymous No.21991680]

>>21991157
I like it. I coud visualize it fine and it gave me a dreading feel similar to when I worked in a factory.

[Anonymous No.21991726]

>>21990089
>What's a good crazy direction I could take this in?
He meets a tranny and forms his concept of "woman" from those experiences, then meets an actual woman and hates her.

[Anonymous No.21991731]

>>21989749
>>21989749
>FortySixtyFour here. I do live in a trailer, and it's a shitty 40+ year old one that's not really fit to live in. That said...
>Making a living off of your writing can have less to do with making more money and more to do with spending less money.
You are an inspiration, and I say that with total sincerity.

[Anonymous No.21991742]

>>21991726
I hate to say this but the very first pornographic picture I stumbled across as a kid was a preop and I thought that's what a vagina looked like for several months until I saw a picture of a real one, to which my first thought was "where's her vagina?"

[Anonymous No.21991806]

>>21989749
I didn't realize you were a cat! Wow, you've really exceeded expectations!
Kidding aside...at least you live in an area with water. So much of the country is in a drought.
And more power to you for living your dream!

[Anonymous No.21991809]

>>21991806
>So much of the country is in a drought.
fortunately the rockies have had more snowfall this year than they've had in the last 20+. this summer the reservoirs are actually going to go up

[Anonymous No.21991812]

>>21990664
post your work or STFU

[Anonymous No.21991817]

>>21991665
>>21991651

I'm going to focus more on how he views women in a sort of mythical way like they are some extinct creature he's only read about in books and from what the old man has told him keep in mind this is a guy who was raised from birth out in the wilderness until his early 20s so he has a kind of skewered perception of reality having never encountering a woman because everyone died in a nuclear holocaust he will meet one but before he actually meets a woman who takes him to a city to try and potentially save humanity

[Anonymous No.21991842]

>>21991157
Take it or leave it but as a guy who works in steel mills here and there I have never heard of them as "refineries." Your experience may differ of course. Otherwise the actual description is spot on.

[Anonymous No.21991868]

>>21989760
Gaiaonline, 4chan's old nemesis website. It has an active roleplaying community, though you have to know how to format your posts and have a functioning layout. Pic related is a very basic layout (Not mine), for example. You use a picture of your character, the style depending on what the setting requests of you, and post it with your contributing text.

Honestly, I've searched the internet and this is the only website I've used that has brought me consistent enjoyment. Not everyone would agree. It has its downsides, like the fact that it has a lot of women on it, but its pros outweigh the cons for me. I'm aware not everyone would agree.

[Anonymous No.21991936]

>>21991174
This is a really good idea. Thanks for reading and for the suggestion anon.
>>21991180
>X but actually Y
Ah yeah, I struggle all the time with that and it's always tough to see when I do it. I was trying to describe something like pic related, but I don't know how effective it was. Thanks for reading and commenting man.
>>21991593
>>21991608
Thank you both very much for reading and for the feedback. I've been trying to make my prose a bit less simplistic but I still have some trouble with the issues you brought up. Not persnickety at all either. Been dying for other ways to describe melted steel so that's super useful, kek.
>>2199very much for reading and for the kind words anon. Honored you liked it as someone who's worked in a factory.
>>21991842
Kek, never actually worked in any sort of steel mill or factory so I'll take your work for it. Thanks for reading anon, really happy to hear the description felt accurate to you.

[Anonymous No.21991938]

When do I use "definitely" and when do I use "definitively"?

[Anonymous No.21991951]

>>21991938
Definite is when you are sure of something.
Definitive is for when a conclusion has been reached.
I am definitely sure that this example is the definitive way to show you the difference.

[Anonymous No.21992035]

>>21989749
I really admire your dedication anon. Not sure how much success you'll have or are having, but it's cool to see how dedicated you are to your art. Reminds me of McCarthy.
One monetary thing you should think about is how much money you're saving for the future. I would recommend just keeping a little aside in a money market or some safe investment just so you have something to go off if and when you become too old to work.
Good luck and God bless, dude. If you have any of your stories for sale I'd buy a copy.

