/wg/ Writing General

[Anonymous No.23130968]

"Super Burger" edition

Previous: >>23113621

/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.

Simple guides on writing:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHdzv1NfZRM
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whPnobbck9s
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKcbvioxFk

Thread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJQSWg5Vh80

[Anonymous No.23130977]

Is it possible to have a story with a pure evil main character and have readers not assume it's edgelord self-insert fanfiction?

[Anonymous No.23131016]

>>23130977
American Psycho....

[Anonymous No.23131022]

>>23130977
nope. especially if it's in first person.

[Anonymous No.23131032]

>>23130977
You need to get readers to root for your character somehow

[Anonymous No.23131034]

>>23131032
>you need blah blah blah
lolno

[Anonymous No.23131047]

Whenever someone talks about rules or guidelines or techniques or methods or patterns what they're really talking about is formula. Following the advice they give only ever leads to formulaic writing.
If you follow a formula to write, you are a hack.

[Anonymous No.23131052]

Everyone always says there are no rules but nobody seems to understand that there are no rules.

[Anonymous No.23131086]

This thread really needs a split for people who write with the intent to publish/have an audience, because anytime advice toward that topic is brought up, the pseuds swarm and derail the whole thread. Writing litfic and writing genre fic is fundamentally different. /wg/ in its current state is useless become the two groups just bicker endlessly with each other

[Anonymous No.23131089]

>>23131086
>litfic and writing genre fic
The distinction between the two is utterly imaginary

[Anonymous No.23131093]

>>23131086
>the two groups just bicker
I haven't seen anything but litfic writers insulting genre fic, never the other way around

[Anonymous No.23131110]

>>23131089
I don't know, litfic tends to be far less formulaic and less rigid than genre fic. There are some exceptions of course but please don't be annoying, we're speaking in mostly true generalities: genre fic, to be marketable, follows a lot of "rules" that litfic simply doesn't

But I'll correct myself and say we need a split based on writer's intent, because the situation really is untenable. There's a fundamental difference between writing to 'create the next great novel' and wanting to be a published novelist, and this difference is what causes these threads to invariably go to shit

[Anonymous No.23131112]

>he thinks playing to the gallery will grant him a publisher/audience
https://youtu.be/cNbnef_eXBM?si=horx7WlktFuGlPpA

[Anonymous No.23131119]

>>23131112
I'm sorry, you're arguing that writing to market doesn't work for getting an audience? You serious?

[Anonymous No.23131127]

>>23131119
Prove me wrong. Protip: you can't

[Anonymous No.23131133]

>>23131032
So the character has to save a cat early on?

[Anonymous No.23131140]

>>23131110
They go to shit because you people are a bunch of assholes.

[Anonymous No.23131143]

>>23131133
Not necessarily making him moral. Have you considered making your pure evil character very funny? And give him interesting characters to bounce off of

[Anonymous No.23131152]

>>23131127
Sorry, I can only assume you're a troll, since you're the one negating a commonly accepted fact. You'll need to provide significant and compelling reasoning for me to respond again

[Anonymous No.23131154]

saw writing posted but the new thread was already up and i refuse to go back, please repost them now

[Anonymous No.23131155]

>>23130968
This is my first short story, I would appreciate any feedback
https://mega.nz/file/hpghxBwI#7gbi2cvW9aSFDOazz51sr-QFrfcfVWKGUqGoR52QRv0

[Anonymous No.23131158]

>>23131086
It seems all of the people writing for an audience/money have neither. Just peddling their wastebin drippings since 2021, and none save FourSixtyFour, who ironically is a massive outlier as a royalroad/Aethon writer, have made any bones with their schlock.
Perhaps what we really need is a collective understanding that shit is shit, and hiding behind the veil of that eternal unwashed mass that surely eats whatever you place before them does not provide you immunity against the very real fact of the poor quality of your fiction.

And if you insist until the bitter end, which we rapidly approach, that your rigid adherence to formula(this adherence of course more tenuous than you realize as there are many formulas for good and pleasing sentences that have obviouslly passed your notice), is a winning strategy, then do not become incensed when people show blatant disregard for you as a writer. The pain of dealing with you types is that you proudly wave the banner of assembly line fictionists and yet cringe when someone doubts the praiseworthiness of tis endeavour.
You've funneled all of the collective writerly energy on /lit/ into this "selling writer" endeavour, yet none of you sell. You sell no books, you receive no acclaim, you never improve, and you remain here nearly half a decade on getting into deja vu inducing flamewars with other anons in the same state of stasis.

Try something new. Seriously.

[Anonymous No.23131162]

>>23131110
>genre fic, to be marketable, follows a lot of "rules"
I like how you put rules in quotes because it absolutely doesn't.
Genre itself is a myth dreamed up by marketing departments.

[Anonymous No.23131166]

>>23130977
It sounds like maybe you want to write edgelord self-insert fanfiction, in which case you should just do that. It's fine.
If that's not what you want then one solution is to make the main character deeply uncool. Antkind's main character is incredibly pathetic and unlikable. I wouldn't say he's evil but if he were then it still wouldn't be that.
Of course that means he isn't much fun to fantasize about being. If you want a character who's fun to fantasize about being then edgelord self-insert fanfiction really isn't a bad choice. It still pays to be artful about it of course, to avoid making it unnecessarily annoying to read.

[Anonymous No.23131167]

>>23131152
>a commonly accepted fact
Among whom exactly? The snake oil salesman who wrote you a set of "rules" to follow?

[Anonymous No.23131170]

>>23131140
That's also true, but 4chan will always have trolls and assholes. A lot of discussion that would otherwise be normal and even somewhat productive gets upended because some people write to make "high art" or "literature" and some people write to make stuff that will get them an audience/published, and since this is a distinct clash of purpose, it provokes assholery between the two groups (as all such schisms do).
Even if the threads would be slower because of it, /wg/ really does feel like it needs a split

[Anonymous No.23131178]

>>23131170
This post reeks of insecurity
>What? You're making "art?" W-well, MY trite formulaic garbage is a-actually gonna get ME p-published and famous! So ha! HA!

[Anonymous No.23131179]

>>23131158
I wrote for an audience and succeeded, actually. Though I've been using /wg/ progressively less because of people like you

[Anonymous No.23131184]

>>23131110
Dispense with this shit seriously. I shouldn't double dip but you people drive me crazy with this. Stop partititioning quality fiction into lit and genre. It hamstrings you. None of you can shine Le Guin's shoes, you can't craft a sentence with the music and imagery of Clark Ashton Smith, you can't craft the inviting and soul stirring worlds of gene wolfe. Stop maligning genre fiction by insisting that all good and interesting and unique aspects of fiction lie among the slim numbers of "realist literature".

And stop insisting that the aim of the "anti schlock" posters is the next great novel. The aim of every one is simply to write a good novel. A good novel. Have some respect for yourself and your writing. You people aim low because you doubt your ability to reach any heights.

[Anonymous No.23131185]

>>23131178
Not sure why it would reek of insecurity when I make a full time living writing, this thread is really sad.

[Anonymous No.23131190]

>>23131184

[Anonymous No.23131199]

>>23131185
>I make a full time living
But is what you're writing any good? If not, you can make however much money you want, you'll still be a hack

[Anonymous No.23131215]

>>23131199
Which is why I said we should split the thread based on people who just want to write "for fun" fiction and people who are trying to write the next "great piece of literature". I'm perfectly content writing stuff people simply like to read. I have an audience of 10s of thousands and make a living writing. By your standards it probably isn't 'good', but it's good to me because it's fun and people like it, subscribe, and chat about it in my discord. That was my goal when I set out as an author
And I try to provide advice to people with similar goals, because stuff like 'writing to market' is simply accepted among professionals, but then the shit-flinging begins
I don't really know why I tried, never mind, go at it /wg/

[Anonymous No.23131222]

>>23131155
neato

[Anonymous No.23131227]

>>23131086
>>23131110
I exclusively write fan fiction. I barely know any rules and I'm quite bad at plotting. I compose nice sentences and write about ideas that compel me and sometimes it's popular and sometimes it flops. Right now I'm trying to hint at an elaborate alternate history through casual remarks (Ada or Ardor style) and my readers are okay with it because I tell nice jokes and they expect the main characters to kiss at the end.
Which bucket would you put me in?

[Anonymous No.23131246]

>>23131215
You imagine that because you followed a set of rules (formula) you were granted your success. This is a delusion.

[Anonymous No.23131261]

>>23131112
authors have often discussed targeting markets and 'playing to the gallery', there are writers paid to write books for series that aren't there own, etc.
ironically this is a huge deal in the music industry. bowie isnt talking about making money, he's talking about making good music
you ignorant faggot fuck

[Anonymous No.23131288]

I respect the author that people read and enjoy, not the gaylord who thinks their prose is good (it isn't).

[Anonymous No.23131297]

>>23131246
No, I'm certain if I didn't target the genres I did with razor focus, and play on certain popular tropes, I wouldn't have nearly the same levels of success. I think you're the one operating under a delusion. Certain types of stories sell better than others. It's just a fact of the world. It seems crazy to me some people can't accept that. It's so obvious to verify too, you just go to any web serial site and see certain tags always trending--or going to amazon and seeing how much higher BSRs average trending romance books get than, say, horror sci-fi, or whatever

[Anonymous No.23131310]

>>23131184
99% of modern genre fic customers have never read any of the authors you mentioned and if you made them try they'd drop them within ten pages for being "weird and boring" and go back to ya slop or litrpg or star wars novels. if you actually think those examples cherry-picked for their "respectability" are in any way representative of the 2024 genre landscape then you are operating under "mcu is the new iliad" levels of delusion

[Anonymous No.23131330]

>>23131016
ironic that hollywood turned it into a movie with an edgelord self-insert anyway

[Anonymous No.23131352]

>>23131310
Le Guin is a very popular author. But you're right. Why bring in those names when your philosophy wont bring you near to the level of Adrian Tchaikovsky or Ada Palmer. Being completely barefaced with you, the energeic plots and stimulating prose of Will Wight are far beyond your sights.

