/wg/ Writing General

[Anonymous No.23486690]

"Bat-Surf Music" edition

Previous: >>23480228

/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=NfMegACVJQw

[Anonymous No.23486694]

please dear god tell me about indie presses that aren't woke but also aren't nazis

[Anonymous No.23486695]

>>23486694
Indie presses are almost always for specific genres, aren't they? So wouldn't you have to include your genre?
Why an indie press anyway?

[Anonymous No.23486707]

>>23486695
because I want non-4channers to read what I write. no offense but associating with this website is horrible for your reputation

[Anonymous No.23486712]

>mean to write pensively
>write penisevly instead
>decide to leave it
Sometimes a little humor can lighten the mood.

[Anonymous No.23486716]

>>23486707
If your genre is so niche that just saying it will automatically link your identity to a post on 4chan, it's not a genre and it's probably not publishable

[Anonymous No.23486733]

>>23486707
Okay but if you need advice about something, and the advice depends on certain details like genre, and you don't want to give those details away, what the fuck are you expecting here? For someone to compile an enormous list of indie presses for every known genre? For people to name random ones and you just hope they're in your genre? lmao

[Anonymous No.23486737]

Food for thought for fantasy worldbuilders
https://youtu.be/QFJ0HtqYQuA?si=M5g9ukAR9PpSZyBi

[Anonymous No.23486751]

How do I stop myself from including nazi symbology in my book cover

[Anonymous No.23486755]

>>23486751
My WN has outright SS, nazi uniforms and two scenes where the people do the funny salute.

[Anonymous No.23486787]

after much consideration, I have decided that my fantasy world will not contain african americans nor anyone that looks like african americans. The culture I live in has taught me that forced diversity ruins creativity, so I will be keeping my humans strictly inspired by various european cultures and ethnicities

[Anonymous No.23486789]

>>23486755
That's too on the nose, I guess I'll just settle for a subliminal schutstaffel symbol.
>during the Nazi period, an extra key was added to German typewriters to enable them to type the double-sig logo with a single keystroke

[Anonymous No.23486812]

>>23486787
I don't mention races in my story. That way no one can bitch at me one way or the other. But if it ever gets made into a movie then I'm pretty much screwed because Hollywood will assign everyone races at random.

[Anonymous No.23486825]

What's a good way to describe a teenager's voice that is currently undergoing a change and is in an awkward phase?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfuXQH-ah7I&t=12s

like the boy's voice here

[Anonymous No.23487027]

>>23486751
just use esoteric nazism and take it to such a ludicrous extreme no one will ever take it seriously.

[Anonymous No.23487067]

>>23486787
Based desu. I don't have african type races in my world, either. Not even as a proactive choice it just never came up

[Anonymous No.23487085]

>>23486787
>various european cultures and ethnicities
that's basically Avatar the Last Airbender but focused in a different region

[Anonymous No.23487090]

i am rediscovering my creativity.

[Anonymous No.23487181]

>>23487090
I hope it’s worthwhile and not retard shit like fantasy or science fiction.

[Anonymous No.23487220]

>Long story short, I made my MC an ambassador
>I wanted him to have a reason to move in high society in a foreign land while still being a subordinate.
>At the 40% mark he essentially decides to go rogue
>MC is also a servant of a deity called (amongst other names) Crown, in which he has a love/hate relationship with
>The irony that he's both a representative of his country's crown (by wages) in the game of politics and a representative of Crown (by soul) in the game of gods only just hits me
>Look up the meaning of "ambassador" etymologically
>Slave ; servant

Nice unwanted resonance

[Anonymous No.23487252]

>>23486690
check out my post on r9k it's the silver dog

[Anonymous No.23487278]

>Talking to a girl
>She seems interested in me
>Tell her I've written a book
>She instantly ghosts me
What gives? It has the same effect as shitting yourself in public

[Anonymous No.23487291]

>>23486789
>subliminal schutstaffel symbol.
I have an analogue for the eagle and the totenkopf.

[Anonymous No.23487293]

>>23487220
>Look up the meaning of "ambassador" etymologically
>Slave ; servant
...Huh?
From Middle English ambassadore, from Anglo-Norman ambassadeur, from Old Italian ambassadore, from Old Occitan ambaisador (“ambassador”), derivative of ambaissa (“service, mission, errand”), from Medieval Latin ambasiator, from Gothic 𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌱𐌰𐌷𐍄𐌹 (andbahti, “service, function”), from Proto-Germanic *ambahtiją (“service, office”)

[Anonymous No.23487309]

>>23487293
Yeah looking it over again it's more "high-ranking servant" than "slave"

[Anonymous No.23487311]

>>23487309
Though it'd be pretty funny if the guy said "I serve the crown" unironically, wink wink nudge nudge and it wouldn't be a lie.

[Anonymous No.23487327]

>>23487181
it isn't. well, it could be. but my ideas dont stem from that

[Anonymous No.23487334]

I'm 70k words into my new web novel project and I still can't tell if it's even worth sharing. I mean, I think it's interesting, but I've found very few out there share my tastes.

[Anonymous No.23487418]

I'm trying to go for a sort of more simplistic style than I usually do. Less verbose. More human kind of thing. What do we think? It's pretty tricky.

[Anonymous No.23487429]

>>23487418
Commas! I've just seen them on rereading it. It's the autocorrection thing. Nightmare. Ignore the punctuation.

[Anonymous No.23487767]

>>23486716
If you don't want to include elements of trannies, homos and racial equality in your book it's automatically unpublishable and you have to go to literal stormfag printing presses just because you don't want to put fags front and centre in your pulp work. This shit is retarded, I'm not a card carrying SS member, I just don't want to include this crap in my story. Kind of makes me want to become a card carrying SS member when I read the names involved at said big publishing houses though.

[Anonymous No.23487861]

>>23487767
just self-publish. amazon will sell your book even if it's not woke

[Anonymous No.23487907]

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius has become a meme in philosophy, the first recommendation to anyone who asks. I found the first portion funny, though, due to the stark differences between our immediate family.
What have you learned or inherited from your elders? Write it like our lil' Marcus here, if you will.
As for me:

From my grandfather Louis, shortness of stature, for he was short and fat like a pig.
From my father, sobriety and self-control, for he was a drug-addict and neurotic like a woman.
From my mother, critical thinking and asociality, for she was autism and mental illness.
From my tutors, self-awareness and humility, for they taught me high scores in tests are worthless in the end.

[Anonymous No.23487930]

>>23487418
>Less verbose. More human
You mean common speech? It's boring and unreadable except for very short stories or small sections in a larger story.
One of the joys of reading is the style. Of all the ways things can be expressed or written, you want to choose the most plain and vulgar way?
Why would you listen to the ramblings of some random person without any rhetorical skill for an hour straight? You wouldn't.

[Anonymous No.23488035]

>>23487334
Want a cheap editor to punch it up?

[Anonymous No.23488070]

>Completely powerless hero has to defeat extremely overpowered villains using cowardice, trickery and the power of friendship
How long can this formula go on for without becoming stale? I feel like I need to give my MC a dumb unique ability because that's what literally every fantasy story has, but so far he's managed to kill fallen gods, conceptual beings and things that technically don't even exist using the above methods.

[Anonymous No.23488102]

>>23488070
That's basically the jew formula, what jews have been doing for millenia (and finally succeeded in the modern era). It basically goes like this:
1. Gain financial power (through trading, usury, financial management and consultancy, etc.)
2. Cozy up with the upper classes.
3. Insert yourself into the upper classes, as well as the legal system and media (the print, the news, the internet, the schools and universities, et cetera). This is where they always failed, because the smart elites could see them coming from a mile away. That's why they got expelled thousands of times across hundreds of countries for thousands of years. They finally succeeded, though.
4. Use your financial, political, legal, and intelligentsia power to brainwash strong people and make them fight your enemies for you (e.g., carrying out 9/11 and forcing Americans to wage war against innocent Middle Easterners, etc.)

[Anonymous No.23488109]

>>23488070
Two words about your post alarmed me, but I won't tell you which.

I need to hurry up and write my shit. I'm really original but someone is going to mine gold mine dry one day.

[Anonymous No.23488113]

>>23486694
There are but most of them are for genre fiction, e.g. Aethon, MoonQuill

[Anonymous No.23488116]

“Show, don’t tell” was a rule originally created for visual mediums, tv shows, movies. To me the strength of a book lies within how “unfilmable” it is, how thoroughly it uses the medium it’s given to the point that it would lose something fundamental about itself by trying to adapt it.

[Anonymous No.23488125]

>>23488116
show don't tell is still useful to an extent
but /lit/ loves to take it to its logical extreme
picrel

[Anonymous No.23488134]

>>23487930
Not him and haven't read the excerpt yet but I disagree. Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham on a bet that he couldn't write a whole book using less than 50 words. Even with language that simple his personal style still shines through.

[Anonymous No.23488145]

>>23488134
Dr. Seuss is literally for childre, dude...

