/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3364566]

So /lit/, how do you decide what you write about?

I've been fighting with myself because I mostly want to write stuff based on my own experience and not "pure" fiction. The problem is that I feel like i'm too young (I'm 22 in a month) to have anything really interesting to write about, even though I've lived a pretty weird life with homelessness and all. It has gone so far that I even took cocaine last week just because I felt like that could be something to write about.

So how do you do? Do you base your writing on your own experiences or just write whatever you think about?

[demiurge No.3364571]

if you don't have anything interesting, write the mundane but significant memories you have. like sitting in a restaurant and noticing everyone is sitting alone. small things. it'll build up.

honestly the best fix is to just write. sometimes fiction seems more real in retrospect than what "really" happened.

[Rakushasu !!5q59JihCZjm No.3364596]

>>3364571
What he said is a good idea. The small things you notice can make up a good story if you just give the idea or the scene you noticed some time to ripe.
Say you see a mother with two children. One of the kids is happily walking next to the mother and has a snack in his hand. The mother drags another kid with her, which is crying and trying to free herself from the mothers hand, while the mother doesn't even acknowledge her second kid. Why is this? What is the mother thinking? etc. Not the best example, but I hope you get what I mean.

On the other hand, I can also recommand you just sit down and start writing something, anything. Start with the sun outside that was shinning or the old man you saw infront of your house. But just start writing, you will get ideas.

[Anonymous No.3364599]

Studying to create cinema or compositions, amongst other things, informs each single medium I work with; the restrictions of the forms translate depending on the imagination. There's a general core, which I never bother to define, in common concerning the initial concepts of works. It's almost as if you can extract commonalities with the works of others, and start webbing together something original.

The core gets starts to get larger, and when it gets so big it doesn't work conclusively to working with tact, you make it small again in as precise a way as possible. The process can go on for a long time.

In literature, for example, part what makes me go after an initial concept is something that resonates with my own reality, sometimes more metaphorical than others. One of the ways of going forward with a piece is learning how sharpen and wield that personal quality of a piece, so that it's more flexible.

[Anonymous No.3364612]

All three of you have given me good answers, thanks for that.

I just feel like this from time to time, otherwise I don't reflect much about it and just write, as you said.