[Anonymous No.21992045]

>>21988912
Like this >>21989663 anon said you just gotta power through certain parts of the story. You'll need to revise them later but it's better than stopping completely.

[Anonymous No.21992056]

I wish we had an erotica general. Anyways
which erotica premise sounds sexier to you?

>story about a cunty female boss finally being raped by her male subordinate

>femdom where cunty boss sexually dominates her female subordinate
both set in office settings

[Anonymous No.21992072]

>>21991936
Not that anon, but because I read Kierkegaard I write "X but actually Y" unironically, which he does in "Fear and Trembling" and found it quite powerful. But I try to write it ominously enough to imply something else is happening beneath the surface, and not just that I have clumsy description.

[Anonymous No.21992081]

>>21991938
>When do I use "definitely"
never
>and when do I use "definitively"?
never unless it comes before "proven" (or some synonym for proven), and even then it's usually a waste.

Both are shit words and will make your writing worse. If you want to convey a sense of certainty then don't qualify whatever you're saying.

[Anonymous No.21992085]

>>21992056
Top one.

[Anonymous No.21992090]

Do any of you actually read webnovels?

I find the quality of writing on Royal Road to be very low, even among very popular fics. There are very few exceptions.

Does the readership just not value good prose/characterisation? Or are the writers just not too good?

I'm planning to post there but concerned that my ability to write better than the competition will in fact be meaningless

[Anonymous No.21992125]

>>21992085
ok which female boss archetype is sexier
>middle aged "wine aunt" type that is subconsciously resentful that she wasted her best years climbing the business latter instead of having fun, and secretly wants to be "put in her place"
>bratty young type that did nothing to deserve her position and only got it because her dad has connections. secretly very insecure and sensitive

[Anonymous No.21992180]

>>21992090
People who care about prose read literary fiction.

[Anonymous No.21992184]

>>21992180
But I like both :/

[Anonymous No.21992185]

>>21992125
the top one will appeal to female readers
the bottom to male

[Anonymous No.21992197]

>>21992125
personally i prefer the top one just because i want an older woman to take her frustrations out on me
but that probably doesn't help if she's the one being raped

[Anonymous No.21992199]

>>21992184
People can appreciate good prose but they don't always care if the story is entertaining without it.

[Anonymous No.21992210]

>>21992185
who would the
>femdom where cunty boss sexually dominates her female subordinate
appeal to?

[Anonymous No.21992211]

>>21992090
I read alot there and i can safely say that the quality of yur writing is the last thing on their minds. The readers do not like multiple pov characterization. They want braindead thoughtless MC's who win after overcoming little to no adversity. They also do not like racial profiling or overly religious themes. Female MC's seem to do quite well there yet romance doesnt, make of that what you will.

[Anonymous No.21992241]

>>21992210
men. lesbians don't actually exist, but men like harems and this is just a fantasy based on that

[Anonymous No.21992253]

>>21992241
> men like harems
fuck that, it sounds like far too much work. a blow job on demand sounds great but having to cope with all the rest, sheesh.

[Anonymous No.21992277]

>>21992056
There have been multiple anons who've expressed interest in an erotica general before (including me) so I gave it a shot: >>21992274

[Anonymous No.21992288]

>>21992241
I'll probably go with the wine aunt premise then, women jilling to my stories sounds hot
>>21992277
nice, I'll post in it if I think of anything else to say or ask, or if someone else posts questions in it

[Anonymous No.21992297]

>>21992253
oh no doubt. men like the fantasy of harems just as women like the fantasy of rape. if I were the sultan and my word was law I could deal with a harem. in any other situation that scenario turns into multiple women you have to pick up after and who nag you constantly

[Anonymous No.21992314]

>>21992211
Thanks.

What about the one about the chicken? That one was very popular and didn't fit that mold as far as I could tell.

I'm doing progression fantasy and trying to give them as much of a power trip as I can while still writing well lol, but I worry that my values are just in the wrong place, or that my pacing isn't insanely fast enough for them. I can't write as mindlessly as people seem to on RR, it just feels ridiculous.