[Anonymous No.23488147]

>>23488116
>To me the strength of a book lies within how “unfilmable” it is
My shit is already unfilmable. For multiple reasons.

[Anonymous No.23488171]

>>23488145
And that invalidates my point because...?

[Anonymous No.23488182]

>>23488116
I think you misunderstand what that means. For example, on a scene level, instead of saying, "Alice was angry," write something like, "Alice clenched a fist." On a broader story level, instead of doing something like just having a character state your villain is evil, have instances where they are also shown to do immoral things.

[Anonymous No.23488192]

>>23487418
I thought it was nice. It's very 4chan-coded, i.e. the guy's rant about leftism and cyclical history. IIRC the aspect of content moderation explored in the final paragraph is something I learned about through 4chan.
And like I pointed out here >>23488134 this text isn't any less stylized because you used simple language.

[Anonymous No.23488195]

Write a story but you can only use these 850 words
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Basic_English_ordered_wordlist

[Anonymous No.23488203]

>>23488171
Because anon's reader demographic presumably won't be underdeveloped children?

[Anonymous No.23488210]

>>23488203
Are you implying that, past a certain age, you can't read simple language anymore?

[Anonymous No.23488224]

>>23488210
I'm explicitly saying simple language alone isn't intellectually stimulating anymore. Especially when the topic or story itself is unimportant or uninteresting.

[Anonymous No.23488233]

>>23488210
>>23488224
You know why the Bible is called the word of God? It's not just because it says so or because it threatens you with eternal torture if you don't believe it.
It's also because of the artful rhetoric in it. You can read a lot of the Bible and admire it even if you aren't religious in the slightest.

[Anonymous No.23488234]

>>23488182
>are also shown to do immoral things.
Yeah but then you faggots whine about rape scenes.

[Anonymous No.23488309]

>>23488109
I'm going to use the deductive reasoning I learned from watching Columbo with my grandmother to guess you're referring to "conceptual beings", and sorry friendo but that's already been done at least a few times by now.

[Anonymous No.23488319]

>>23488192
Yeah, the idea was kind of that at first you think he's just some bigoted looney but then you find out all this awful stuff happening around and to him. He's only a side character, but the point is that people from the fringe of society see Regulus as a hero, and it makes him uncomfortable.

[Anonymous No.23488331]

>>23488035
No, I want you to die in a gas fire.

[Anonymous No.23488503]

>>23488224
So you're implying that you shouldn't read simple language past a certain age. I disagree but to each his own.

>>23488233
And those words still hold sway even when they're simple
>This is how we know what true love is: Jesus Christ gave his own life on the cross. He died on our behalf. So we too ought to give our lives for other believers.

[Anonymous No.23488554]

How quickly can you tell if your story on royalroad is flopping? It's my third day posting and the numbers are abysmal so far...

[Anonymous No.23488558]

>>23488503
Faggot, your only recourse is to tergiversate and take to the extreme. My argument is clear: simple language alone is not stimulating, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE TOPIC OR STORY ITSELF IS UNIMPORTANT OR UNINTERESTING.
Nowhere did I say one should never read simple language past a certain age. I myself made clear simple language is fine as long as it's kept short.
>And those words still hold sway even when they're simple
Those words you just quoted don't hold sway to me.

[Anonymous No.23488562]

>>23488554
if you don't get at least 3000 viewers by day 2, your story failed

[Anonymous No.23488567]

>>23488562
I don’t even have half that after two years. I should just give up, shouldn’t I?

[Anonymous No.23488573]

I want to write about two people drinking coffee in a starbucks and gossiping about their friends.

[Anonymous No.23488577]

>>23488562
RIP

[Anonymous No.23488600]

>>23488233
>>23488503
>>23488558
>Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
Here in this verse we have at least anastrophe, polysyndeton, allegory (extended metaphor: walk, stand, seat), and parallelism. Four rhetorical devices, complex language, a certain style, powerful message, in just a single sentence.
Just to give you an example.

[Anonymous No.23488613]

>>23488573
Make sure to do it in the most excruciatingly mundane and boring way possible. That's how you get people to read it.

[Anonymous No.23488617]

>>23488554
It depends. how many chapters posted, how many followers?

[Anonymous No.23488628]

>>23488617
6 chapters and 6 followers out of around 80 average views so far, which I noticed is a rather low ratio. I think I'm being a little too obsessed with these tiny numbers though

[Anonymous No.23488629]

>>23488554
150 to 200 followers within 3 to 4 weeks will get you in rising stars
so about 5 followers a day for 30 days
or 4 followers a day, and supplement with an advertisement to cross the line

[Anonymous No.23488632]

>>23488628
Unfortunately that probably means it's not gonna organically hit rising stars. Could still try ads and shout outs.
is it a litrpg or cultivation novel?

[Anonymous No.23488640]

>>23486690
How do I effectively communicate my struggles with ADHD and how I actually need stimulants to function at the level of a normal person when normal people whose brains literally don't respond to stimulants the way mine does think it's a cheat code for productivity?

[Anonymous No.23488648]

>>23488632
RIP. I may try putting up some ads then else it would be months of work going to waste. And yeah it's litrpg

[Anonymous No.23488662]

>>23488640
Isn't stream of consciousness and "free writing" basically writing whatever comes to mind without reason or rhyme? It's shitty writing.

[Anonymous No.23488663]

>>23488648
if you share it I can give my thoughts on title summary and cover image, which is a common culprit
could also just be the concept/premise isn't appealing to the reader base which is the more unfortunate result

[Anonymous No.23488664]

>>23488648
If you put up ads wait until you have 30kish words published minimum

[Anonymous No.23488673]

>>23488663
>>23488664
Well, tell me what you think. I thought it was an appealing concept enough, welp
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/88378/the-holy-maidens-temptress-a-litrpg-isekai

[Anonymous No.23488698]

>>23488673
Sounds good. Are you a woman?
Also, the powers of deception were gifted, rather than originally hers. How does that work? Is she suddenly 180IQ after reincarnating or does her mere presence turn everyone into 80IQ retards?

[Anonymous No.23488708]

>>23488673
You did a lot right, but also a few key things wrong. At least from a royalroad marketing perspective, not an artistic one.

1. It's too edgy. Starting the story off with a suicide, and the concept in general seems to be dripping with angst. That's not really in vogue on royalroad. Can you name any popular angsty stories on RR? Personally I can't

2. too much lingo in the summary, imo. Put frankly, the summary should emphasize the key wish fulfillment aspect of the story, cuz that's what people will click and follow for. Which leads to 3:

>underpowered protagonist who will never be of use in an honest fight as a supporter or combattant
3. ^ is kind of a story killer on royalroad (also typo in combatant). If you're going to include this, you need to really emphasize where the wish fulfillment IS coming from, because all popular royalroad stories are wish fulfillment

4. Prose on royalroad is usually more straightforward and utilitarian. Yours reads a little too flowery (poetic? angsty? idk what to call it) than what the masses prefer. This isn't a story killer but is worth noting.

The biggest problem I think is #3

Artistically speaking, though, I like it anon. It's an interesting premise. Good title and cover page too.

It might work in the long run, if you run ads and get onto rising stars, but I'll be honest, I don't think that will happen. You already wrote it though, so keep posting and see what happens.

[Anonymous No.23488718]

>>23488558
So you realize the part you screamed in all caps makes your point self-fulfilling? Unstimulating and uninteresting are synonyms.
All I have to do is point out that you could write an interesting, important, stimulating work using very simple language.

[Anonymous No.23488719]

>>23488698
It works sorta like speech/charisma checks in dnd with skills to help lying through things easier, and common trickeries like illusions, shapeshifting and mind influencing shenanigans, but not direct mind control, and such
>>23488708
Well sadly I like writing edge and angst and can't really into lighthearted humor so that's my weakness alright. It also has little to no wish fulfillment elements so double oops. Well that's very sad to hear, guess I will just try running ads later just for the sake of it.

[Anonymous No.23488729]

>>23488719
I love traumatized protags too, my notes were purely about what makes stories popular on a slop site like royalroad
There's always success stories that break the mold, so it's not hopeless. Good luck!

[Anonymous No.23488731]

>>23488600
Nice dubs but you're just looking for an excuse to talk about the bible

[Anonymous No.23488738]

Royal road seems the easiest route compared to the soul crushing shitshow of self publishing but man, I don't know if I can bring myself to write litrpg isekai superhero anti-hero lead garbage to pander to the retards there. The stuff at the top of the list and on rising is fucking depressing, just gay ass power fantasies.

[Anonymous No.23488739]

>>23488718
>you could write an interesting, important, stimulating work using very simple language.
No you can't. Nobody with at least two braincells would listen to, much less read, the ramblings of some retard who can't speak or write elaborately.
You're being contradictory and thus nonsensical.

[Anonymous No.23488741]

>>23488739
>Vonnegut
>Hemingway

[Anonymous No.23488746]

>>23488309
>sorry friendo but that's already been done at least a few times by now.
I know, but all those were done worse than what I have in mind.