[Anonymous No.23131353]

>>23131288
cool, so female-written romances about being courted by a tall millionaire are by far the most respectable books on earth, and you worship the twitter karens that write them as geniuses. right?

[Anonymous No.23131359]

>>23130968
My god, baalbuddy is such a gem.

[Anonymous No.23131368]

>>23131288
Your ontology leaves you eternally unsatisfied. You venerate "those who sell" a category of person that is so broad as to resist clar definition, only demarcated by moving a certain amount of books that you have never and will never sell. You discard any aspirations to "artistry" in your second sentence, and dismiss the idea of being satisfied with any quality of your work other than books sold. And so, having sold no books or at at least not a respectable number of books, and denying yourself any attempts at mastery, you will always be a frustrated and unsuccessful artist by any metric.
This is who leads us now.

[Anonymous No.23131392]

>>23131086

[Anonymous No.23131405]

>>23131297
>this genre does better than that genre
Genres are imaginary

[Anonymous No.23131409]

Writers of /lit/ tell me, the ghost of Charles Brockden Brown, your litfic premise.

[Anonymous No.23131421]

>>23131409
Define "litfic"

[Anonymous No.23131425]

>>23131352
my dude (or are you a woman? you think like one), you can't just thesaurus-replace "honest" with "barefaced" to look smarter, barefaced has a specific pejorative connotation in english, as in "barefaced lie", when you use it wrong you sound like a retard trying too hard. this is the kind of poor grasp of language you end up with when you read nothing but stupid shit with a dragon on the cover

[Anonymous No.23131429]

>>23131421
Able to be read in a graduate literature class without listing the genre in the course heading.

[Anonymous No.23131433]

>>23131425
Don't stoop to this. It's embarrassing.
If you have nothing substantive to say then say nothing.

[Anonymous No.23131435]

>>23131429
How about some woke shit about someone overcoming gender confines

[Anonymous No.23131447]

>>23131392
dude people are pseuding all over the thread literally as you post that. and it happens every thread. do you not use /wg/?

[Anonymous No.23131450]

>>23131405
your writing is imaginary

[Anonymous No.23131455]

>>23131409
litfic these days often begins with a fantastical prmeise. Say, a school for girls where they learn to levitate. As the book unfolds you come to understand that it's another ponderous exploration of the internal workings of the most mundane sort of person. Still. the dominance of pure realist fiction(if this ever truly existed), is ended.

Anyway. A fella accurately predicted a world ending calamity but it turns out it's 400 years away. Five years later nobody really cares about him and he's squeezing out a pitiful living doing online tarot readings. he decides to create fake predictions. hijinks ensue. A spellbinding and riveting tour de force. A sparkling, powerful, prophetic, stunning, explosive, sonorous, and profound meditation/exploration of the mind/soul/spirit/psyche. Currently in revisions.

[Anonymous No.23131458]

>>23131447
>muh pseud
you will honestly never make it
>a-actually i've sold 1 million books they just go to another school
never going to make it. not a chance

[Anonymous No.23131461]

>>23131455
I'm a fan of Moore and Robbins so a fantastical premise is well and good as long as there is something that makes it a novel instead of various alternatives that read more like the kind of shit Don Quixote lampooned.

I like your premise, I'd read it and forget about it a week later.

[Anonymous No.23131516]

>>23131433
stoop to what? i'm explaining a mistake you're making so you don't have to look like a retard again. would you rather people not tell you when you have food stuck to your face? you are specifically praising the language of genre novels while demonstrating you're confused about language, how is that not "substantive?" i'm just supposed to trust your assessment that dingus mcfart the author of dragon ninjas saga has a divine prose style when you can't write a 4chan post without tripping over your own feet?

[Anonymous No.23131531]

>>23130968
SF or fantasy, what's the "based" choice?

[Anonymous No.23131536]

>>23131531
obviously underage erotica

[Anonymous No.23131538]

>>23131531
Both both both both is good

[Anonymous No.23131550]

>>23131516
This is very embarrassing for me to take bait like this but anyhow
The pejorative sense of barefaced is clearly maintained. When I invoke Will Wight, a popular author of wuxia(aka Royal Road slop) as a target forever beyond your grasp, I'm descending into mockery. Its use denotes a shift in tone from genuine exploration of authors within SFF that possess a level of technical skill that at least brushes against the praiseworthy realm, to saying that you can't even lick the scum from a slopwriter's boots.

Additionally, any good writer morphs the strict definition of a word if it fits the vibe of a sentence. The real heavy hitters. We aren't on the same level, do not respond to me again.

[Anonymous No.23131640]

>>23131550
what's embarrassing is that you would write all this nonsense to lie about a mistake everyone can see you made. you didn't "morph a definition" lmao, you used a word wrong because you were unfamiliar with it. you're the sort of thesaurus-addicted insecure brainlet that would replace "it's okay" with "it at least brushes against a praiseworthy realm" and feel good about it. i beg you, start reading books without dragons in them, it's not too late. go brush against a realm where they know what words mean

[Anonymous No.23131659]

>>23131640
>n-no everyone can see you made a mistake!!
>y-you're just making post hoc rationalizations!!
You took your shot and missed man it happens. Don't dig in. You had nothing to say but you were mad so you had to fire something off. That was the best you could do and it was a dud. We're all anonymous so you can just slink off into the aether and lick your psychological wounds.
God, word choice. What an barefaced reach. Have some shame.

[Anonymous No.23131708]

>>23131659
lol i actually shamed you into writing a whole post almost normally other than the nonsensical reference to "aether." just keep writing simple shit like "took your shot and missed" from now on instead of all the thesaurus nonsense and you will slowly improve

[Anonymous No.23131735]

>>23130968
i just had a really tasty burger at a downtown brick walled burger bar (alone)

[Anonymous No.23131930]

[Anonymous No.23132025]

>>23130968
What is a good length / word count for a manifesto
I have a lot to say about my bullies and the stacies that enable them. And my """"""""""friend"""""""""" who stole my scholarship.

[Anonymous No.23132030]

>>23131458
I guess the money hitting my bank account is a psyop by the government

[Anonymous No.23132059]

>>23131531
>fantasy novel
>magic and elves
>dwarves and dragons and shit
>main character stumbles into a dungeon
>it's full of high tech shit
>turns out all the ancient "magic" and relics they use are just hyper advanced pieces of tech that they misunderstood

[Anonymous No.23132062]

>>23132025
i give you permission to be a free man, break free of the system you've been a victim of, and live your new life. this begins right now
what do you choose to do with your new life?

[Anonymous No.23132105]

>>23132062
*starts putting nails in a pipe*

[Anonymous No.23132151]

>>23131735
Good for you, anon.

[Anonymous No.23132158]

>>23131435
Nah. That falls into the genre of LGBTQ+ fiction.

[Anonymous No.23132274]

>>23131368
didnt read

[Anonymous No.23132282]

thread split when?

[Anonymous No.23132307]

>>23132105
Yes, it's called tamping. It's how you practice the fine art of the pipe. I already knew you kids don't read but now it's clear why none of you can write. Robot dick filled with artificial fruit juice is no substitute for the real thing.

[Anonymous No.23132375]

>>23132282
if you make your own thread (nothing is stopping you), i will post in it at least 1 time

[Anonymous No.23132436]

>>23132282
/wg/ as it is is already slow enough to sometimes risk archiving, the reality is that nobody writes (even the people in this thread don't lmao) and so to survive as a general, slop lords and pseudointellectuals must coexist. If they had a messy divorce both generals would die/archive constantly

[Anonymous No.23132580]

>>23132436
Wild, because whenever I bring up writing a book to people it seems like everybody else writes too.

[Anonymous No.23132657]

>>23132580
name one

[Anonymous No.23132676]

How should I go about planning my book? I'm not entirely sure if I should formulate it out before writing scenes out or if I should just raw dog it.

[Anonymous No.23132724]

>>23131222
Thanks :3

[Anonymous No.23132906]

>>23130968
I don't know if I have the life experience, struggles, or the wisdom to ever be a good writer.

[Anonymous No.23132909]

I am trying to write song lyrics but all I ever come up with is crappy poetry. Does anyone know anything about this?

[Anonymous No.23132916]

I was just scrolling through some self published books, and I noticed that probably 75% of them are bored housewife romance schlock.
Then it occurred to me: statistically speaking, whatever I write is probably going to end up on the same level as this mediocre housewife shit
How do I tap into the inner masculinity that caused virtually every regions entire canon to be written by men?

[Anonymous No.23132924]

>>23132676
I have a general idea of what's gonna happen each chapter, and an outline of the characters, then go from there. I'm a compulsive re-writer though so idk

[Anonymous No.23132938]

>>23132909
Write what you know.

[Anonymous No.23133170]

>>23132938
I don't think that the subject is the problem. I think that I have a hard time knowing how to structure it.

[Anonymous No.23133189]

>>23132909
>all I ever come up with is crappy poetry
So...song lyrics?

[Anonymous No.23133192]

>>23132909
If you're having trouble with the words, start with the beat/sounds.

[Anonymous No.23133212]

Is it more profitable to sell my novel on amazon or google play book?

[Anonymous No.23133221]

>>23132676
Different things work for different people. Some rawdog it, some plan major events and what needs to happen in between, some make a list of events per chapter. Try something and see if you need more/less planning.

[Anonymous No.23133282]

>>23131930
>Or it was that what she wanted
was this meant to be
>Or it was that which she wanted

also, paragraphs

[Anonymous No.23133312]

>first arc of the story is about the main character climbing out of an ancient desolate city
>beta readers liked it
>live web readers liked it
>editor is bitching at me for "nothing happening" for the duration

Out of all the fantasy I've read countless books have PROTRACTED "travel through dangerous, uninhabited region" sequences that factor into FUCK-ALL but no it's mine that is too long
fuck off

[Anonymous No.23133374]

>>23133312
maybe you haven't layered enough plot/character progression?