My world building is also excellent and I think really comes to life because it is written well. Do they like that?
Am I fucked?

[Anonymous No.21992356]

>>21992314
Beware of chicken is a power fantasy about gardening cultivation. The reason why its so successful (as near as i can tell) is because the MC does sweet fuck all, but stil - gets the girl - gets followers who respect him - gets power and prestige - gets money. The MC's defining traits are that he's just an average Joe who wants to be left alone, basically just lawful neutral.
So to sum up why it was successful is because its a lazy working cucks fantasy of winning.

So anon, what is your:
>MC
>Setting
>Power system
>Progression speed
???

[Anonymous No.21992377]

The constant interaction now with the internet was a mistake.

[Anonymous No.21992400]

I found RR readers like ridiculous MCs right now.
>Trees
>Rocks
>Chickens
>Ghost girls
>Other random ass shit

Somehow MC wins being "unique" and the perception that the MC wins in the most shonen anime shit ever with 0.00000001% chance of succeeding.

[Anonymous No.21992401]

>>21992180
Enough of your pathetic seething.
Post your writing, alleged tradcuck.
You don't have any, do you.

[Anonymous No.21992410]

>>21992401
I am definitely not the anon you think I am. I literally write scifi and fantasy, and I was just trying to answer the other anon's question.

[Anonymous No.21992433]

>>21992400
Its fucking infuriating too because on the RR threads people will complain about there being too much of this garbage and tropes they can't stand, then go on to consume more of it ad nauseam

[Anonymous No.21992440]

>>21992433
so its webtoon in written format, good to know

[Anonymous No.21992452]

>>21992400
It's the hook to make a story stand out from the crowd.

[Anonymous No.21992489]

I finally got my cover how I want it. Hopefully, I can keep it that way. No wonder authors don't usually have control over this stuff. I hate layout.

[Anonymous No.21992494]

>>21992211
>The readers do not like multiple pov characterization. They want braindead thoughtless MC's who win after overcoming little to no adversity. They also do not like racial profiling or overly religious themes
That's funny. Because that's my entire webnovel there. I don't care if it gains traction though. It's all about pushing myself to the limit and writing what I've held in my head.

[Anonymous No.21992503]

>>21992494
you do need some traction and reviews or you'll stagnate. Nobody improves by hiding themselves away from everyone else. Feedback is important.

[Anonymous No.21992510]

>>21992503
I'll write what I want! Daughters of Odin, take me to Valhalla!
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/67893/the-god-of-the-spark
>Reviews
I've been writing short stories since I had a laptop at 13 or something. And poetry before that. I didn't need reviews.

[Anonymous No.21992519]

>>21992510
Want to be added to the pastebin? It may draw many people but at least youll be seen somewhere and exist

[Anonymous No.21992539]

>>21992519
Sure, but /wg/ hasn't existed that long and I doubt it'll exist much longer since /lit/'s subculture changes like the weather. We used to do /crit/.

[Anonymous No.21992568]

Is there anywhere worth posting other than RR to gain a readership?

[Anonymous No.21992574]

>>21992568
>readership
Probably on a personal website like wordpress then you try to get on podcasts or make posts about it on Reddit for weird subreddits. That's how I found this:
https://twitter.com/aethuranpodcast?lang=en
Some guy was shilling it when I asked for recs.

[Anonymous No.21992588]

>>21992568
As an example, Worm was successful and it's 1.5 million words long. I think the guy writes other stuff now with heaps of Patrons on Patreon. Build it. And they will come.
https://parahumans.wordpress.com
Half the problem is burnout and IRL problems. But if you are organised and write ahead by at least ten days, then it should be fine.

[Anonymous No.21992614]

>>21992588
>>21992574

Yeah I just need to find that initial bump of readers. I'm pretty confident a certain type will really enjoy my fic. Any particular subs where I might get shilling?

I've written a lot of it already so I can be a lot more than 10 days ahead. I'm trying to be as calculated about this as possible.