However, eventually, someone will unearth my gold mine and then it will be truly over for me.

[Anonymous No.23488750]

>>23488738
Personally I'm a believer in the pander to retards as a dayjob strat, then write my personal stories with the freetime that buys me

[Anonymous No.23488754]

>>23488729
Thanks anon, I already ran a story on the site before with little success. I did some research afterwards and decided to go with the popular genre but even then still couldn't bring myself to write pure power fantasy. I just want to write real struggle and dramatic scenes.

[Anonymous No.23488755]

>>23488741
>Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer and humorist known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels
Literal meme stuff.
>Hemingway
His writing is shitty, too. I have no idea why so many people read him. He's basically a meme as well, like Paulo Coelho and the like.
And of course, let's not forget your other example:
>Dr Seuss
Literal for-children stuff. This is what you like and consider peak literature. Children stuff.
LOL

[Anonymous No.23488762]

I like it when chapters have quotes at the start. It's like a little nugget of background, lore, or foreshadowing, sometimes more than one at a time. What's your opinion on them?

[Anonymous No.23488790]

>>23488762
Based. Me too.

[Anonymous No.23488871]

>>23488755
You tell 'em anon, you're such a better writer than all those dead hacks

[Anonymous No.23488930]

I just can't make this scene works
>It's a detective scene, starts as exposition between two character, a detective and a coroner, before moving to the morgue
>Exposition again as the coroner explains what he found while doing the autopsy
>Then he's dismissed, the character does some searching of his own, and a separate character shows up, point towards the clue (if you must know the guy who died swallowed something and kept it in his mouth, because he died in such a way that his teeths grew into fangs in seconds, eventually entangling themselves in his mouth like roots). With their help, he manages to find the clue intact
>Scene ends.

So my first problem is, it's again too slow to start. I've done enough rewrite by now to know I can just skip the let's-exchange-cigars-and-politely-exchange-pleasantries first part to have the chapter start straight as the corpse is shown.
Second issue is that so far, the MC is really just given a free clue by a third party, and doesn't do much in the chapter besides standing around, talking, and doing a bit of physical examination on a cadaver. But if I make him find the clue himself by his lonesome, then the meat of the chapter is just "some dude working alone on a quiet room", and I miss the chance to introduce a character early on that will show up ten chapters later. I think what I need to do is separate the clue from the deduction. The twist of this chapter is that despite all evidence pointing to murder it really feels more like a suicide, and I think I need to lean more into that.

Thanks /wg/ you've helped me yet again.

[Anonymous No.23488961]

>>23487278
Preface that the book writing is a hobby and you have a real job. Women want a stable existence and don't want to date starving artists.

[Anonymous No.23488982]

>>23487278
To most women "book" is the same as erotica vomit, since that's all they're capable of reading. And they know that shit is worthless and disgusting. That's why they can't see anyone who writes "books" but as an undesirable.

[Anonymous No.23489108]

I always try to write my protagonist's personality with two positive traits and one negative one, what do you think of this profile?

>Creative
Shows a willingness to deviate from tradition, not afraid to test out new things, open-minded to others
>Humility
Does not hold himself above his peers despite noble lineage, does not shy away from dirty or unpleasant tasks (such as trudging through mud) or less glorious ones (holding a line)
>Unable to get over the past
Has a permanent emotional wound from his former love interest spurning him, never forgets a severe enough insult and sometimes eager to avenge a grudge

[Anonymous No.23489148]

>>23488600
Jesus wept.

[Anonymous No.23489156]

>>23487278

A lot of people (including writers) are privacy-minded so when they meet a writer they kind of assume that their private life is going to become the subject of a book, short story or essay. It's enough to turn off a lot of people. I've always stayed away from bloggers and people who are very active on social media for this reason. You just have to assume they don't respect privacy.

[Anonymous No.23489226]

Man I am just not creative enough. How do I get the creative juices flowing?

[Anonymous No.23489262]

>>23489226
Smoke weed erryday

[Anonymous No.23489292]

guys, I feel as thought I messed up Elves in my IP.

I made them the descendants of demons.
This is not in line with Tolkien's idyllic view of them.
What sort of message am I even pushing at that point? I am considering making the Elves something to represent a more higher ideal.

[Anonymous No.23489310]

>>23489292
>elves
elves are knife eared faggots and every faggot ass elf lover needs to be roped
yes, I am angry
ANGRY ABOUT ELVES
in seriousness, why include elves at all?

[Anonymous No.23489313]

>>23489310
They're iconic

[Anonymous No.23489323]

>>23489313
>roughly a hundred years old, if that
>iconic
just go back to the source and make them fae

[Anonymous No.23489343]

>>23489292
why do they have to be a discrete race
why do they have to have an evil ancestry
why must that evil ancestry control them, rather than having their actions be susceptible of both good and evil like any person
why do you need to explain their backstory at all
why do they need to represent anything
if they do have to represent something, why don't you just make them represent that thing, their autistic lore be damned

it sounds like you're fighting with genre conventions as though they were hard and fast rules, but they're not. You alone are the master of your own universe.

[Anonymous No.23489363]

>>23489292
>This is not in line with Tolkien's idyllic view of them.
lol what's he gonna do about it?

[Anonymous No.23489371]

>>23489343
because it's a weird message to put forth to say "Look at these beings who live a long time, but are also descendants of demons."

Living a long time is GOOD. Demons are evil. Feels like I'm betraying the concept of everlasting Youth by having something with an evil origin possess it.

But yes, you have a point, of course. I can do whatever with them.

I thank you for the thoughtful response.

[Anonymous No.23489377]

>>23489371
>Living a long time is GOOD. Demons are evil. Feels like I'm betraying the concept of everlasting Youth by having something with an evil origin possess it.
What about vampires?

[Anonymous No.23489380]

I have most of my story written but am thinking of expanding it. That requires my MC to move to a new state.

I had the idea of him getting hired as a park ranger and moving into the mountains, but from then on it's just a series of unrelated events with his coworkers up in the mountains that has no connective thread. Just every day is some new thing, it ends, on to the next.

What I really want to do is get him to hook up with this girl I already introduced him to, but they live in different states and I don't want to just time skip and say "he moved to Washington" just so he can bump into her again. I feel like the ranger stuff getting him there is important, but ultimately very boring.

[Anonymous No.23489385]

>>23489377
That would be a form of false everlasting youth since the vampire is still a cold corpse, just being puppeteered.

[Anonymous No.23489389]

>>23489371
>Feels like I'm betraying the concept of everlasting Youth by having something with an evil origin possess it.
obvious counterpoint: vampires
If you want the theme of the story to contain some kind of message about good and evil and the relation to immortality, one basic approach would be how evil can sometimes superficially replicate the nature of goodness, but in an (often extremely) imperfect way. Maybe the elves live forever, but only because they are in a covenant with a malevolent deity who they placate with gruesome sacrifices.

[Anonymous No.23489405]

>>23488233
Maybe you're thinking of a different Bible than I am. This is from Numbers 33:
[5]: And the children of Israel removed from Rameses, and pitched in Succoth.
[6]: And they departed from Succoth, and pitched in Etham, which is in the edge of the wilderness.
[7]: And they removed from Etham, and turned again unto Pi-hahiroth, which is before Baal-zephon: and they pitched before Migdol.
[8]: And they departed from before Pi-hahiroth, and passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness, and went three days' journey in the wilderness of Etham, and pitched in Marah.
[9]: And they removed from Marah, and came unto Elim: and in Elim were twelve fountains of water, and threescore and ten palm trees; and they pitched there.
[10]: And they removed from Elim, and encamped by the Red sea.
[11]: And they removed from the Red sea, and encamped in the wilderness of Sin.
[12]: And they took their journey out of the wilderness of Sin, and encamped in Dophkah.
[13]: And they departed from Dophkah, and encamped in Alush.
[14]: And they removed from Alush, and encamped at Rephidim, where was no water for the people to drink.
[15]: And they departed from Rephidim, and pitched in the wilderness of Sinai.
[16]: And they removed from the desert of Sinai, and pitched at Kibroth-hattaavah.
[17]: And they departed from Kibroth-hattaavah, and encamped at Hazeroth.
[18]: And they departed from Hazeroth, and pitched in Rithmah.
[19]: And they departed from Rithmah, and pitched at Rimmon-parez.
[20]: And they departed from Rimmon-parez, and pitched in Libnah.
[21]: And they removed from Libnah, and pitched at Rissah.
[22]: And they journeyed from Rissah, and pitched in Kehelathah.
[23]: And they went from Kehelathah, and pitched in mount Shapher.
[24]: And they removed from mount Shapher, and encamped in Haradah.
[25]: And they removed from Haradah, and pitched in Makheloth.
[26]: And they removed from Makheloth, and encamped at Tahath.
[27]: And they departed from Tahath, and pitched at Tarah.
[28]: And they removed from Tarah, and pitched in Mithcah.
[29]: And they went from Mithcah, and pitched in Hashmonah.
[30]: And they departed from Hashmonah, and encamped at Moseroth.
[31]: And they departed from Moseroth, and pitched in Bene-jaakan.
[32]: And they removed from Bene-jaakan, and encamped at Hor-hagidgad.
[33]: And they went from Hor-hagidgad, and pitched in Jotbathah.
[34]: And they removed from Jotbathah, and encamped at Ebronah.
[35]: And they departed from Ebronah, and encamped at Ezion-gaber.
[36]: And they removed from Ezion-gaber, and pitched in the wilderness of Zin, which is Kadesh.
[37]: And they removed from Kadesh, and pitched in mount Hor, in the edge of the land of Edom.