[Anonymous No.23133391]

Were those three YouTube videos linked in the OP useful to you guys?

[Anonymous No.23133403]

>>23133391
sure. why are you asking?

[Anonymous No.23133402]

>>23133312
>I've read countless books have PROTRACTED "travel through dangerous, uninhabited region" sequences
Me too, and I hated every last one of them

[Anonymous No.23133423]

>>23133403
just wondering

[Anonymous No.23133426]

how do (you) outline? what makes your way work for you?

>>23133423
they're super useful concepts. sometimes contrarian retards will get triggered when hearing something as simple as 'show don't tell' being parroted, but despite how often it's thrown around people really still don't seem to understand it.

[Anonymous No.23133581]

>>23133426
I always think of this when I hear "show don't tell"

[Anonymous No.23133584]

>>23133426
>how do (you) outline?
I spend a long time throwing things into a notebook, then start putting themes and characters together into something coherent that expresses what I want, while also building the illusion of a general plot. Some of the notes and vignettes become part of the outline. The outline itself is
>Chapter
>scene
>thematic focus
>excerpts of any reference material
>starting point
>end goal for the scene and chapter
Then I write. I usually have about 2/3rds charted out or with clear notes of what I want before saying fuck it and switching over to Writing. If it isn't fucked, I can write all the way through and only do minor fixes and a little pantsing. If it is fucked, it's back to carrying around a notebook 24/7.

[Anonymous No.23133719]

>>23133282
>paragraphs
No.

[Anonymous No.23133744]

>>23133581
| ||
|| |_

[Anonymous No.23133803]

>>23133581
"Anon walked up the stairs" IS showing.
"Anon thought about walking up the stairs," is telling.

[Anonymous No.23133831]

>>23131086
All anons need to do is rightly divide the word of truth and not get upset because another doesn't write what he writes.
Have the foresight to know when not to reply.

[Anonymous No.23133888]

>>23133312
Is the editor a woman? That would make sense if that were the case. But is it any surprise an industry gatekeeper has no fucking idea what people actually like?

[Anonymous No.23133892]

>>23133312
>beta readers liked it
>live web readers liked it
Also anon, tell me where you find these mysterious things

[Anonymous No.23133898]

>>23132916
Unironically open yourself to God and read a lot. Also write and refine your prose and your way of expressing yourself

[Anonymous No.23133901]

>>23132676
Everyone has their own thing but the only way I managed to finish my first manuscript was with a prewrite. Here's what I did:

>divide the book into parts, each representing an important moment in the narrative
>divide each part into its chapters. Write 1-3 sentences summarizing the events in each chapter
>write each chapter and rawdog the fine details unless you want to otherwise
>let the characters take a life of their own
My first manuscript obviously wasn't good but at least I could organize myself enough to picture the whole thing clearly. Also, giving myself the space to rawdog it was also importantn cause I felt it too constraining to have EVERYTHING spelled out

[Anonymous No.23134062]

>>23133312
>beta readers liked it
>live web readers liked it
A little late to worry about editors when half the world seems to have seen it already

[Anonymous No.23134189]

>>23133312
What does it even mean for something to happen?

[Anonymous No.23134238]

>>23133901
>Also, giving myself the space to rawdog it was also importantn cause I felt it too constraining to have EVERYTHING spelled out
I don't think anyone writing can make anything of value that way. One of the best surveys of professional writers of the 20th century that we have suggests that most write from some nearly unconscious place and even meticulous outlines are something that becomes ignored or excluded or written around in some kind of equally mysterious process.

I know a few people who ride the besom backwards, so to speak, and have no idea what they're doing until they're halfway through a first draft, but I think even they know that they're headed to the Sabbat. It's scary to watch but damn it has some good results. Conversely, even the more analytic types aren't micromanaging at the level of action.

[Anonymous No.23134270]

>Have idea
>Think it's good
>Randomly find out it's a worse idea than something already done before in a B tier 80s film
I'm probably going to stick with my cop vs serial killer idea then.
>>23130977
American Psycho does it well (the book version), you have to define them a lot as something more normal before they turn fully evil. Usually this is done with making them "relatable" the Joker film was the biggest thing for this in main thing along with Taxi driver and Fight Club. Someone who starts out as something you can consider normal that falls deeper into dark desires. Someone who is always pure evil won't be liked unless they are an antagonist. The protagonist should always have something to achieve and strive for that the reader should hope they should strive for that goal, but it turns darker and darker until it's unknown if the reader wants to like them after a while but just enough to fuel the desire to keep on reading.

[Anonymous No.23134333]

>>23134270
Falling Down is a good movie example. It starts off as relatable and even (anti)heroic but doesn't go full antagonist until the end, and even then, tries to leave some shred of humanity in D-fens to make it tragic. The real question is
>Why would I want to read this?
and the answers that aren't
>I wouldn't.
tend to be classical tragedies or the modern equivalent that skirts the problem of evil with the premise that you mention of someone ostensibly relatable falling into dark desires.

[Anonymous No.23134362]

>>23134333
Protags have to be likeable/enjoyable to a degree. They can be an asshole, but they need justification. A lot of writing is making everything feel like there is justification, even if it is a sick and twisted sense of justification, since that justification ties the reader into the protag's actions. The only times where no justification is needed is for a sense of horror for a monster which wouldn't work for a protag. Even Anton in no country for old men had a sense of logic that was believable.

[Anonymous No.23134364]

>>23134238
Makes sense. The magic of writing for me is the fact that I feel as if I'm telling a story that already exists and I'm just the messenger. Sometimes I'll have to problem solve some writer's block but most of the time it's just a matter of letting the story unfold organically

[Anonymous No.23134452]

>>23134362
Womanbrain moment

[Anonymous No.23134478]

>>23134452
everything anon said is correct you shit writer

[Anonymous No.23135105]

>>23134189
every scene should serve a purpose. the purpose is generally character growth or moving the plot unless you have a good reason to do something else.
simply having scene upon scene where the story isn't moving, and the characters are in limbo while someone climbs through caverns is FUCKED
or any sort of action or meandering scene guilty of the same thing

[Anonymous No.23135182]

>>23135105
Rookies do it when they pay attention to pacing for the first time, but don't know why and how a more seasoned asshole of note paces by building and releasing tension using what looks similar, but is most often much more subtly interesting and progressive than it appears.

[Anonymous No.23135308]

Feel like I have too many voices in my head. And they all hate each other. When I write every author voice doesn't really feel like me at all. I can't describe it. I don't think I'm meant to write. I can't know who I am and I have nothing to say.

[Anonymous No.23135315]

>>23133170
then model your first songs after songs that you enjoy. Specifically, how they are structured. Copy the masters.

[Anonymous No.23135550]

What should my RoyalRoad story be about? Serious answers only

[Anonymous No.23135624]

>>23135550
If you want to be successful on RR then a litrpg isekai power fantasy with a harem and lots of gay shit.

[Anonymous No.23135895]

>>23135624
both harem and gay shit is unpopular on rr, or at least not meta popular (what commonly hits trending and most read this week), please don't give advice if you don't know what you're talking about

[Anonymous No.23135941]

>>23131409
The life of a tyrant, from his birth to his demise. Inspired on dictator novels from Latin America. But with a relatively positive look on the whole concept. I plan to give him several foils and other allegorical characters.

[Anonymous No.23136020]

>>23134189
>what does it even mean for something to happen
Narrative drive. Goals, conflict, outcome (usually disaster).

[Anonymous No.23136053]

>>23136020
Why do you shill this book so much? Not asking in a rude way, just curious. I read it and didn't find it that useful. honestly if you want advice on making marketable fiction why not learn from someone who actually did it like Sanderson who has tons of lectures posted? Or Jim Butcher who has a blog of writing advice? Or Palahnuik who has a book on writing? Or even King, though I didn't read his.
I just didn't find 'Techniques of a Selling Writer' all that insightful. Plus I don't trust people who scream 'this is how you do it!!!' when they haven't done it themselves, but even so I went in with an open mind

[Anonymous No.23136086]

>>23136053
Because it has a lot of useful basic info for people who know nothing about writing...like the people in this thread.

[Anonymous No.23136184]

>>23136086
Yeah but i think there's way better sources like what I mentioned, feel like you glossed over that

[Anonymous No.23136322]

>>23136184
Your counterargument was little more than "I just didn't like it".

[Anonymous No.23136381]

>>23136322
I'll emphasize
>Plus I don't trust people who scream 'this is how you do it!!!' when they haven't done it themselves
Then how I quoted several people giving advice who really did make it big

[Anonymous No.23136420]

1/?

Ronald “Yellow” Horffstein was given a cigarette by the warden, and after two hours of wild, spirited debate and discussion about all kinds of topics, he was also given a small window of time to actually observe this man, this so called tyrant and the Final Word on so many important details and outcomes in the lives of the prisoners. Warden Cansulle looked more like a movie director or a painter than a Prison Warden; he fidgeted with great intensity and was highly particular about minute details, or even just details that were huge and expected, he brought this sense of process although it was fleeting for just about every poor soul in that place.

“It is cold. By nature, I can’t ever fix it - and I’ve tried things that are bulletproof, I’ve made an Eskimo sweat, I’ve gotten a woman’s prison warden friend who says she seen a burka woman - a Muslim, one of the few - she fell down a flight of hard cold prison stairs and my Female Warden Friend, who is similar to me, she will tell you that that poor woman did not break but a nail in her thumb in that fall. Doctor says she was 120° and with a blood pressure of almost five-hundred.”

I inhaled deeply as he placed the pack onto the middle of the table, which in smoker’s body-parlance means take as much as you want. The smoker should be mindful to not smoke all of his friend’s cigarettes, and then laughs as he realizes he can’t just go to the gas station and pick some up for the next pack. Warden Cansulle devoted the entire day for him and I to talk, at great lengths or small paths, to do what ‘real’ intellectuals do, and that I was the only man in his life he could talk to. He said with a deeply suspicious look of himself that I was perhaps the only friend he has ever had in his life.