I can have a wordpress and direct people there, but might it not be a good idea to direct them to RR so I can build followers/reviews on that platform and gain momentum?

[Anonymous No.21992631]

>>21992614
>but might it not be a good idea to direct them to RR so I can build followers/reviews on that platform and gain momentum?
Maybe but I remember that RR's admin team got mad people were pulling their books off to sell it on Amazon and all those get a "STUB" tag.
Plus you get way more analytics on Wordpress, like location, where people clicked the link, how long they stayed to read, etc.

[Anonymous No.21992638]

>>21992631
But how will people find me? I'd rather do a wordpress but I need the infrastructure / algo of RR to find readers. I can shill it on a couple reddits maybe but how many readers will I really find that way?

[Anonymous No.21992646]

>>21992638
You can post the first book on RR then move to a website later, I guess. If you're indecisive, I wouldn't recommend RR anyway, since the readers largely all read gamelit and the same progression stuff. Their comments are borderline retarded, e.g., "I liked how it had emotions in it."

[Anonymous No.21992662]

>>21992646
wdym, indecisive? Not offended just asking.

I've written 60+k already so I have something to sell on patreon and have a buffer to write ahead. I don't care about RR/vs not I just want to be able to make money on patreon and have dedicated readers, and will do whatever improves the probability of getting readers.

It's progression fantasy, but as I've said there's only so much I can pander to RR taste without writing... well, slop

[Anonymous No.21992673]

>>21987196
Elaborate

[Anonymous No.21992731]

>>21991385
The beginning is dry and dull. This should be too obvious to even say, but your story needs to grab the reader somehow, by an interesting activity or observation. Overwhelming people with mountainous paragraphs about nothing important is not the way.

Also, your story synopsis doesn't really tell what the whole thing is about. Something about crimes and a conspiracy, that's really, really vague. What sets your story apart from the 50,000 others on the site and makes it my time? Think about it.

[Anonymous No.21992733]

>>21992731
>makes it worth my time?
I just woke up

[Anonymous No.21992742]

>>21991385
im on chapter 4 atm. if you want, i can dm you a small review of what i thought of it and how you can improve it

[Anonymous No.21992745]

>>21991936
No problem. It's a decent description of the blast furnace and the caster parts of a steel mill.

In fact, here's a collection of pictures I took at a couple of jobs: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1N4M7BDTVW6MrRgWAku0HBp3DJZNuvpwk

The blast furnace was down during this time. I was about 150' in the air looking over Lake Michigan in the dead of night in early March. Sucked ass.

Other photos are from a tunnel underneath a strip where big blocks of steel are pressed into coils of sheet metal. Jets shoot water out to nearly half a football field to keep that under control. Makes the place humid on top of being hot. Mung water flows down there where I had to make welds for hydraulic lines. My FRCs glistened after I got dumped on. It was cramped in there too. Sucked ass.

Steel mills suck ass. They're a Grim Reaper to the East that beckons to me with a bony finger and a fat wad of cash. I sometimes need to pay the bills that way but I do not like it. It makes me appreciate everywhere else that I work at more.

I could go on but I don't know if any of this is useful to you. Thank you for reading this far if you did.

[Anonymous No.21992780]

>>21992494
Fantasy racial profiling is ok because those mouth breathing retards wont get it unless you slap them in the face with it.

[Anonymous No.21992976]

>>21992056
>>21992125
First one in both cases for me. Few fapsessions have been as enjoyable as watching haughty milfs be dominated.

[Anonymous No.21993108]

>>21986870
Mothballed Ancient Greek fantasy story here:
https://pastebin.com/pyzPv4mb
It got rejected from a magazine for being too mythic. I'd appreciate other comments or critiques.
>crit
>>21991157
>a workshop of hell
"from hell" sounds better to me in my head. You follow this with a sentence fragment, which isn't a no-no, but I don't enjoy them as much, especially on the second sentence. That sentence is also way too long, multi-clausal, and almost garbled. The imagery isn't flowing, nor is the rhythm of your prose. Too much noise without music. So cut it up into their own sentences until you can manage more.
>third sentence
Again, same problem. But this time it has more going for the imagery, since they're connected.
>Machines groaning frustratedly like beasts confined to perdition.
That doesn't add much since we already know it's like hell from the first sentence. It feels redundant, on top of being a bad cliche. It might have been better to emphasise the hellish imagery by just talking about the groans and being worked constantly.