[Anonymous No.23489407]

>>23489389
alternatively, the elves live forever because they have disavowed their evil origins, have atoned for past wrongs, and have been blessed by more benevolent and just deity. Their immortality represents the power of redemption and the triumph of good over evil in one's own heart.

[Anonymous No.23489429]

>>23489389
>>23489407
These are good ideas, thank you.
Feel free to use them for your own Elves of course. There are enough Elves in stories to go around.

Thank you for the responses.

[Anonymous No.23489442]

>>23489385
>the vampire is still a cold corpse, just being puppeteered
Nice headcanon bro

[Anonymous No.23489470]

>>23489371
There are "evil" elves in fiction...they're sometimes referred to as "drow".

[Anonymous No.23489475]

>>23489405
Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,
Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asa,
Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
Uzziah the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
and Josiah the father of Jeconiah[c] and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
After the exile to Babylon:
Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
Zerubbabel the father of Abihud,
Abihud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
Azor the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Akim,
Akim the father of Elihud,
Elihud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

riveting

[Anonymous No.23489497]

>>23489475
terrible 'worldbuilding', G-d; see me after class

[Anonymous No.23489507]

>>23489475
Matthew really knew how to start with a bang, didn't he.

[Anonymous No.23489572]

>He was a thin man, originally from Kyoto. Even when standing in his business suit, he retained a sense of his bushido heritage. He wore large glasses with thick frames that made his eyes look bigger than they were. When he sat behind his desk, he exemplified honor and professionalism.

Beta reader told me I was racist and this part has to be cut. Literally what is the problem here?

[Anonymous No.23489601]

>>23489572
>Literally what is the problem here?
That you think any of it is accurate or a compliment as written.

[Anonymous No.23489627]

>>23489572
Reminds me of Mr. Yunioshi

[Anonymous No.23489630]

I know it's a bit of a meme but I wrote a scene where a main character has a panic attack. He's established as an anxious mess who carries a huge sense of guilt for the death of his parents. He finds out someone he loves dearly is probably going to die unless he does something about it. After the attack, he's able to put himself together and go after her.

[Anonymous No.23489798]

>>23489630
i dont want to read this scene

[Anonymous No.23489831]

>>23488673
I know one of the problems you're having. Just glancing at it now you are releasing 2 chapters a day, but you are literally doing it back to back. to maximize exposure I'd recommend offsetting them by at least a few hours.

[Anonymous No.23489834]

>>23488673
>https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/88378/the-holy-maidens-temptress-a-litrpg-isekai
not following the thread, but is this yours? ill give you reviews a little later if so

[Anonymous No.23489845]

>>23489475
You could simply stop being like this but every moment you actively decide to be the dumbest retard you could possibly be.

[Anonymous No.23489864]

>>23489475
now, now. don't criticize jew worship or you'll be sent to the spicy place
I'm sure in the original greek it's got more pizazz. and yes greek not hebrew. hebrew is a language that was invented roughly 100 years ago. those desert dwellers spoke pheonecian, and the learned ones wrote in greek

[Anonymous No.23489916]

>>23489864
>I'm sure in the original greek it's got more pizazz.
Why would it retard? Why are you "sure"? Homer and the Sagas have similar parts listing genealogies and names. Among other things it's how you sync records of time between cultures when time was mostly measured by counting things like royal dynasties.
What the fuck is wrong with you retards? Nobody is this braindead.

[Anonymous No.23489933]

>>23489831
Thank you I will give that a try
>>23489834
Yeah it's mine

[Anonymous No.23489935]

>>23489916
you may want to get your sarcasm detector recalibrated

[Anonymous No.23489947]

>>23489935
No I don't you disgusting subhuman retard.

[Anonymous No.23489949]

>>23489947
jew worship really is poison

[Anonymous No.23489957]

>>23488673
>called holy maiden's temptress
>no sexual content tag
bit of false advertising, innit?

[Anonymous No.23489961]

>>23489949
Just stop being like this. It's not hard and you have no reason to.
>it's just hecking sarcasm bro, it's so funny to constantly reinforce all the most evil mindless propaganda narratives around and then pretend I was joking when I get called out on it
Dumbest creatures that ever existed.

[Anonymous No.23489965]

>>23489961
retard

[Anonymous No.23489967]

>>23489961
Meds now

[Anonymous No.23489968]

>>23488662
Why did you reply to my post?

[Anonymous No.23489994]

>>23486690
Can I have success on royalroad if the MC is a Gamer?

[Anonymous No.23490012]

>>23489572
It's mostly fine. Nothing racist. But there are two problems with the 2nd sentence. "Even when standing in his business suit" is a strange qualifier/clause; like why wouldn't he retain [dignity/honor] when standing in his business suit? Everybody looks smarter, neater, more disciplined, etc. in formal wear, and especially standing. "Even" is the wrong word, better used in something like "Even when he was drunk and disheveled..." The other problem, arguably, is the bushido comment. Does the pov character/narrator see everyone as ancestral stereotypes? Is Matias likened to a viking, and D'Angelo to a Kalahari bushman?

[Anonymous No.23490015]

>>23489292
>demons
You retard, elves are already "demons", as in they're fallen angels. Not enough stories use this element.

[Anonymous No.23490033]

>>23490015
what the fuck are you talking about, retard, real elves? Real elves in germanic mythology are sacred ancestors. They're just accomplished individuals from many generations prior.
>Not enough stories use this element.
yeah that's because it's schizo bullshit

[Anonymous No.23490037]

>>23490033
>real elves?
Yes, real elves. That's what they're traditionally considered - fallen angels.

[Anonymous No.23490048]

>>23490037
>That's what they're traditionally considered
the only elf character in the codex regius is a human man from finland.

[Anonymous No.23490124]

>>23489994
No

[Anonymous No.23490219]

>>23489572
>He was a lean man, originally from Athens. Even when standing in his tuxedo, he retained a sense of his hoplite heritage.
That kind of is how the opening lines sounds without Eastern mysticism attached. It feels strange attaching the "Bushido" thing to a clearly non warrior thing.

[Anonymous No.23490305]

for me, it's pacing

[Anonymous No.23490337]

anyone else have that problem where you come up with a really good brother/sister incest plotline but you dont dare use it because you have sisters irl?

[Anonymous No.23490377]

>>23490337
I wonder if GRRM has any sisters

[Anonymous No.23490384]

>>23490377

[Anonymous No.23490392]

I've been lurking on Writer's Forum and they're so much nicer than you lot

[Anonymous No.23490400]

Going through a writing slump. This was the last thing I wrote.

https://pastebin.com/JRv6bGU9

[Anonymous No.23490399]

I'm writing a fantasy-slop story about a decaying world with population problems where the main villain's goal is to open a portal and bring up foreign creatures from another decaying world on the verge of collapse as "workers" to save nothumanity, but I feel that it may be a bit too on the nose.

[Anonymous No.23490415]

>>23490392
this place serves a different purpose: unfiltered, peanut gallery. chaos.
if you want nice, call your mom

[Anonymous No.23490421]

>>23490219
This. Americans seem to genuinely think every rice farmer was a samurai or ninja. It's cringe as fuck

[Anonymous No.23490436]

There are so many books out there, even books that are considered classics, that do almost exactly the same thing you're trying to do. Having to look up and read them all to make sure you don't just do the same thing but worse is such a time-consuming chore.

[Anonymous No.23490438]

>>23490399
i too live in canada
>>23490400
:)
>>23490421
you sound cring

[Anonymous No.23490466]

>>23489916
It's still boring prose

[Anonymous No.23490474]

>>23489572
It's not racist, but it's a shit line.
Learn what bushido is.
>he exemplified honor and professionalism
Okay, but how? Can you at least prove that to me, instead of saying "dude just trust me" as a writer?

Your reader made the right call but for the wrong reason.

[Anonymous No.23490487]

>>23490421
It's like saying the random 300 lb WalMart mobility scooter mom has the spirit of the fierce cowboys of the Wild West.

[Anonymous No.23490489]

>>23488930
>coroner

Get more technical with the analysis by the coroner, something a non-physician type isn't privy to-- then Coroner fills them in with QRD. Coroner should either be autistic (flat to the point of standoffish matter of factness and/or flippant not as a cope but from being built different enough to have been an axe murderer under different life history conditions).