I thought about the immediate, pragmatic implication: this guy is mindfucking me and will never let me out of his prison because he is in love with me. Does he have a wife?!

“Do you have a wife? Children?”

He laughs and even slaps his knee while doing it. The laugh is so false and mechanical that it could be a life sized action figure, with only the most basic means of articulation… A demented life sized simple action figure, who can only move his mouth and arms.

“I have three children and my wife is… Oh, fuck it. I have three children and two wives, and my second wife seems to be flirting with divorce. And I do have a… concubine… heh-heh-hmm… And her becoming my third wife… Hmmmmmm.”

[Anonymous No.23136427]

>>23136420

2/?

I lit up another cigarette as he paddled around a puddly mask of rueful and forgotten facial expressions and body articulations. No longer the cheap action figure, he was full-blown lurching and retching and being attacked by some kind of terrorist in his mind and body alike; in an oscillation, pinging back and forth between the two. He tries to say sorry, and his mouth can not make the “why” sound of Y at the end of Sorry and I pat his arm across the table and sshhh shh shh it’s okay Warden Cansulle. His keys are on the floor, along with a picture of him as a very young man seemingly in a place like Thailand, holding and almost cradling a quite old Asian woman with gigantic breasts that she would otherwise use many layers of clothing to obscure or hide in public. But - not in a photograph, with her, lover?

“Do you want to talk about that picture, Warden? That woman is so beautiful. Who is she?”

“I met her when I was 22. Bartender. Thailand, but in a district known for less… constant everything, pounding music, the stench of sex reeling about like a fucked melange ranging from butterscotch to the smell that a dying human body makes once their kidney shuts down. It is an uncanny smell that doesn’t even smell like death - it just is death, coming from every pore, like a fishy sweet rot that I find now hard to explain or poetically describe. I have smelled that once again another time, when a friend of mine was dying from drugs. It pushes a chemical kind of like urine smell out of every pore as your kidneys fail to properly get your piss ready and white and proper. I’m sorry.”

“For talking about piss?” I light another cigarette, and he yells a beckon to his big-butt secretary to fetch him and I a carton of Lucky Strikes on DeliverDaddy.

“You should ask her on a date, you know.”

I was nodding immediately, but not because I agreed in a particularly effusive or impatient way, but I was rather beginning to mimick him and his general tempo.

“She’s a bit old, yeah?” I whispered as I lurched against his ear and across the desk in a very un-prisonerly fashion.

“You are 48. She is 29!”

[Anonymous No.23136428]

>>23136427

3/?

My heart stopped a beat when he said that. It isn’t like we have fucking birthdays in here. And I don’t mean birthday parties, either. You are just left to your own devices just as the same day after the other… besides the lucky ones, those with cavalcade’s of visitors and special little fuck-rooms that end up resembling a pig stye, with Chinese gifts that will fall apart at the exact moment you actually want to use it, all pyramidical next to the ziggurat piles of garbage and boxes and warranties. The Birthday Boy himself is almost always agitated, because he had done so much for Warden Cansulle and that he just wants five minutes alone in a dark room with his wife and she crosses her arms - obviously horny as he is - and says some blah-blah-blah about getting caught, and he looks her in the eye and says:

“You better go find us a closet right now or I’mma just rape you right here.”

Cansulle is laughing as I tell him this story, he is really laughing hard. He lights up a cigarette, still laughing, and pours us each a shot of, I don’t know. Scotch.

“Do you know what they do with like, pregnant lady prisoners? Is there a separate ward? Is there a woman’s prison abortion clinic?”

He looks flushed and flustered but finds his laugh again and just says with another eruption of happy-noises that he has no clue, and that those are excellent questions. His secretary walks in, holding up two cartons of Luckies and seemingly displaying her round shelfy butt to me as she whispers a secret in the Warden’s ear, which also coincides with an eruption of thunder outside. The Warden tells her to turn off the main fan light as he switches on his desk-lamp and pours another shot.

[Anonymous No.23136439]

>>23136428

4/4

“You know… There is a door in this place that no one knows about who is still alive. You can just leave whenever you want if you have this door, but it would only be the idiot who doesn’t return to the prison and uses the door on special occasions. One time a man brought in a fucking gun because he knew about the door. Fucking retard. I shot his big toe off, and I created a mock-lock so that he would assume the door is no longer the special door it once was. He told everyone how complex this lock was, too. It didn’t even have half the numbers on it… All he had to do was, well, just dial it to 32. Nobody ever figured it out. 32. 32. Fucking retarded imbeciles.”

I couldn’t tell if the door was real, or if the story was real, or if the story was faked at a certain point, and as I thought more in our ridiculous smoke-chamber I came to the logical conclusion that the door is real, and that the rest doesn’t really matter.

I told him I had to piss, but I was actually going to ask out his secretary, and as I did it I realized I was a prisoner - I couldn’t leave. The money here was pitiful, as if all scales of purchase and labor had been sliced to a tenth. I had a patchy, unappealing beard.

“—-You know what, fuck all that. I’m just thinking I’m hot shit. I’m the Warden’s Best Friend. You know?”

She smiled and licked her teeth in an extremely subtle way and said without missing a beat that she was his best friend.

“Are you gonna let me finish, or are you like every other broad? Just talk talk talk, yap yap yap…” I pretended to smack her face with one hand while actually smacking her butt with the other. We embraced, kissed and smoked and after ten minutes I told her I will probably propose to her if I get out of here soon enough. We will have eight children. You’ll never work again.

“But what if I like to work for the Warden?”

[Anonymous No.23136450]

>>23136381
you haven't made it big, therefore I don't trust your opinion. you like that? i learned it from you

[Anonymous No.23136460]

>>23136439
>>23136428
>>23136427
>>23136420
host it somewhere and provide a link

[Anonymous No.23136467]

>>23136450
you people keep quoting this at me when I'm 1 of 2 people in the thread who actually makes a living writing -.-

[Anonymous No.23136474]

>>23136467
no you don't. pyw and prove me wrong

[Anonymous No.23136480]

>>23136474
I absolutely wont associate my work with this website, but I can post patreon earnings (and have in the past)

[Anonymous No.23136494]

>>23136474
arrogant larper

[Anonymous No.23136502]

>>23136480
arrogant larper

[Anonymous No.23136505]

>>23136494
I certainly will not say I'm the best writer in this thread, but I do know how to target an audience and make money with my writing. This back-and-forth is really exhausting

[Anonymous No.23136598]

You're really going to be that annoying then go silent when I post proof? ugh

[Anonymous No.23136604]

>>23136598
pretty sure he killed himself.
pouring one out

[Anonymous No.23136627]

>>23136598
I can make a fake Patreon chart with Photoshop too. Proves nothing.

[Anonymous No.23136631]

>>23136627
lmfao, then why ask for proof, any proof can be faked

[Anonymous No.23136635]

>>23136505
Is it porn?

[Anonymous No.23136646]

>>23136635
it's litrpg slop, so porn of a sort I suppose, lol

[Anonymous No.23136650]

>>23136631
i asked for proof of writing. you can't fake that

[Anonymous No.23136654]

i ought to just write a litrpg story but make it /x/pol/ and see how long it’d take for my account on rr to get banned

[Anonymous No.23136658]

>>23136650
And as I said, I won't associate my work with 4chan. It's fine, even if I did post hard proof, you would be annoying some other way, so whatever

[Anonymous No.23136675]

Does anyone archive old threads? I posted an excerpt a couple years ago and I'm gonna be pissed if it's lost forever since all 1 (singular) of my backups got FUCKED

[Anonymous No.23136682]

>>23136675
>>/lit/

[Anonymous No.23136693]

Finished a little draft for a novella. Under 50k words. Feels nice. Not as significant as my first book and gonna figure out some continuity stuff in it, but a job "done" is rewarding. I started this at the beginning of January and exploded out a big bunch of it off the start in one day from the inspiration.

[Anonymous No.23136694]

>>23136675
i remember it, what do you want to know?

[Anonymous No.23136707]

>>23136658
then i'll just keep recommending swain's book, and you'll keep seething. why are you even here?

[Anonymous No.23136710]

>>23131930
>Writing thread
>Post writing
>No responses, just petty bickering and autism
What's the point?

[Anonymous No.23136715]

>>23136707
I was just trying to have a conversation about sources I found more useful, you were the dweeb who started being annoying and said pyw. Why are you here?

[Anonymous No.23136734]

>>23136715
you answered your own question

[Anonymous No.23136735]

>>23136710
a writing thread isn't necessarily a crit thread. most people here don't want to read amateur work and give thoughtful feedback. it's a lot of work. which is why /crit/ dies every time someone starts it up again

[Anonymous No.23136743]

>>23136694
Post it verbatim, please.

[Anonymous No.23136747]

>>23131930
>He was thinking Greece. Or somewhere in Europe, it was the same to him really- or not quite, not exactly.
>that wasn't the point
Then stop telling me about it. God I'm such a great writer compared to these amateurs. If only human language was capable of containing my genius I might have written something at some point.

[Anonymous No.23136758]

shit thread

[Anonymous No.23136779]

>>23130968
Here's a cool little writing tip. It's super easy and can boost the clarity of your writing a billion fold (exact measurements) for almost no effort. Instead of using "this" or "that", say the name of the thing you're referring to, or a synonym or semantically equivalent phrase.
Examples:
"I really like the color green. That's important to me."
Just say : I really like the color green. Green is important to me."
Readers will forgive the redundancy of you repeating yourself, or at least will prefer it over you juggling whatever the floating referent of "this" or "that" is as you abuse it from sentence to sentence while lazily expecting the reader to always know what you are referring .

[Anonymous No.23136847]

>>23136779
Agreed, and I want to emphasize the more generalized point, which is that authors, especially new ones, need to focus on clarity. A lot of amateur works I read, I'm constantly going 'wtf are they trying to say?' and I don't get that even with famous literature that's known to be complex, it's just a failure of the amateur to communicate.

[Anonymous No.23136879]

>>23136646
Do slop readers appreciate if you slip in some good prose or deeper themes? Or do they just want pure, by the numbers garbage?