[Anonymous No.21993227]

>>21991432
>cultivation
whats that?

[Anonymous No.21993238]

>>21991868
>like the fact that it has a lot of women on it
ew
anyways i think ill give it a go, definitely used the site like 15 years ago just to get a sickass avatar to post with, didn't know RP was actually reasonable over there. I don't really have pictures for characters I might use though, I find that being a requirement for posts to be weird, but I can definitely get over it. thanks for the suggestion!

[Anonymous No.21993239]

>>21992180
is there any online place like RR or wattpad but for (people's attempts at) literary fiction?

[Anonymous No.21993252]

im working on a high fantasty erotica with a story i am at least attempting to avoid being dogshit. im doing this mostly for fun and an excuse to write something more longform, i have no intention of being some freakazoid coomer obsessed with their weird smut writing. im also just personally curious as to how much (if any, if im being realistic) traction something like this can get. im only about 20k words in, i want to get closer to 100k before i just start publishing 1-2k chapters every day on RR or something and see what happens. a fun little experiment which i will link when the time is right. just had to make a post about it so i keep myself honest about actually putting it together.

[Anonymous No.21993291]

>>21993227
progression fantasy based on asian tropes, specifically chinese xianxia books.

[Anonymous No.21993394]

>>21992742
Just post it here I want to read your review too

[Anonymous No.21993412]

has anyone here published bit's of travel writing ?

[Anonymous No.21993416]

>>21993412
My wife rights for the travel section of a finance magazine. We sometimes go to rather nifty places on their dime.

What do you want to know?

[Anonymous No.21993418]

>>21993416
who duz she right fer?

[Anonymous No.21993423]

>>21993416
I have written a long piece on seeing Italy by train, i was curious how to get it published , or even how to get into the business

[Anonymous No.21993434]

>>21993423
Well it's all tied up with the hotel and travel business. Some place wants to promote an 'experience' and they sponsor the magazine to send the writer there to have a look at it. Most travel writing is I'm afraid a just dvertisement. Try sending it into a few magazines just make sure it's not too big.

[Anonymous No.21993436]

>>21993434
That sounds really cumffy, can you tell more?

[Anonymous No.21993456]

>>21993436
It is extremely comfy. We also mostly do Italy since she is herself half Italian, and I sometimes manage to tag in as her photographer. Though I promise you after 10, all resorts get extremely samey. Hence the gimmicks of building them in abandoned castles and underground and serving all the food while naked or whatever. That was this one place where everything from the bed, chairs and tables to the to the cooking implements and utensils was made out of white carrara marble. After a day of this you felt like you were in a morgue.

[Anonymous No.21993466]

>>21993456

And is it all advertisement ? is there a place for more adventure writing ?

[Anonymous No.21993484]

>>21993466
Keep in mind my experience is an as an outsider looking in, but the hospitality industry is what most of these magazines survive on. Maybe National Geographic or something is an exception, but if you read about the different wines of Calabria odds are a local association sponsored it. Even when there is no name dropping it's usually one or another industry trying to promote itself more generally. Or perhaps the magazine trying to break into that world looking to attract patronage.
Still do send your work around if it's good it'll find a place.

[Anonymous No.21993489]

>>21993484
I think it's good but it's more focused on regular people and their lives in small Italian towns. It's all very light

[Anonymous No.21993494]

>>21993489
Well I'm worried I might have dissuaded you from trying to get it published.
My one bit of advice would be to try and sell it tomorrow journalism rather than travel writing in the commercial sense.

[Anonymous No.21993501]

>>21993494
Why tomorrow? Fucking autocorrect.

Somehow as journalism*

[Anonymous No.21993504]

>>21993501
Thanks. I Will. Can you give me the name of the magazine she writes for?