[Anonymous No.23490495]

>>23490487
You take the last bottle of Coke off the rack and you'll find out first hand her intensity.

[Anonymous No.23490497]

>>23490399
If you want to do it right and be real-world accurate:
>make the main villain the root cause of the population problems on their original world
>have the villain block every single proposed solution to fix the problem (out of dozens of viable solutions) by making up nonsense excuses to avoid lifting a finger to incentivize reproduction or knock down barriers that keep people from having kids
>suggestions to cut work hours, give new parents time off, make childcare and healthcare more abundant and affordable, or improve education for kids all get dismiss with excuses about them being either wastes of resources or immoral somehow
>then have the villain deliberately bring in foreign labor to fill the gaps and have targets for scapegoating
>have the villain demonize the imported labor and fearmonger their own people by telling them the imported laborers are an invading army coming to destroy their way of life.

By doing this, the villain builds their own power and creates a significant division in the workforce that splits the workers apart and keeps them all from realizing that the villain is 100% behind all of their suffering and is getting incredibly rich at their expense.

[Anonymous No.23490532]

>>23488182
Signs of struggling authors:
>clenched fists.
>furrowed brows.
>seethed and shat his pants.
> He said. She said.
Signs of someone who actually sells books:
>she was angry.
>Ron ejaculated loudly.

[Anonymous No.23490537]

>>23490532
Sanderson said something like he uses the same basic 5 or so "he said/she shouted" type phrases 2/3rds of the time, I think? And the remaining third were mostly the usual replacements.

Do you sell more books than him?

[Anonymous No.23490558]

>>23490532
Anon published angrily, and shitposted loudly.

[Anonymous No.23490607]

>>23490558
>>23490532
>ANON DID YOU PUT YOUR POST IN THE WRITING GENERAL THREAD???
>HE SAID CALMLY

[Anonymous No.23490631]

Nothing's coming to me today.

[Anonymous No.23490643]

how is this passage of a guy finding comfort in his love interest's bully
>"We were never friends. I only tolerated you because my mother asked me to, but I can't anymore!"
>He laid on his bed, her words still echoing in his head. Keron felt like something was torn out of him. He was bleeding inside now, not blood, but something else.
>"She'll come. She didn't mean it." he told himself, trying to stop the flow. But as the minutes turned to hours, she did not.
>Keron looked to the painting of them all together. Such a warm smile he had, and now he felt like his entire world had turned to ice.
>A knock came to the door. A rope to a drowning sailor.
>He rose with vigor he did not know he had, and raced to open it.
>She was not there. No, it was Veronica. Proud and cold, ever Aura's cruel detractor. Her hands were cupped in front of her, and she gently touched his arm.
>Warmth flowed into him again. Her lips moved, and he hazily heard words of comfort and apology for what happened to him. He spoke thanks in turn, and felt Veronica's on his chest.
>Keron touched her shoulder in turn, and felt the hand slide to his loins. He felt her lips against his. Keron had been in the desert so long, and the water of her oasis was sweeter than any cake.

[Anonymous No.23490644]

>>23490643
comedy gold

[Anonymous No.23490660]

>>23488708
If you are still around, can you take a look at my new sypnosis? I updated it according to your suggestions. The story's content is still the same though, not like I can fix it at this point

[Anonymous No.23490741]

Man this new book is bumming me out. Mentally exhausting shit. I just want to write about flowers and daffodils and little rivers that go blub blub blub and feet splish splashing around in the shallows.

[Anonymous No.23490747]

>>23490741
NO, you WILL write about suffering and the internal struggle of man against the beast.
Your characters will suffer, and you will be happy.

[Anonymous No.23490781]

>>23490747
I'm tired anon.

[Anonymous No.23490783]

>>23490781
Suffering builds character.

[Anonymous No.23490959]

>>23490124
No?

[Anonymous No.23491109]

>>23490497
That's a great idea and fixes most narrative issues I had so far.
But I wanted to make a story on a smaller scale, so I'm gonna change the main villian's endgame.

[Anonymous No.23491116]

>>23490474
Dumbass, you can do that AND tell the reader. Read a fucking book for once, it's called storytelling not storyshowing

[Anonymous No.23491141]

>>23490219
That sounds really cool anon, I don't see the issue.

[Anonymous No.23491198]

>>23490644
Thanks

[Anonymous No.23491220]

>>23486690
I have 235 A4 pages to write. Twice. I'm gonna make it. Slowly, though.

[Anonymous No.23491234]

How do you know if your second draft is better than your first?

[Anonymous No.23491286]

Grade my work from A+ to F. What do I do right and what do I do wrong. Obviously I plan on fleshing out the sister character a little more since my main character winds up killing her

>>23487418

First page looks fine but holy shit condense the second page into smaller paragraphs. No one wants to read a massive wall of text otherwise it doesn't read too badly.

[Anonymous No.23491307]

I just wanted to say: poop in a hat.

[Anonymous No.23491320]

>>23491234
It’s a very difficult divination that requires skill and precise ingredients. Do you have a chicken handy? And a knife?

[Anonymous No.23491358]

>>23490959
No need to engage the no-wit trolls.

[Anonymous No.23491374]

>>23491141
How old are you?

[Anonymous No.23491423]

>>23491374
Groomer.

[Anonymous No.23491474]

>>23491286
Bad. Too dependent on cliches. Very awkward rambling ESL prose. Structurally incoherent. Reads like something you vomited out in fifteen minutes without a single thought before or afterwards. No regard for the audience's mind or experience. Completely self-absorbed writing.

[Anonymous No.23491530]

>>23490741
based and same
become a childrens author

[Anonymous No.23491634]

Why can't there be a royalroad for good novels?

[Anonymous No.23491662]

>>23490532
Yes, you're supposed to use only said as a dialogue tag 90% of the time. Rowling may have sold books, but her writing is that of a complete noob. She just lucked out in marketing it to kids who are too young and dumb to tell art from shit.

[Anonymous No.23491678]

>>23491662
harry potter was and is popular with all ages. it wasn't a kid-only phenomenon.
the real take away is that prose doesn't matter to the masses, not 'she got lucky marketing to kids'

[Anonymous No.23491684]

>>23491678
Parents taking kids to the movies is where most of the money came from though. I've seen adults read the books too, but it's far fewer than the kid audience.

>the real take away is that prose doesn't matter to the masses
Which is very sad.

[Anonymous No.23491685]

How does harry potter's writing quality compare to average litrpg on royalroad

[Anonymous No.23491687]

>>23491634
I really can't believe there isn't a better alternative.

>minimalist UI with a focus on text presentation
>not a million ranking lists that turn writing into a cheap horse race
>no stars or numbers, only steam-style recommended/not recommended for works, which must be attached to a review
>admins who focus on running the site and improving it, instead of inventing bizarre games and worthless features all year long
>a modicum of quality control, so not every low-effort, unintelligible 100-word ejaculation gets through, only to be abandoned right after
Why is that too much asked?

[Anonymous No.23491690]

>>23491685
Even the worst published novel is still better than anything there. Some have passable writing, but fail to tell a story worth a damn.

[Anonymous No.23491695]

>>23491687
The website you just suggested would have 3 readers total

[Anonymous No.23491696]

>>23491685
1. A best selling traditionally published book that underwent many rounds of professional editing
2. the website first-time 14 year old writers post their slop stories to
What was the point of this question?

[Anonymous No.23491699]

>>23491696
I don't know. It just came to mind since people just started saying bad stuff about HP's writing.

[Anonymous No.23491704]

>>23491687
But nobody is willing to sort through all the horseshit that gets posted to find what's good. That's why algorithms are necessary. They're extremely flawed but they're also the only viable way to auto-sort through the goddamn muck of what the 'average writer' produces

And if you're suggesting the alternative of having a comprehensive vetting process for each fiction, to assure high quality posts are all that go through (as subjective as that is), congratulations, you just discovered tradpubbing

[Anonymous No.23491753]

>>23491685
They're pretty much on equal footing. It's the story structure and themes that vary in quality, but in terms of raw words, about the same.

[Anonymous No.23491757]

Is it possible to have a book be successful that is just cute slice of life like my animes? I don't want conflict. I just want to write about cute girls getting along and doing cute things.

[Anonymous No.23491781]

I can spent an hour going over one sentence, refining it endless. Prose is very important to me.

[Anonymous No.23491787]

>>23491781
I am the opposite. Your approach is probably better though.

[Anonymous No.23491797]

>>23491787
Depends on how bad you want to make any progress. I've been working on this story off and on since October and am just now doing my second draft. The end product will be better for it, but it takes 10x as long to get there.

[Anonymous No.23491805]

>>23491704
>But nobody is willing to sort through all the horseshit that gets posted to find what's good

That's why reviews exist. People should actually read reviews to see if a work is up to their tastes or not, and not just look "hurr this work has three shiny thingies next to the title, this one has only two shiny thingies, haha two shiny thingies means bad!" or "thousand monkes read this, thingy very good, I must also read this!" Mongoloids like that have no business near literary circles in the first place.