[Anonymous No.23137290]

rate my fanfic probably never posting it online

https://pastebin.com/rWXL1dTC

[Anonymous No.23137292]

>>23133898
>open yourself to God
I'm a Christian, but what is the function for "opening yourself to God" in writing?

[Anonymous No.23137299]

>>23137290
It's inspired by spec ops the line and injustice comic series. If you know Spec Ops the Line, its a game inspired by Heart of Darkness except its military now. Been reading lots of comics recently, so my writing style switched to become very dialogue heavy. I think my dialogue's improved at least.

[Anonymous No.23137317]

>>23137290
>>23137299
it's beautiful

>>23137292
when i read that comment it jumped out at me like the dude was suffering from tourette syndrome with a christian flavored tick lol

[Anonymous No.23137318]

>>23136879
Just slop
I've hung around "light novel" and cultivation circles, and appreciation for prose is basically non-existent because 90% of it is mediocre slop that is then poorly translated by someone who is not a proper translator. And if you try to discuss any deeper themes with them, they'll call you pretentious for not reading "just for fun".

[Anonymous No.23137363]

>>23137318
>>23136879
yea... my friends have been recommending RR/scribblehub litrpgs for years now, and they're all slop. even if the author is somewhat competent, they're still churned out and barely edited
basically just shonen manga or something and work well in that regard

[Anonymous No.23137370]

How can I improve.
https://pastebin.com/8LVjga9h

[Anonymous No.23137409]

>>23137370
I believe an author should first establish a reputation of knowing what he's doing before slipping into schizo rambling can be accepted.

[Anonymous No.23137955]

>>23137370
1. Vary sentence length
2. Stop being repetitive

[Anonymous No.23138127]

>>23135895
How about you suck my dick then, faggot?

[Anonymous No.23138138]

>>23136758
Can’t say I disagree. Just a lot of really unpleasant assholes working hard to impress themselves.

[Anonymous No.23138160]

>>23137292
>>23137317
A lot of great authors/artists, imply that their greatest works came from "outside" or as if they were simply writing down a story that already existed. This can only happen if you have an intuition for the spiritual, imo. If you have a deep connection to God, you'll know how it is when He takes control and your life sails smoothly. If you don't let your analytical mind take over the creative process you'll find youraelf much more inspired and write better stuff. Whether that better stuff is publishable, that's another issue but you'll find the process much more fulfilling

[Anonymous No.23138178]

>>23130968
ti

[Anonymous No.23138184]

>>23138160
It's pretty wild what takes over when you open yourself up. Too bad christian mysticism is pretty much dead and all the contemplative works were written by heretics.

[Anonymous No.23138217]

>>23138160
>He thinks you have to worship god to be spiritual.
Christian bullshit aside, I agree 100%. When your story starts to come into its own, it really does feel like you're just relaying things that have already happened. The story and setting become very much real. It's quite the experience.

I am also convinced that this is what makes most writers exceptionally weird (myself included, don't think I'm singling you fuckers out). That's a whole other topic entirely, though.

[Anonymous No.23138239]

>>23138217
>what makes most writers exceptionally weird
My father has, on more than one occasion, said that artists are always some kind of crazy, and I agree.

[Anonymous No.23138243]

>>23138127
no u

[Anonymous No.23138252]

>>23138239
In fact, artists these days skip the artistry part and just focus on crazy

[Anonymous No.23138253]

>>23138252
Kek.

[Anonymous No.23138268]

feels like it's been a while since someone put out a link to their self pubbed book, is this thread even less filled with writers than it used to be? is it truly just beginners and larpers now?

[Anonymous No.23138278]

>>23138243
so we gonna 69

[Anonymous No.23138287]

>>23138278
a/s/l?

[Anonymous No.23138429]

>>23136480
post your patreon money, bro

[Anonymous No.23138437]

>>23133402
Fuck the Silfen and their paths.

[Anonymous No.23138443]

>>23136480
>>23136505
>look look how many children give me a cut from their monthly allowance for pandering to them with a lowbrow vidya fanfic! Now tell me I'm the greatest writer that ever lived!

sad

[Anonymous No.23138457]

>>23138443
Envy is unbecoming, dear

[Anonymous No.23138459]

>mfw boswell poster ends up becoming a worse crab than frank ever was

[Anonymous No.23138465]

>>23136505
>$3k a month before taxes
lmao nigga you earn less than a McDonalds wagie

[Anonymous No.23138477]

>>23138459
literally who?

[Anonymous No.23138493]

>>23138465
That’s on top of my day job, where I earn a quarter million annually as an engineer.

[Anonymous No.23138496]

>>23138459
Frank was never a crab. Unlike most of the people here, he always did his best to encourage others. Hell, that was the whole point of his NaNoWriMo competition.

[Anonymous No.23138497]

>>23138493
Impressive time management, I think Gene Wolfe (PBUH, inventor the pringles extruder) wrote for 2 hours in the morning before work.

[Anonymous No.23138502]

>>23138493
>now you have 250 and 3 thousand dollars
yeah I bet you're 6'5" and white with a massive dick too, like everyone else on 4chan

[Anonymous No.23138511]

>>23138496
you've been caught repeatedly being a crab, frank

[Anonymous No.23138532]

>>23138268
I've got a novel up on Amazon and another to be soon. I don't post links to it because why would I want to become another 4chan meme writer and possibly draw negative attention to my work where anyone could spam bad reviews on it?

[Anonymous No.23138559]

>>23136693
Congratulations, anon. What's it about?

[Anonymous No.23138574]

>>23138532
theres links in the author pastebin and none of their works have been review bombed. stuff like that only happens to annoying cunts like Frank

[Anonymous No.23138575]

>>23136053
You do realize that Butcher comes from the same school as this book? He learned his craft from Deborah Chester who learned it from Jack Bickham who was a student of Dwight Swain. It's all the same stuff packaged in different words.

And King's book has to be one of the worst books on writing ever written. It has no actionable advice beyond: "Uh, yeah, just write a lot and read a lot and follow Strunk and White (even though I don't)". Palahniuk's book is good if you want to write like Palahniuk. Likewise for Sanderson lectures.

Writing commercial fiction isn't that hard. There IS a formula and pretty much any book of this kind will teach it to you. I personally don't like Swain because his book is filled with old timey boomerisms (the whole socratic dialogue shtick gets old fast) but the book does contain everything you need to be able to do what it says on the cover. In fact, you could pick up any modern genre fic novel (or even popular literary fiction) and see all of his stuff--goal, conflict, disaster, motivation-reaction units, character tags, etc.--on the page. Nihil novi.

[Anonymous No.23138583]

>>23138493
This person is larping as me

>>23138443
Baffling to me that I outright admit that my writing is of middling quality every time this conversation gets brought up, and that I'm only claiming I know how writing for an audience works. Yet somehow you weirdos keep calling me arrogant and egotistical, or that I think my writing is amazing. How is the reading comprehension on this site so bad? I outright say that yes, I'm pandering, I'm only bringing this up to prove that I know how to turn writing into a career

>>23138465
Really don't care about money besides that I can pay for my essentials, and that i can make it my full time job so I'm not a wagie slave. Also it's 3700 a month, clearly trending up, and that doesn't account for Amazon sales. I'm doing just fine for myself.
But you really care about money that much? I was happy at 2.5k

[Anonymous No.23138604]

>>23138583
mind making a guide for writing for an audience on RR, if thats where your earning come from. itll help get everyone asking how to make money as a writer and questions about RR finally shut up

[Anonymous No.23138617]

>>23138604
Zogarth who makes like 7 digits a year from his sloppy web serial made a better guide than I ever could, and I link it every time an anon talks about wanting to try out RR:
https://www.royalroad.com/forums/thread/116847
As for more general writing advice, I liked Sanderson's, Jim Butcher's, and Palahnuik's respective lectures/books/blogs

[Anonymous No.23138621]

>>23138617
My bad, TheFirstDefier wrote it, not Zogarth. Those two get mixed up in my head because they write roughly the same story, lol. Defiance of the Fall/Primal Hunter are two of the mega-earners in litrpg

[Anonymous No.23138635]

>>23138621
Why is it that TheFirstDefier is a technically competent writer, yet his writing lacks something important I can’t quite put a word to?

[Anonymous No.23138643]

>>23138635
Because 2,500 words a day, every day means quality past a certain point simply can't be achieved.
My best guess, at least.

[Anonymous No.23138646]

>>23138617
should add this to the OP next thread.
>>23138635
when you write slop you lose soul. its the faustian bargain

[Anonymous No.23138653]

>>23138646
Eh, I think plenty of slop is soulful, which is to say its earnestly written by someone excited about the subject, it's just that those stories tend to be objectively shit and not 'high value' in the sense it provides no deep insight into the human condition, as expected from great literature
Soulless fiction is fiction written purely for profit, like romance mill authors. LitRPG is so fucking dweeby and still relatively small that most people writing it are pretty genuine

[Anonymous No.23138673]

>>23138583
Wait are you the trailer trash guy? You don't have to be that self-deprecating your stuff isn't that bad, it's got soul (especially since you apparently live in a trailer yourself? gotta respect that grind)

[Anonymous No.23138674]

>>23138653
Litrpg authors don't go into genuine paragraphs about the complexity or intricacies of rpgs whether its be glitches, speedrun tricks, the fun or serious people you meet in mmos, or etc. to them its just a setting for wish fulfillment fantasies if society recognized how smart they were for playing runescape one time

[Anonymous No.23138677]

>>23138653
Is it so wrong if I just wanna write shlock that isn't meant to be meaningful? I know this is one of the more intellectual boards on this site so this place probably slants more towards literary fiction than genre fiction

[Anonymous No.23138685]

>>23138673
No, 64 is a RoyalRoad OG, way before the site got popular. I 'made it' recently, which I guess in some ways makes me more qualified to talk about the current landscape. I haven't actually read 64's stuff but I assume he's a better writer than me. I've only been writing for about 3 years now, and posting publicly about 1
Haven't seen him in this thread in absolute ages either, I don't think he frequents here anymore