[Anonymous No.21993507]

>>21993504
How to Spend It.
It's part of the Financial Times umbrella.

[Anonymous No.21993509]

>>21993507
Shit dawg.

[Anonymous No.21993516]

>>21993456
>>21993484
Reading this made me extremely angry and i hope this a LARP.
I work two different hell jobs just to survive while trying to make it as a writer while you get to just be happy ? FUCK OFF.

[Anonymous No.21993531]

>>21993516
Calm down. Also I'm not saying I made it as a writer my wife did, and she's mostly doing commercial work which you probably wouldn't consider real writing anyway being and then sufferable pseud and all.

But yes, for what it's worth I am quite happy, and I hope things work out for you too

[Anonymous No.21993532]

>>21993516
what a terrible nigger mentality you have. your life sounds hellish, but do what you can to improve it, and lashing out at others for daring to not be living a nightmare is not the answer to any of your problems.

[Anonymous No.21993536]

>>21993516
Insecurity breeds jealousy / jealousy creates envy / envy causes self-destruction / a hater is made up of all three. Just remember you are an opportunity away from being hated on yourself.

[Anonymous No.21993548]

>>21993532
>>21993531
>>21993536

You are right i would not consider it to be real writing . Your whore wife is in advertising , a bastardization of our art, and when the day comes she will be gagged, raped and then thrown into a pit with all the others and promptly set on fire.

Now go read the bible.

[Anonymous No.21993555]

>>21992742
Please thank you.

[Anonymous No.21993560]

>>21989026
This. But hey, the better for me.

I'll keep on using ChatGPT as a personal editor, a interactive personal wiki, a synonym bank and a "vibe/sense" checker. It's like having a free intern that helps me power through the first draft.

Can't wait for GPT5 to help me write even faster.

[Anonymous No.21993562]

>>21993548
Fuken based.
I didn't even think you're being ironic this is what most pol Christians are like on here.

[Anonymous No.21993572]

>>21993548
>advertising , a bastardization of our art
I dont even disagree but you sound like a horrible human being

[Anonymous No.21993593]

whats a good place for my dystopian (realistic) scifi piece?

[Anonymous No.21993599]

>>21992081
>>21991938

As always, rule are never absolute. I like "definitively" as a word though.

>"Do you love me ?"
>"Definitively."
I feel like this gives a vibe to the relationship between the two characters.

>On the third day, Paul was once more late to work. Yet he swore that the next day, he would definitively stop going to bed so late.
I feel like it adds to the lie Pauls tells himself. It works to me.

[Anonymous No.21993606]

>>21993548
>a bastardization of our art,
you quite literally do not write

[Anonymous No.21993608]

>>21993599
definitively is used incoherently in both of the examples you gave

[Anonymous No.21993617]

>>21993599
nah, these just read like you don't know what the word means

[Anonymous No.21993651]

>>21991385
It doesn’t read like you enjoy writing at all.

[Anonymous No.21993862]

Past bump limit and on page 6

New thread
>>21993852

[Anonymous No.21993890]

>>21993862
You can go until page 10

[Anonymous No.21993966]

>>21987581
you could continue writing even if it's offline. It will sync once you have an internet connection

[Anonymous No.21994031]

>>21993890
You’re mom can chug dick to page 10

[Anonymous No.21994106]

>>21993593
neo-Kowloon City

[Anonymous No.21994159]

>>21994106
I meant like a place to post it
I love Kowloon too though, such an interesting place

[Anonymous No.21994529]

>>21987542
Like others have said, it depends on the character and what you want for the story. Does it ultimately have a big impact on the story or nah?

That being said, a lot of books that show a virgin having sex for the first time usually waves it off as no big deal. That is, of course, if the main story has nothing to do with sex

[Anonymous No.21994534]

>>21987805
Women who are evil tend to be very manipulative. Evil men can be like this as well but a woman villain has this cranked to 100 because of the fact that, unless she's a witch or has a machine gun, they cannot enact overt power in the way men do. They also have the power of vajayjay over men, so there's that