[Anonymous No.23491821]

>>23491781
Endlessly tweaking sentences only means you have no idea what actually works or sounds good and can't make up your mind. Not the way of someone who produces good results.

[Anonymous No.23491827]

>>23491821
Of course. I'm new to this and can't write perfect sentences my first time. So I sit on it, come back the next day, fix it, repeat.

[Anonymous No.23491845]

>>23491805
Okay but reviewers only review stuff that's already at least somewhat popular. They don't click on 0-view stories published to serial sites. Please rub those two brain cells of yours together and think this through

[Anonymous No.23491871]

At this point consumers are so conditioned that anything less than 5/5 stars is automatically perceived to be trash.

[Anonymous No.23491909]

I wish I could write good.

[Anonymous No.23491935]

>you ARE designing your own planetary systems with detailed orbital dynamics and fine-tuned to produce all of the celestial events and weather patterns your story calls for, aren't you, anon?
I'm going to end up solving the 3-Body Problem before I figure out how to get the exact celestial events I want to work without collapsing in <1000 years.
Kill me.

[Anonymous No.23491990]

>>23491871
Isn't that the same for everything?

[Anonymous No.23491995]

I am horrible at stringing my ideas together into a cohesive well, written narrative.

[Anonymous No.23492006]

>>23491995
Same. I have about 10 isolated ideas but I have no main story to connect them.

[Anonymous No.23492028]

>>23491678
>prose doesn't matter to the masses
the first roughly 10k words of the first harry potter book is far and away the absolute best written part of the entire series, with the best voice and best worldbuilding. find a copy online and read it now if you don't believe me. it's excellent. the rest keeps going, but JK and her editor polished the absolute hell out of the opening

[Anonymous No.23492033]

>try to write a depressing scene
>feels like I'm trying too hard
>don't know how to make it naturally a downer otherwise

[Anonymous No.23492060]

>>23492028
It makes sense. You want the start to be the best. Then after the reader is already hooked you can phone it in.

[Anonymous No.23492102]

>>23491116
Seethe. your line is shit.

[Anonymous No.23492104]

>>23492033
Write something depressing and try to make it comedic.

[Anonymous No.23492144]

>>23492104
Well, it's a scene of a guy losing his job, stepping in dog shit, and getting woke up by his neighbor's techno music at midnight. I guess it's kinda funny, but it's meant to show how bad his life his. The real funny scene comes after, to lighten the mood. But I'm not very good with comedy either.

[Anonymous No.23492147]

>>23489572
It makes sense if you're trying to imply he is very traditional, which I assume you are.

[Anonymous No.23492180]

>>23491116
To be desu, this. If it's a one off side character you don't need to devote a paragraph showing they nurse sick puppies back to health. Just say they're a nice and well liked person and get on with it.

[Anonymous No.23492242]

My writing is becoming inbred. Time to read some more.

[Anonymous No.23492258]

>For Whom The Bell Tolls
>first paragraph
>"There was a stream alongside the road and far down the pass he saw a mill beside the stream and the falling water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight."

Prose has been dead since forever. Look at that, mentioning stream twice in the same sentence. It's clunky and unprofessional.

[Anonymous No.23492295]

>>23492258
RR link? I'll give it 0.5 star.

[Anonymous No.23492299]

>>23492242
And my writing is mentally stumped
>stuck refining the same paragraph for over an hour

[Anonymous No.23492311]

>>23491871
Why waste your time with mediocre work when published work has grown exponentially for the past 20 years?
You could dedicate your life to reading only 5/5 stuff and by the time you died there would be MORE unread 5/5 works out there than there were when you started. People are publishing 5/5 stuff faster than any normal person can consume them.

I think I just talked myself out of writing...

[Anonymous No.23492313]

>>23492258
>a fucking armenian btfo’d hemmingway in simple prose
>a fucking armenian

[Anonymous No.23492405]

I am only 670 words away from reaching 40k. I'm gonna make bros.

[Anonymous No.23492408]

>word processor crashes multiple times a day

[Anonymous No.23492409]

>>23492405
Nice I've never written anything that long before. Most of the stuff I've written is short stories.

[Anonymous No.23492415]

>>23492311
But that would assume the 5/5 ratings are accurate and match your specific taste exactly. Your favorite movie probably has a score on [any metric site] that you think is ridiculous. Maybe your perfect book has been roundly and unjustly panned also.

[Anonymous No.23492422]

>>23492415
>Maybe your perfect book has been roundly and unjustly panned also.
Good point. Every time anyone mentions The Book of the New Sun some mouthbreather calls it bad.

[Anonymous No.23492511]

>>23492408
Pen and paper can't crash.

However, I can beat you up, piss on your paper and stick your pen up your ass for being a nerd.

[Anonymous No.23492516]

>>23492415
That piece of shit FOTM Frieren got higher rating than FMAB while Dungeon Meshi exists.

I want everyone to remember that ratings mean nothing.

[Anonymous No.23492576]

>>23492516
It deserved it.

[Anonymous No.23492587]

>>23492516
Because it's objectively kino and dungeon meshi is absolute shit.

[Anonymous No.23492616]

>>23492587
They all are shit

[Anonymous No.23492935]

Finished book #2 basically, just need to make the cover.

This summer I'm gonna finish another shorter project since I have summers off. That'll give me three books out there in my library. Feels kinda nice. I'll probably jump back on a bigger project after that. My workflow gets better with each one so it feels like I'm getting more efficient and overall better as a writer.

[Anonymous No.23493026]

Anyone here published using kindle unlimited before? Does amazon do any marketing for your book for you, like putting up ads in their store? I have no online presence whatsoever to even attempt to self publish on my own so that could be a good alternative

[Anonymous No.23493051]

>>23492935
Congrats. How big is each book?

[Anonymous No.23493094]

>>23491286
>>23491474
This criticism is somewhat true, but don't be discouraged. The description of his sister is fantastic and I love the subversion of the line "they had found a body but it wasn't one of mine". After that, it does get pretty sloppy. The writing falls apart and the other poster is correct in his diagnosis. The story line is interesting, but the prose is awkward and a bit stilted. Almost as if you rushed to the end

[Anonymous No.23493099]

>>23493051
My first book was 325k words, real brick of a high fantasy. These middle two are novellas basically, 50k for the second and the third will likely be around 80k or less. All unrelated to eachother. Once I'm done these smaller ones I'm going to go to doing the three tangential followups to the first book.

[Anonymous No.23493109]

>>23493026
>Does amazon do any marketing for your book for you

lol
lmao even

[Anonymous No.23493115]

>>23493099
Holy shit. Nice work. 80k is a novel to me, so all of those are huge. But 325k is damn impressive.

[Anonymous No.23493118]

>>23493109
So they don't? What's the point of KU then?

[Anonymous No.23493121]

>>23493099
>325k words
How long did it take for you to shit all these chapters?

[Anonymous No.23493122]

>>23493118
To get paid per page read, instead of making people buy your whole book?

[Anonymous No.23493134]

>>23493118
Is that the one where it's free to certain subscribers, like a Netflix thing? Then yeah, you get paid per page view, so people are more likely to take a chance on it. Probably good if you're just starting out. Not so much if you're already a mega celebrity.

You could buy ads on Amazon I think, but most people have ad blockers so what's the point.

[Anonymous No.23493141]

It honestly baffles me how some people manage to push out a few thousand words a day and then go over it while I'm struggling to get to 1000.

[Anonymous No.23493144]

>>23492516
Frieren is one of the best anime ever created.
Dungeon Meshi is easily top 10. Probably top 5. But it's not beating Frieren.

[Anonymous No.23493145]

>>23493141
I either pump out 10k+ or 0. No in-between. I think 40k is my record in one sitting and I couldn't write anything for weeks before or after.

[Anonymous No.23493148]

>>23493145
>I think 40k is my record in one sitting
It's taken me over 3 months and I'm only just now hitting 40k. How in the unholy fuck do you do it in one sitting?

[Anonymous No.23493154]

>>23493115
Yeah it may not even hit 80k I don't think, it's a very contained narrative.

>>23493121
Dunno, maybe 3 years on and off. I started it sitting in the back of university classes then dropped it for a while.

[Anonymous No.23493179]

>>23490741
>Trying to not write the same suffering stories
>Stall hard whenever I slow things down
>Say fuck it, two files
>Sunrise for Happy shit
>Sunset for Not so Happy shit
>Sunrise 8k words
>Sunset 4k words
>Awesome, I think I know where my priorities are
>Keep returning to suffering story despite making less progress
the irony isn't lost on me

[Anonymous No.23493238]

>>23493154
I love the novella form. I need to do some more research and thinking on how it differs from a short novel because I was in a thread a week ago and some anons were making good points about how it's very different and mostly unexplored territory.