[Anonymous No.23138692]

>>23138674
Well some do, but I'll accept the general premise: even so, soulless to me implies a lack of honesty/excitement about the subject. Written just for the money, or status (pseuds can be soulless too), or such.
Slop isn't soulless, it's just ... not good by most objective standards, lol

[Anonymous No.23138696]

This has over 7000 ratings on amazon:

Zac was still a bit muddled from getting the news that Salvation had managed to kill so many people as a final act of lunacy, and he didn’t quite understand what Emily was getting at.
“Who found what?” he asked while looking around.
“Mr. Trang and his squad finally managed to set up a base camp. It took some time because they needed to finish a quest, but they succeeded because of his Kraken. When they bought the teleporter, there was already a public teleporter in range that we can’t see here. It’s probably the underworld,” Emily explained, the words tumbling out of her mouth.
The eyes of both Ogras and Zac lit up at the news. Getting to the underworld before the Fire Golems destroyed the whole thing was of the highest priority. For Ogras, it was about resources, while Zac also considered the humanitarian component. But the exciting news was suddenly eclipsed by a snippet of information from Emily’s report.
“His WHAT?” Zac exclaimed, looking at Emily with some horror.
“His pet Kraken,” Emily said with a wide grin. “He’s named it Little Bau, which apparently means treasure in Vietnamese? I heard it’s crazy strong.”
Zac didn’t know how to react. He was reminded that the old fisherman’s class was something like a maritime Beast Master, but he hadn’t expected him to snag such a scary thing. It also made him a bit leery about having an island kingdom if Kraken were swimming about in the depths. Would they start getting harassed by Lovecraftian nightmares in the near future?

[Anonymous No.23138707]

>>23138696
Yeah it's schlock, what's your point?
It's at least written concisely and clearly, which people in this thread can't manage if they tried.
There's a lot of really, REALLY bad litrpg out there, DOTF isn't that bad in comparison (personally not in my favorites list, though)

[Anonymous No.23138710]

>>23138696
It's rather simply written but I don't see any other problems here

[Anonymous No.23138722]

>>23138559
Soldier's diary in a proxy war where his country is being used by international interests to fight their enemies for them while keeping their hands "clean". Sort of "One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich" style but more than one day. The pacing I think needs a bit of retooling because where it's supposed to be some guy's diary it's specifically written as "anti-prose" and "anti-structure" but still has to be satisfying to read and have pacing. The conceit is that it's a guy who was a court stenographer before enlisting to make the suspension of disbelief a bit easier that he is so good at cataloguing events and dialogue within a believable range as entries.

When editing I'm going to find parts that sound "too good" or too much like a writer's prose and hammer them down more to something that actually sounds like a guy recalling events and words and writing them out in his voice and character.

[Anonymous No.23138725]

>>23138677
I'm not sure why you would want the approval of 4channers in the first place.
I've always liked reading 'fun' fantasy, I set out to write it too, you should as well if that's what you want
The based thing to do is always to not care what others think
Especially 4chan pseuds, lol. They're some of the biggest societal rejects that exist. I had a conversation with my barber the other day chatting about how I'm an author, web serials, and such. She brought it up because she likes to read, but specifically mentioned how she hated all the high brow stuff. Normies like easy reads, and I'd definitely rather be liked by normal people than 4channers
But like I said, do what you want. Anything else is beta behavior

[Anonymous No.23138726]

>>23138692
a lot of authors who eventually write for money only have one fiction that goes on forever. sure it might be genuine during the first "arc" but eventually that writing hits a point where it becomes out of obligation, where all that money goes to their heads. i dont think writers like that should be rewarded

[Anonymous No.23138731]

>>23138726
It's a case by case basis, plenty of people simply like writing those mega-stories, but yeah there's definitely some who drag it out for the money, at which point I agree, it becomes soulless. Not every massive story is in that situation though

[Anonymous No.23138737]

>>23138707
>It's at least written concisely and clearly, which people in this thread can't manage if they tried.
Why do you keep saying this? There are definitely competent writers in these threads. They are a minority but they do post occasionally, and their stuff is pretty good.

[Anonymous No.23138760]

>>23138707
>It's at least written concisely and clearly
Is this a joke? It's bloated, passive, unsure drivel.

[Anonymous No.23138763]

>>23138737
I don't actually read most excerpts that get posted here, it's just me being reactionary and insulting the pseuds back. Because I definitely see a number of embarrassingly flowery, convoluted excerpts, and I can only assume they're posted by the people who then insult prose that's clearly intended to be plain and readable. Simple but effective prose is harder to pull off than the purple thesaurus dumps--and even uneffective simple prose doesn't make me cringe as hard

[Anonymous No.23138764]

why is it that my writing only becomes smooth and even soulful whenever i specifically write from a female perspective? i can so easily loose myself to the flow whenever writing when i get my mind to think like a woman’s, compared to when i regularly write. what the fuck?

[Anonymous No.23138774]

>>23138760
It's web serial slop pumped out at an absurd rate, I'm not saying it's good writing, but it's clear and easy to read. How is it bloated, passive, and unsure? There's improvements to be made obviously, but overall it's fine. It goes down like a happy meal. That's the author's goal

[Anonymous No.23138790]

>>23138731
Anything under a page or two is usually shit, regardless. The linked pages are often quite nice, or more of the same. At least they give you enough to know what's going on and what they want help with.

[Anonymous No.23138794]

>>23138583
>keep calling me arrogant and egotistical, or that I think my writing is amazing
Because you pop up every time writing quality is discussed and start talking about money, and then take any excuse to spam your online welfare sheets, like a trump card that's meant to annihilate the opposition, though you actually have nothing to say about writing.

[Anonymous No.23138800]

>>23138763
Flowery is fine as long as you don't overdo it and are skilled enough to make it readable. I tend to have a more simplistic style because it's easier to read. I haven't read any of his works but Ernest Hemingway is considered one of the greats, isn't he? Harder to read doesn't necessarily mean worse and I am aware of it and challenging literature is important.

[Anonymous No.23138804]

>>23138794
Literally just wrong, you fucking dork. I only post it when people start dweebing out and saying 'pyw'. In this case it was the Swain poster being snide saying 'you're not successful so I don't trust you, either!', I said I was, he said prove it, I did
I have never just randomly posted my earnings, it's always people screeching 'pyw'
I also never bring up money in 'conversations about writing quality', it's WHEN money and marketing or RR is brought up that I start giving my 2 cents, but then (I bet it's you every time) someone starts sperging out

[Anonymous No.23138828]

>>23138804
Yes, people ask you to post your work, and you hide behind numbers, as if it answers anything. I usually avoid (you)ing you, because you have no real arguments. You bend and slip around every counterpoint and question like some boneless slime.

[Anonymous No.23138829]

>>23138774
I'll pick a few examples out of dozens, remember you used the words concise and clear:
>had managed to kill so many people
what's wrong with "killed"? he killed so many people
>in the near future
just say "soon"
>of the highest priority
crucial, imperative, critical
There are at least 50 examples of this kind of bloated writing in this excerpt. I understand that it's amazon slop, and I'm happy for anyone that makes money, but it's not "written concisely and clearly"

[Anonymous No.23138832]

>>23138804
There's literally just one troll at any given time, so you're right about that. I shit on litrpg constantly but you, at least, talk about it the way honest and successful card readers talk about their clients behind closed doors, whether or not you believe in the work itself. You enjoy it, that much is obvious.

In a different life, we'd both be on some late night cable access show ripping into the other panelists and the illusion amateurs have of the craft.

>>23138828
The 'strayan also posts from time to time and has some great insight and advice.

[Anonymous No.23138835]

>>23138511
name one time. It’s okay that you can’t. i forgive you.

[Anonymous No.23138838]

>>23138828
Obviously I'm not associating with 4chan, that's why that happens
But even so, I'm posting numbers because the conversation topic was 'success in the market', writing quality isn't part of the discussion at all. How is this so hard to understand?
You're the one saying I butt into writing quality discussions, but in reality it's you people sperging out whenever I'm just trying to talk about salability

[Anonymous No.23138850]

>>23138829
You're right of course, I think the disconnect is coming from how 'clarity' and 'conciseness' is a sliding scale. To me, it reads 'clear enough', as in it's not bloated to the point of being a hindrance. It could be cleaned up quite a bit, but by web serial standards, and even plenty of published genre fiction, it reads smoothly.

[Anonymous No.23138893]

>>23137370
>>23137955
You guys keep saying this but I have no idea what it means. My sentences seem very varied to me. And what do you mean repetitive

[Anonymous No.23138930]

Im reading a literary mag rn and i feel like i can write better than the submissions. Its a small mag but some of the authors have been awarded and published in other places
Should i try it?

[Anonymous No.23138934]

>>23138930
Is there a reason not to? Go for it

[Anonymous No.23138955]

>>23138893
This is just the first 2 paragraphs:

It has been [] since she died.
And it has been [] since I met her.
The body.
Its not even cold.
Maybe I am going crazy.
Pale fingers crawl through my head.
Miles of fiberoptic cable let loose electric swill in my skull.
I cannot get out.
Every seed I plant dies in its growth.
But I still feel them.
All of them.
Stuttering and shambling like phantom limbs.
Unlinked nodes in my skull bursting with sound doomed to go unheard.
Subway tunnels and plumbing with no destination.
Pure flashes of white among the dark.
Reaching reaching and scathing.
Crossing and tangling eachother like useless longitudes.
Sun set over dim marigolds.
I am driving.
I follow the old saltworn roads to a petite mountainside cafe.
She said to see her there out there among the alabaster.
It is winter.
And I feel the old Pursuant upon me.
He watches as Im sleeping and hounds me through the day.
I cannot get out.
The road curves on in front of me.

[Anonymous No.23138957]

>>23138934
the sunbmissions ive seen so far seem to have significent or atleast existing resumes

[Anonymous No.23138960]

>>23138955
Whats wrong with it?