[Anonymous No.23493251]

>>23493148
Couldn't tell you.
I've got ADHD so I can't consciously do it. I just take notes here and there and one day something will make a few of them "click" and while I'm writing it down more things will start clicking and I have to race to get it all typed out before it leaves me because ADHD has trash working memory and if I stop to take notes I'll lose what I was working on that triggered the new ideas in the first place.

I usually end up in a state of flow/hyperfocus and hours will fly by in the blink of an eye. I'll suddenly realize I'm starving and haven't used the bathroom all day but I'll have 10k+ words laid out.

The day I wrote 40k words was magical because I had a much-needed 4 day weekend, it was pouring rain outside on a cool spring day, I was enjoying a new tea I'd discovered, new albums from two of my favorite bands had just dropped, and I my mind was wandering while I tried to do some chores.

Something kicked off an idea cascade so I hurried to my PC to write it down and immediately busted out 1k words with no sign of slowing down, so I put some more tea on, opened my window to let the breeze and sound of rain in, and fired up those new albums.

I blinked and it was suddenly 6 hours later and my tea was cold because I hadn't even touched it. I warmed it back up, scarfed down some leftovers, emptied my bladder, then sat down and began reading what I'd written, only to get hit with still more ideas cascades. Next thing I know it's 10 hours later. I make more tea, eat a snack, piss, then sit down to get one final idea written down before I forget, and suddenly it's 4+ hours later and the sun is coming up and I'm over 40k words.

It was the coolest feeling because it was less like I was making up a story and more like I was uncovering one. I kept having epiphanies like:
>How did this encounter go so badly for the good guys?
>Because X wasn't there. Which makes sense because if they were, Y wouldn't have fought their own kin.
>Why wasn't X there? Because Z has had it out for Y for 10 chapters for reasons 1 and 2, so they asked X to do something for them to get them out of the way and then walked Y into an ambush because Z avoids open confrontation.
>Why? Because their parents were A and B, who have already been established as a diplomat and a spy, so of course Y is a sneaky bastard.

A chain reaction that jumps all over the story. And the more story I "uncover" the more things there are to grab onto or bounce off of.

The peak manifestation of this was a character that I hadn't written a single word about but had fully defined using "negative space". I had no idea this character even existed, but there was a hole in my plot shaped PERFECTLY for one single character to fill and connect all the dots. Which made a perfect reveal for the final act of the story.

[Anonymous No.23493300]

>>23493179
Hey, it worked for the Lemony Snicket series.

[Anonymous No.23493384]

Have any of you submitted to Aethon Books?

[That doomsday clock No.23493386]

>>23493384
Who?

[Anonymous No.23493395]

>>23493386
A publisher who publishes a lot of genre stuff

[Anonymous No.23493458]

>>23491845
>Okay but reviewers only review stuff that's already at least somewhat popular
If that were true, nothing would ever get reviewed. Someone is always first, there when nobody else is. Some people actually look up stuff to review and enjoy doing it.

[Anonymous No.23493466]

>>23493384
No, but I've heard about many retards who did and regretted it.

[Anonymous No.23493611]

Ahhhhhhhhhh I've been revising my chapters for 12 hours today. There's still so much more to go but I'm getting tired.

[Anonymous No.23493621]

>>23487418
I think you could have explained how the man died on a separate paragraph because you tied off his story too quickly. Finish his rambling paragraph, have regulus go home and then tie of the death with a police report on tv mentioning something familiar about the guy, like where he lives, where he worked, his nationality, age etc.

[Anonymous No.23493625]

>>23487181
...what if, perhaps, it is both?

[Anonymous No.23493708]

>>23493144
>>23492587
>>23492576
You're all legitimately shit-eaters.

[Anonymous No.23493730]

When writing historical fiction, just how accurate do you really have to be? I mean obviously the broad strokes should be there but I'm talking about the really fine "worldbuilding" details that historians don't go into because they're irrelevant, is it OK to just assume shit/make it up?

I'm writing a short story about Operation Anthropoid. I've done a significant amount of research but there's parts where I have no choice but to bullshit because the relevant info simply doesn't exist in a form that's accessible to me, and I have this paranoia that someone will call me out on it. Pic unrelated.

[Anonymous No.23493744]

>>23493730
Anon.
>historical FICTION
Who fucking cares?
>someone will call you out
Ez fix:
>"Were you there?"

[Anonymous No.23493828]

>>23491935
Now this anon is on some ADVANCED shit, I aspire to be so autistic about the details.

[Anonymous No.23493841]

>>23493744
I think you're right, thanks anon. I have a tendency to overthink these things because I'm the kind of hyperfixating autist who will notice when a minor piece of known historical info is wrong. But, come to think of it, it won't impact my rating of the entire piece as a whole so there's that.

[Anonymous No.23493918]

>>23493841
>>23493730
I have the same problem but I’m writing an isekai story where the protagonist is a coppersmith from the Bell Beaker culture

[Anonymous No.23493921]

>>23488673

You are using a lot of big, weighty words that are not exactly descriptive of anything or helping me spark my imagination, not really. To me that was the biggest factor to put me off reading on.

>>23488708 also makes good points.

[Anonymous No.23493958]

I've been working on this manuscript for 5 years and I don't think I'll complete it before my self-imposed deadline of January '25. I wish I was dead.

[Anonymous No.23494277]

My story is set in an alternative history, where North America is split into multiple countries, roughly based on the civil war division. How likely is it that someone will notice and interpret it to mean I support slavery?

[Anonymous No.23494293]

>>23493466
Name three.

[Anonymous No.23494304]

>>23494293
Nigga they just put your book on amazon. You can do that yourself without paying a cut to some kids

[Anonymous No.23494312]

>>23494304
But I want to hear about some of the "many retards" you're apparently so familiar with.

[Anonymous No.23494339]

Should a story make sense?

[Anonymous No.23494356]

>>23494312
I'm not "familiar" with any retards writing litrpg fantasy slop and never claimed to be. But I have seen salty comments about this "publisher" by people saying they had no intention to deal with Aethon in the future. That was as far as my interest in this subject goes. I'm sure you could easily google stories if you cared. But you don't actually care, you just want to be an annoying nigger

[Anonymous No.23494408]

>>23494356
NO YOUR THE NIGGER!!

[Anonymous No.23494444]

>>23494356
You claimed to have heard about many people about Aetheon >>23493466 but can't actually name any. Your input, and your participation in this forum, is not value-added.

[Anonymous No.23494484]

>guy called my story a gem

[Anonymous No.23494546]

>>23494339
Not all the time. You only need to make people feel like it could make sense to keep them engaged. Have different levels of payout depending on how closely the reader pays attention.

[Anonymous No.23494612]

>>23493828
Step 1: Be an engineer.
Step 2: Realize that business majors, marketers, and dumbass rich clients control everything significant that gets made these days and they all do is make everything 100x harder for you, then they take 99.99% of the profits and acclaim for your work
Step 3: Spend so much time daydreaming to escape it all that you accidentally have multiple book outlines before you realize it
Step 4: ??? (simulate entire star systems so your writing can be spot-on about the details?)
Step 5: Profit? idk, I'll let you know when I get there.

[Anonymous No.23494614]

My stories always end up being too short it feels. I can't find enough things for my characters to do since I'm not creative enough, and everything always is super fast paced. This might be stupid sounding, but I never draft.

[Anonymous No.23494636]

I think I should just be satisfied where I am. My writing skills may not be good, but its good fun to bring the stories I have in daydreams to life. Even if I am not good enough to make it as good on paper as it was in my head.
I can also try to improve and get better at the craft, but not obsess over that too much.

[Anonymous No.23494652]

>>23494277
100% and you'll get over that.

[Anonymous No.23494670]

>>23493958
Hats off to you for showing dedication! Just try to move forward on Deadline Day (D-Day), and publish or move into the next stage of writing, because at some point, you'll be tweaking minor issues. The point is about getting the story out, not writing the next Holy Bible or something. What medium do you work in? If you're working on paper, consider obtaining one of those notebooks: they rarely have more than 250 pages, and if you're really working on it, then you'd have to work an average of 50 pages a year, which is about 5 pages a month, which is about 1/6th a page per day, and that's very do-able. I one time felt that my creative efforts had a deadline or were spent or whatever so I just crossed out the rest of the pages and published. It seemed like it wasn't complete, but the product was complete: the information was just more dense and the text was shorter than had I bewritten all of the pages. I apparently can't pump out a long, long text 100/100 times. There has to be room for shorter works.

[Anonymous No.23494679]

>>23494670
In that sense it's a bit like a school exam with time restrictions: when the time's up, put the pen down, hand it in, hope the grade's passable.

[Anonymous No.23494764]

Do character driven stories have an arc structure? An example would be rick and morty.

[Anonymous No.23494775]

>>23491474
>>23493094

Cheers lads. I'm trying to keep this one short but impactful which is probably why it feels rushed. I want it to be under 10 pages but bigger than 5 at the most since I'm experimenting writing shorter stories at the moment.

[Anonymous No.23494878]

>>23494614
I kind of have the same issue. On the next draft I go back and try to slow it down, add more details, add some thoughts/reactions of the characters to what is happening, to make it feel not so rushed.

[Anonymous No.23494883]

tfw you realize you've lost months of productivity to a cycle of bad sleep, bad diet, and self-medication
unrelated, is there anything worse than sitting down to write and suddenly developing an awful bout of hiccups?

[Anonymous No.23494891]

>>23494764
Rick and Morty follow a "story circle" structure.
https://channel101.fandom.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_Basic_Shit

[Anonymous No.23494896]

>>23494764
Yes, they do.
I don't know what to tell you other than yes. There's character arcs and there's plot arcs.
Ideally, character arcs should be woven with plot arcs.

[Anonymous No.23494898]

3 more chapters to re-write and I'll be done with my second draft. Then I'll let it sit and try to find some beta readers I guess. I know like, 3 people, who might be able to do it, but we're not that close and I kind of feel like I'm imposing on them to just hand them a 150 page stack and ask for feedback.

[Anonymous No.23495061]

>>23494444
Do you work for them or why are you up in arms to defend their honor? What a waste of quads

[Anonymous No.23495069]

>>23495061
Ugh. At this point, you're deflecting stupidly, and desperately trying to miss the point. What a waste of a mind.

[Anonymous No.23495103]

>>23495069
Oh, I get it.
>I didn't fuck up signing a deal with them, I didn't, no way, OH NO NO NO I TOTALLY DID, DIDN'T I

[Anonymous No.23495131]

>>23495103
I never even heard of Aetheon Books until someone asked about them and you pretended to have heard about several people that had a bad deal with them. You're just continuing to deflect madly. I guess we have a new seething schizo to take the place of the now-departed Frank. Sad!

[Anonymous No.23495151]

>>23495131
>you pretended to have heard about several people that had a bad deal with them
Which is true.

[Anonymous No.23495153]

Have anyone got their idea stolen and being published by someone else?

[Anonymous No.23495178]

>>23495153
Not yet, but I'm very worried about it and who I send my drafts to. Heard many stories, particularly of people who post to RR, who don't immediately publish to Amazon and someone else copies their chapters and uploads it instead and collects the profits.

[Anonymous No.23495184]

>>23495153
I had an idea for a fantasy series about a british kid going to a magical school, but instead of magic wands there were magical guns. It was all a metaphor for gun control. Then some bitch beat me to it. And made the story less violent.

[Anonymous No.23495187]

>>23495151
And yet you couldn't name three.

[Anonymous No.23495194]

>>23495184
Is it too late to sue? I know there's a statue of limitations on these things.

[Anonymous No.23495206]

>>23495153
You can't claim ownership of ideas any more than you can claim you're the only one living life. You can copyright the expression of ideas, but not the ideas themselves.

[Anonymous No.23495217]

>>23495206
A) You're a pedantic piece of shit.
B) Some PNW tribes actually do have IP laws for thoughts. It's tied to the cultural idea that knowledge of a person, place, or thing gives you power over them, or makes you vulnerable to them if they're malevolent.

[Anonymous No.23495362]

>>23495178
Can't you rape them for that? That's blatant IP theft.

[Anonymous No.23495387]

>>23495362
From what I heard, Amazon gave no fucks about it and let the imitation copy stay. Sounds like the real wild west over there, first come first serve.

[Anonymous No.23495441]

>>23495387
You just get a court order, judge will stamp that shit no questions so long as you have all your evidence lined up, then you get the persons details from Amazon and you can rinse them in court easy.

[Anonymous No.23495443]

>MC's power is: spiders (he sees them)
>Keep writing that he's seeing spiders for a few chapter.
>Feel like it should have another layer to it
>Hit myself on the head when I realize "spiders" are a very sizeable order of the animal kingdom with 50 000+ individuals species and I've just be summarizing them as "spiders"
>Guy McProtag looked down at his free arm. A spider was climbing lazily up his sleeve, taking its time. It stopped somewhere around his elbow and looked at him in a way he felt was judgemental.
I could've gone
>Guy McProtag looked down at his free arm. A Platycryptus Undatus, "common jumping spider" was climbing lazily up his sleeve, clearly unwilling to use its famed bounds to make the journey. It stopped somewhere around his elbow and looked at him in a way he felt was judgemental.
All of a sudden it's just better. Obviously a man whose life has been about spiders for so long would have learned the different kinds of species like the best arachnologists. And I can use typical spider-related facts to indicate context (possibly a deadly venomous spider and an harmless fly-eater would mean very different things indeed). And lastly it makes the protagonist more active, because instead of just blankly looking at spiders he's actively taking note of the kind he's seeing to draw his conclusions.

I'm off to buy spider-related books next week, wish me luck.

[Anonymous No.23495471]

>>23495441
Yes, if you have the thousands of dollars necessary to go to court, by all means do it.

[Anonymous No.23495474]

If you’re writing sci-fi or fantasy you should KYS.

[Anonymous No.23495475]

>>23495441
and then amazon tells you that it sold exactly 0 copies and the damages are summary and you spent thousands more in legal fees that it was ever worth to get your mediocre book off the self-published section under somebody else's name

[Anonymous No.23495535]

>>23495471
You self represent brainlet.

>>23495475
Well yeah but this assuming that your shitty novel actually sold

[Anonymous No.23495562]

>>23495217
It's your problem if you don't like the real world as it is. I'm just the messenger. And what the hell do "PNW tribes" and their "IP laws" have to do with anything? You think the Muckleshoot tribe's laws are going to dominate U.S. law any time soon? Maybe you'll be allowed to publish your version within the 10 square miles of wasteland they can claim as their "territory". You putz.
>>23495441
You have a child's view of the function of the court system. The ones that can afford the time and money to push the case through will win. And all your opponent has to do is find "prior art" with that idea & your case will deflate faster, and more permanently, than your erection upon seeing your naked grandma.
>>23495535
>self represent
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

[Anonymous No.23495566]

>>23495535
>You self represent brainlet.
It still costs money. Courts don't just let you show up and use their space for free. Judges salaries are notoriously high.

[Anonymous No.23495571]

>>23495562
I've self represented before in court, I wouldn't for criminal charges but for civil cases like this it's totally achievable. I'm sorry you're a brainlet.

>And all your opponent has to do is find "prior art" with that idea & your case will deflate faster, and more permanently, than your erection upon seeing your naked grandma.

If someone has just straight ripped your text and you can prove your Royal Road IP then it's a slam dunk dude. You won't even have to take it to court probably, they will settle outside.

[Anonymous No.23495572]

>>23495535
You won't even know what to do with 1% of the filings your opponents make. While you're at it, why not perform open-heart surgery on yourself. You're a child.

[Anonymous No.23495579]

>>23495571
The original discussion was about ideas, not text. Text is covered by copyright. Ideas are not. You're moving the goalposts. Or maybe you're just a brainlet.

[Anonymous No.23495584]

let's continue this oh-so-scintillating seethe-fest next thread...
>>23495576
>>23495576
>>23495576
...or maybe all you idiots can just quit while you're behind

[Anonymous No.23495585]

>>23495579
I was directly replying to the person who was talking about their work being copied and published on Amazon by someone else. Can you not follow the replies?...

>>23495572
You've been fooled by Mr shekelstein.

[Anonymous No.23495648]

>>23495474
If you're a gatekeeping seether who's too chicken to PYW you should KYS.

[Anonymous No.23495649]

>>23495562
>And what the hell do "PNW tribes" and their "IP laws" have to do with anything? You think the Muckleshoot tribe's laws are going to dominate U.S. law any time soon? Maybe you'll be allowed to publish your version within the 10 square miles of wasteland they can claim as their "territory". You putz.

You... are unfamiliar with the PNW region. It's some of the most beautiful coastal forests in the world.

[Anonymous No.23495663]

>>23495585
Wrong, moron. >>23495178 said they "heard many stories" of copyright violation, though they hadn't suffered that themselves, but >>23495153, the original post, was about ideas being "stolen".

[Anonymous No.23495679]

>>23495649
And beautiful coastal forests have what, exactly, to do with enforcing IP law? I've seen mindless deflection before, but this might exceed groundskeeper grade.

[Anonymous No.23495761]

>>23495184
That's concerning. Who's the plagiarist in question anyway?

[Anonymous No.23495784]

>>23495761
There was no plagiarism. >>23495184 merely had an idea. "Some bitch" realized what anon considers to be a similar idea.

[Anonymous No.23495801]

>>23495784
Have anons on this board publicly stated that they'll steal others idea? Because on a separate thread I made a mistake of sharing too much of the settings and some mf replied "thanks i'll steal that".

[Anonymous No.23495929]

>>23495801
Ideas are a dime a dozen; it's the execution that's important. Someone could steal your ideas & produce something so different that you couldn't even tell they had a common source. On the other hand, it's safe to assume that if someone is uncreative enough to have to steal ideas from others, they'll never complete anything. The bottom line is, you have nothing to worry about.