[Anonymous No.23138961]

>>23138957
Yeah but if nothing else you're getting practice writing. Plus a resume has to start somewhere. If they don't accept it, submit to other magazines too, and start building

[Anonymous No.23138963]

>>23138960
>>23137955
>1. Vary sentence length
>2. Stop being repetitive

[Anonymous No.23138965]

>>23138893
https://voca.ro/1jpVoSnTHZFn
I open with a master stylist I have never read before, then go into yours. I'm a strong, if slightly drunk and distracted, reader and your prose is slightly jank. It does have some nice points but I'd like you to read it aloud in the voice you wrote it in. See if that sounds good. Then trash the parts that don't. You have a few nice bits that read well, it's the thing as a whole that's worse than even the jank parts.

[Anonymous No.23138969]

>>23138963
I don't understand. I explicitly wrote that with sentence length in mind. And where am I repetitive?

[Anonymous No.23138974]

>>23138965
I'm struggling to understand what you mean by jank

[Anonymous No.23138988]

>>23138955
this is actually one of the better things posted itt recently

in particular
>>23138955
>let loose electric swill
>>23138955
>old saltworn roads
>>23138955
>The road curves on in front of me.

the things to be fixed are cliches like
>>23138955
>Maybe I am going crazy.
>>23138955
>Pure flashes of white
>>23138955
>He watches as Im sleeping

[Anonymous No.23138989]

>>23138969
I went and looked because of this convo, and while your style isn't for me, sentence length and word choice seemed varied (if maybe a few more longer ones would do well, since it's mostly sharp and punchy, but that's fine imo, it's not an issue), and I didn't notice repetition (besides thematically, but not too many same-length sentences together or exact words duplicated, for example). Also read smoothly. If again, the poetic style isn't for me, so I can't comment on if it's good from that perspective.
Interested to see other anon expand on why he had those complaints

[Anonymous No.23138997]

>>23138974
I can read the middle of Molly Bloom blind and with more confidence than I could make it through your short sentences. That's what I mean by jank. I struggled and studdered and still failed not to do a video game store customer voice.
>Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice I hope Ill never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him its much better for them to go into a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing on the carpet have him staying there till they throw him out or a nun maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not yes because theyre so weak and puling when theyre sick they want a woman to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was O tragic and that dyinglooking one off the south circular when he sprained his foot at the choir party at the

[Anonymous No.23139001]

>>23138997
>>23138974
oops https://voca.ro/1jkHMrEoxyxb
Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice I hope Ill never be like her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him its much better for them to go into a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing on the carpet have him staying there till they throw him out or a nun maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not yes because theyre so weak and puling when theyre sick they want a woman to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was O tragic and that dyinglooking one off the south circular when he sprained his foot at the choir party at the

[Anonymous No.23139024]

>>23138160
>>23138184
>>23138217
I feel like this happens to me when I write with pencil and paper. When I try to write digitally, it feels like I'm brute forcing it.
But transferring pencil writing to digital is such a pain in the ass

[Anonymous No.23139032]

>>23138838
>Obviously I'm not associating with 4chan
Then you should shut the fuck up and get out.

[Anonymous No.23139047]

>>23138988
>>23138989
>>23138997
>>23139001
I see. Thank you. I will edit and re-write and continue writing with this in mind.

[Anonymous No.23139055]

>>23138794
He was asked to post it though?

[Anonymous No.23139065]

>>23139024
As a heretic, at first I found it difficult to focus until I bought a selectric and loaded up on drugs like HST, where I found I could shit out multiple pages in an hour just to get some quiet away from the 5hp motor, clutch, and jarring clatter of every key actuating the whiffleball. I quickly found a quieter solution I already had in hand. There is something to be said for some spirit riding the carriage [return] while you type but that's a very demanding thing. You read what you write though any method and find what gives you what you want to work with ex post facto.

Should some spirit court me for a purpose, it would be nothing but fountain pens and typewriters until I have to start editing drafts and using whatever my editors' like.

>>23139047
Yeah, just read it out loud and see if it works. Even henry James can be read out loud. Some contemporary and asian works can't be, you're not writing that on purpose and shouldn't without years of practice.

[Anonymous No.23139074]

>>23138835
here's where you shut up after being called out: >>/lit/thread/S22985764#p22997886

[Anonymous No.23139079]

>>23139065
No offense but I could barely make out this garbled, spaced out shit you just typed

How do you transfer from your typed work to digital?

[Anonymous No.23139089]

>mfw lovecraft wrote and edited his storys with pencil and paper, sending drafts to a friend with a typewriter to get it typed up

How do you eventually develop the handwriting skill not to get carpal tunnel from writing 30,000 words?

[Anonymous No.23139101]

>>23139032
Did you just...tell an anon to leave 4chan...because he wants to stay anonymous?

[Anonymous No.23139104]

>>23139079
>How do you transfer from your typed work to digital?
Various free or cheap OCR apps and child labor disguised as community outreach. It takes like an hour for any one of them to learn how to make a good scan and properly set a bunch of pages into a basic bitch txt or markdown file with no unintended line breaks. Some kid gets to learn how to read and use a computer and you get basic clerical work for the price of a snickers bar. I build them an IRA in gold and silver with candy benefits but you do do.

[Anonymous No.23139114]

>>23139089
Unironically, do those wrist stretches that StarCraft players do
Make sure it's the ones where you simply pull your wrist up and down, not in a circle. The latter one can fuck you up

[Anonymous No.23139116]

>>23139079
You need good handwriting for this method, but I literally just take a picture of my handwritten stuff, run it through Google lens and copy and paste into a doc. But to reiterate, you need good handwriting

[Anonymous No.23139124]

>>23139079
If not that, some ephedrine analogues and an afternoon typing from illegible scrawl I wrote is honest work. You have to enjoy almost every stage of the process, because the process is shit all the way through. At one point I was looking at how to turn my ersatz child labor force into a print shop for movable type publishing but it's more profitable to send most of it to one of the 3 remaining small presses in the US.

[Anonymous No.23139128]

>>23139074
nta but how do you know that's frank? honestly I've always thought him a boogeyman people like to impersonate, but on the discord he seemed pretty positive and I've seen several people call him schizo but definitely not a crab

[Anonymous No.23139131]

in sudden change urban fantasy shit,
how obvious and problematic it would be 'if suddenly' the population of africa, both americas and SEA countries would be killed due to becoming monster habitats?
There is a problem of modern France and Germany, and other "first worlds" but I could just claim I live under a rock

[Anonymous No.23139139]

>>23139131
who cares

[Anonymous No.23139141]

>>23139131
Zombie shit already did that. Fantasy has been doing that. It's already a thing. What you want is the spicy thing and that's called literary fiction with some fantastic spice on top.

[Anonymous No.23139153]

>>23139128
I literally got a 1 month ban for 'ban evasion' for pretending to be Frank once lol

[Anonymous No.23139157]

>>23139104
>>23139124
You remind me of my Romanian friend. Do you play DND

[Anonymous No.23139163]

>>23139153
to be frank is not to be blunt but subtle

[Anonymous No.23139172]

>>23139157
I have a scizoid aversion to being part of dnd groups due to being part of dnd groups. I'm a native Appalachian who spent too much time on 4chan and may or may not be kinda drunk whenever I have time to post. I do like some of the romanians I've met.

[Anonymous No.23139189]

Tryna advertise books is next to impossible man. Most people don't even read. Normal avenues don't do much. Getting influencer backing is hard since their inboxes are slammed full of people wanting the same.

[Anonymous No.23139197]

>>23139189
do you need to make a living from seiling books

[Anonymous No.23139202]

>>23139197
Yes. My day job sucks.

[Anonymous No.23139205]

>>23139141
>Zombie shit already did that. Fantasy has been doing that. It's already a thing.
that's reassuring,
but in any case IF such delusion of me getting any recognition might happen I wouldn't want some neurotic spastics targeting me to ruin my life simply because English as lingua franca is prone to being policed

Japanese would be better but first I need to learn the language

[Anonymous No.23139216]

>>23139189
You don't target book influencers, you target weird autismal shit that the metrics tell you have people capable of reading books regularly. Shit you actually like.

>>23139205
If you aren't a native English speaker, place it in your about to die culture and and focus on that. Global monster problem caused by decadent governments, local solution. Besides, the novel is a shit cultural commentary and better served by how one man handles the problem, if metaphorically.

[Anonymous No.23139221]

>>23139216
>You don't target book influencers, you target weird autismal shit that the metrics tell you have people capable of reading books regularly. Shit you actually like.
This. If you're actually serious about making a living writing then it has to be targeted. You're not gonna be able to just write whatever you want and you can't have some idea that you're going to be a "high brow" writer.

Literally you should be writing werewolf/vampire pseudo-porn under a pen name.

[Anonymous No.23139222]

tfw you write fantasy but detest low effort crap

[Anonymous No.23139228]

>>23139089
Lovecraft was writing by age 3, and his first known literary works were by age 8. By adolescence his carpals were probably made of iron. Kidding of course, that's bad science; in seriousness it might have to do with the short form of most of his work. Or maybe he suffered from RSI and never wrote about it so who knows?

[Anonymous No.23139233]

>>23139024
I'm the exact opposite. I get utterly lost in my shit when I'm typing something to the point where it agitates those around me. I'll promise to do something, get sucked into my writing, and then completely forget about it.

But then, I also grew up chronically glued to a computer, so that might also be a factor in why I like it the most. It also allows me to put on ambient music when I'm writing, which helps me engross myself further. You could try that out and see if it makes it better.

[Anonymous No.23139268]

>>23139221
Romance and erotica (that's what women read) and royalroad style power fantasies (that's what men read). Those seem to be the most consistent earners with a high % of readers buying any and all amateur works.

But if you hate both of those, just go on Amazon and poke around until you find a lucrative niche you could tolerate. The world's a big place, and the smaller the niche, the more dominance you can have over it. Just has to be big enough to make a living (check Best Seller Ranks)

Or just be an incredible writer and make something great, because if it's good enough anything will sell

[Anonymous No.23139270]

>>23139216
>If you aren't a native English speaker, place it in your about to die culture and and focus on that.
indeed I am not, but I only really have one story idea for my mother language,
I am a bit in a pickle when it comes to my mother language because zoom zooms are so retarted they cannot speak Enlgish AND native language,
the pull in that group who would even read at all reads only translated versions of foreign books,
anything fiction related that isn't foreign and doesn't have approved seal of quality is outright hated by the older reading community,
best perssonal action for my mother language would be writing in English anyway and translate sometime later
>Global monster problem caused by decadent governments, local solution.
if that's about my story not really, Europe and Asia are mostly fine with new social shenanigans ongoing,
I just want when I'm reaching to africa or america to not be bothered by "population" there

[Anonymous No.23139279]

>>23139268
>Or just be an incredible writer and make something great, because if it's good enough anything will sell
If that was the case then it'd be James Joyce and Hemingway and the great writers of history still dominating Amazon algo. In reality it's retard tier fics that appeal to women.

[Anonymous No.23139285]

>>23139279
I didn't say they'd sell the best out of everything, but enough to make a living like anon wants

[Anonymous No.23139286]

>>23139270
>I am a bit in a pickle when it comes to my mother language because zoom zooms are so retarted they cannot speak Enlgish AND native language,
Which one? It matters. You could write a book in fucking Cornish and call it the definitive version in this climate, doing it in Quechua or something else I'm more familiar and not conversant in would probably revive it.

[Anonymous No.23139312]

>>23139286
apologies if I understood the sentence wrong,
but my native language is of Slavic branch, what I meant is zoomers made a distinct dialect that has verbs and adjectives being English while the rest is native, they cannot speak or understand anything outside it, any native literature gives them problems to read through and even despite the use of English word they cannot utter a sentence in it

[Anonymous No.23139320]

>>23139312
I write in the English of Melville and the 1611 bible that I learnt to speak and is alive to this day and give not a single fuck whether some retards flying too close to the bug zapper can grasp the girth of my kith and kin. It's why I write in third person, so all the dialogue sounds retarded.

[Anonymous No.23139345]

>>23139320
>and kin
I would too, if there was one...
I would need to at least gather some following of the natives younglings so afterwards they would at least bother to become elementary school literate,
and based on taste the older folk than that WILL vehemently reject me

[Anonymous No.23139350]

>>23139345
You're young, in 20 years your shithead classmates will be clamoring for something that sounds like how granny talked and speaks of the kind of witchcraft she did. Read more ethnic literature.

[Anonymous No.23139351]

>>23139345
become a rogue teacher and compose a syllabus of native books with increasing challenge. Scream on a street corner until you have students who stop and listen.

[Anonymous No.23139512]

>>23139222

What direction do you think fantasy is heading in next? I think people are sick and tired of edgy GRRM inspired stuff I'd like for it to go in a more weird, or surreal direction

[Anonymous No.23139525]

I'm going to be honest here, anyone who screncaps a sans font, or merely one that displeases me for any arbitrary reason, I don't read it. I haven't been wrong in 15 years.

[Anonymous No.23139608]

>>23139512
why does the writing get squished at the end of the line?

you really think in an age where 5 trillion things are competing for someone's interest in any given moment, that someone will tolerate that?

fuck you not wasting my time reading that if you can't be FUCKED to spend 5 seconds to make it look presentable. fuck you.

[Anonymous No.23139651]

>>23139608
normies have their televisions set to the wrong aspect ratio for years without noticing. you're some type of autist and shouldn't make predictions about the world based on your own autismal responses because you're going to be way off

[Anonymous No.23139671]

>>23139525
how would you know? you didn't read them

[Anonymous No.23139674]

>>23139651

>get given advice to improve yourself or your work
>"omg autism autism"
Never going to make it (and I suspect you're gay too.)

[Anonymous No.23139720]

>>23139674
i'm not the guy who wrote that, i'm just telling you that the answer to
>you really think in an age where 5 trillion things are competing for someone's interest in any given moment, that someone will tolerate that?
is "absolutely." look around yourself for five seconds. also you're obviously bitching just to bitch, the actual customer would be seeing it on his kindle or whatever so it's irrelevant

[Anonymous No.23139789]

>>23139512
I don't know, I don't read modern books for the most part. I've just always liked fantasy and always wanted to write it. I've never read GRRM but I understand many people writing dark fantasy take some inspiration from him. For example I greatly enjoyed Blood Song by Anthony Ryan but it's very well written and has nothing to do with shit or rape. Dark fantasy is fine when it's written well, however the sequels are notably worse.

[Anonymous No.23139806]

where would you take this story?

[Anonymous No.23139834]

>>23139806
I didn't read it but I think this was pretty darn good

[Anonymous No.23139888]

>>23139834
thanks bro

[Anonymous No.23139896]

>>23139789

I think grim dark can be well written but if you sprinkle in a lot of death, sex, and rape for the sole purpose of it being there without any nuance then it just feels like the writer is trying too hard to accomplish a dark setting.


>>23139806

Slave/Gladiator uprising perhaps? Maybe the gladiator's mentor Henryk is more loyal to the emperor and nobility than we expected and this causes some tension and friction between him and the narrator who wants to liberate.

[Anonymous No.23140006]

>>23139896
yeah I'm wondering how to work something like that into the writing style. obviously he can't write about his plans because someone might come in and take his writings. might have to switch styles.

[Anonymous No.23140059]

>>23139806

I think you can take it back to the word processor and edit it to be tighter.

your sentences are short in a good way because it gives the gladiator character. It makes him feel like someone who get's to the point quick, efficient like a killer should be. I don't know if that's intentional or if you're a shit writer but it worked.

Then the nigga uses words like "dispatched"? yeah, completely takes me out of it. Dumb down the vocabularly a bit and maybe undumb your sentences a bit too (make them slightly more complex).

that's my two cents. can give more feedback if interested.

[Anonymous No.23140074]

>>23140059
thanks for this

[Anonymous No.23140089]

>>23140059
and by all means, if you have more to say then I would love to hear it

[Anonymous No.23140124]

>>23130968
My goal is to write a short story, turn that into a novelette, turn that into a novella, and turn that to a novel.
But I keep being afraid of writing something awful.

[Anonymous No.23140125]

>>23139806
you could make it interesting

[Anonymous No.23140135]

>>23140124
start writing the novel. by writing it as a synopsis, and then start layering it. eventually that will be your draft/outline

[Anonymous No.23140157]

I can't think of a feasible way for our hero to win a fight here. Well, they used to but I wrote myself into a corner because now they're being slowly bent in half by a super strong clown

[Anonymous No.23140164]

>>23140059
>>23140074

Just want to say that the gladiator narrator feels kind of erudite I guess like he's using language you wouldn't expect someone of his social class would be using it's kind of flowery in a way but still entertaining.

[Anonymous No.23140174]

>>23140135
why can't you do that with short story?

[Anonymous No.23140256]

>>23140174
what are you asking me?

[Anonymous No.23140258]

>>23140174
But why not just write the novel? Lol. I've heard of iteratively expanding an outline, but writing a full short story, then adapting it into a novelette, then a novella, then a novel?
Idk I've never heard of that strat, anon. Then again there's no wrong or right way to creative processes, if that's what you think works for you go for it
But it's definitely odd

[Anonymous No.23140262]

>>23140157
the story is now about his rehabilitation. relearning how to walk.

[Anonymous No.23140272]

>>23140157
What breaks first? His sense of humor, or his spine?

[Anonymous No.23140280]

>>23140174
Name your 5 favorite short stories that you often read and drain of their arcane literary secrets.

[Anonymous No.23140295]

>>23140258
Because the first thing you do is probably going to be bad regardless, the only difference is time. You can write a novelette in a week, but writing a novel take months.
And nobody will read your novel either way, but if it's short story somebody might.
Many stories started off as short stories and got expanded into novels.

[Anonymous No.23140304]

>>23140280
>Saga of Eric the Eloquent
>Saga of Starkard
>Saga of Gram
>Saga of Amleth
>Saga of Ragnar

[Anonymous No.23140333]

>>23140272
>>23140262
They pull one hell of a maneuver to escape
They fucking allow their elbow to be dislocated so they can free themselves before throwing an uppercut so hard it smashes the other guy's face in

[Anonymous No.23140353]

>>23140164
yeah you're right. Like it could also be intentional. He's using language like that because actuallly...the gladiator is not some thug killer or a raised fighter but like someone of a social class that would say dispatched instead of killed.

But then that doesnt go with the short snappy to the point sentences which I liked.

Maybe he's just some learned nigga, I dont know but the key is consistency in voice/vocab/tone to make the character believable.

[Anonymous No.23140357]

>>23140353
your criticism is valid, I whipped it up in an hour and now I'm wondering where to take it. first draft

[Anonymous No.23140430]

>>23140428
>>23140428
>>23140428

[Anonymous No.23140451]

>>23140357
Personally, keep it as it is, but the cut the line about the gladiator being given coal and parchment to document his story/experience.

It will give you a lot more freedom in the direction you want to take this and you get to retain all the cool shit (and good writing) youve done so far.

creativity is fed by limitation and all that jazz but fuck that. give yourself some space. the documentarian nature of the story is stifling if you want to do something epic/bigger than just a guy documenting his escape from this life. or whatevr you want to do.

[Anonymous No.23140505]

>>23140124
My advice (as some dickhead on the internet) is to just focus on writing a good short story unselfconciously and then edit, edit, edit. Ultimately the form of a short story is the same building block you will make a novelette, novella, and novel into. Every chapter is essentially a short story, granted with the longer work you have the benefit if context from prior chapters, but also a pressure have it be coherent.

>>23130968
Also I guess I guess I'll share with /wg/ for completeness that I just put out my first novella. If any old heads here remember the guy who wrote the Morrowind fanfic about the guy getting roofied at a dinner party, or Baldcore posting - that was me.