/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4459092]

>Be female
>Only want to write about romance

It's the only thing I can think of decent plots for and it's the only thing that excites me.I'm a hack already, aren't I?

[Anonymous No.4459099]

You're probably the only person on this board at this very moment who has any potential to make a living from writing

[Sage No.4459107]

>I'm a girl btw ;)

[Anonymous No.4459114]

Make up a matrix of character attributes, plots, etc. Permute the matrix.

Read Lacan on women.

[Anonymous No.4459119]

>>4459107

I feel like there's a different connotation to being a female that wants to write about romance as opposed to a man. A man might be able to swing it, but a woman's romance tale will automatically be branded as shallow and hackneyed.

I wanted to show you guys exactly where I stand. Do you think there's anyway for me to be a respectable female writer that only writes about romance?

[Anonymous No.4459131]

>>4459119
The genre is pretty shallow and hackneyed. All genre works are pretty shallow and hackneyed. Its the nature of writing to genre.

[Anonymous No.4459135]

HEY GUYS I'M A GIRRRRRRRL

PLEASE RESPOND BUT DON'T BE TOO COCKY BOYS, HAHA

[Anonymous No.4459137]

>>4459092

Rewrite Lolita, but swap the genders.

[Anonymous No.4459138]

>>4459135

>Hey guys, only guys should post on this board. If a woman dare reveal her gender, it must be for the purpose of attention whoring. Why else would a woman post here and admit it?
>inb4 male isn't the assumed gender of all posters on /lit/ until stated otherwise.

>>4459131
I'm not interested in the likes of Harlequin romance (I'm too drunk to bother looking up the spelling of the word). I've just noticed that, at their core, all the stories I imagine are love stories. Honestly, knowing that I'm a woman, would that turn you off from reading my work?

[Anonymous No.4459141]

>>4459092
You're the bankable kind of hack. The next Danielle Steel.

[Anonymous No.4459148]

If you're afraid of being judged as a female author, just sell yourself as "Initial.Initial. Surname"

[Anonymous No.4459151]

>>4459138
No, the fact that you're writing romance genre turns me off your work. I love Austin's literature, her insights into the structure of female identity and character are invaluable. I detest genre work because I get out of them less than I put into them.

So I detest your work because of its nature. It doesn't mean you can't write genre work that meets the commercial and technical standards of the genre. I quite liked a box of cornflakes I saw once, it was well designed, it was still commercial art and not fine art.

If you're worried about gendered responses, use a male pseudonym. It is almost traditional amongst women authors fearful of reactions to their gender.

[Anonymous No.4459152]

Pseudonym

Boris Durmatov

[Anonymous No.4459154]

>>4459148
Do romance novels by men even sell?

[Anonymous No.4459158]

>>4459137

I've actually plotted out a story similar to Lolita, except it is about a girl carrying on a relationship with a teacher. I wanted to tell a story about a young girl being honestly in charge of her libido: Like, it's not just the fault of the teacher going after the student but some mention has to be made of the student's willingness to entertain a relationship with a teacher. It always bothered me in cases of teacher/student pedophilia, the fact that when it involves a male teacher and a female student it is always the man's fault, but when it involves a female teacher and a male student a female teacher always gets a lighter treatment just because she's female and the young boy is assumed to have "wanted it." I wanted to talk about the hypocrisy in story form.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4459160]

>>4459092
>>4459119
You're young, (either in fact or in taste) your interest in one genre is understandable. I see no problem with it.
Practice write a bunch of romance stories, shop 'em around, whatever. In time your tastes will shift to some hybrid, romance-something or something-romance. No worries.

[Anonymous No.4459166]

>>4459158
I think I've read a doujin with this plot

[Anonymous No.4459168]

>>4459166

Yeah, there's probably thousands with the same exact plot. I wanted to write it literarily, not pornily.

[Anonymous No.4459170]

>being trolled by OP who clearly isn't a grill

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4459171]

>>4459138
>>4459152
>would that turn you off from reading my work?
Maybe the age of pseudonyms will make a comeback!

[Anonymous No.4459179]

Just write the book you would want to read if you weren't you specifically (if that makes sense?--Like don't literally just write books for yourself, because then they'll probably make zero sense to anyone else).

Considerations of respectability and your gender and all that are peripheral to your work, and you shouldn't let them impede you. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. There's already enough in this world that will crush you as is.

As for your question about what we think of female writers. Personally I've never liked women writers because, although their prose tends to have a better sound IMO, they tend to focus on things I consider peripheral to the core of the story--she walked in and her heart fluttered, etc, etc--(and I find it kind of telling-not-showing/patronizing/boring). And following on from that, I think that prior experience (+ maybe a bit of innate sexism) will continue to skew my perception for further authors. But, again, it's not like you, as an author, ever gain control over that. Outside of maybe, like that other guy said, using an ambiguous pseudonym.

P.S. just because everything you write can be reduced, at some level, to a love story, doesn't mean it's 'romance.' Much of the best literature is focused around love. But the difference between them and genre Romance, is that they approach love in away that's not always direct (although sometimes it is), in a way that's still cognitively engaging (like The Sorrows of Young Werther--I don't personally like it, but it's unrequited love, the book).

[Anonymous No.4459180]

people on this board are fucking stupid

not OP because he's just trolling and we all like to troll sometimes. But thinking that writing about romance is inherently bad/a women's thing is really, really stupid and you should feel bad. You have no sensibility for art.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4459184]

>>4459158
>but when it involves a female teacher and a male student a female teacher always gets a lighter treatment
Naw. They get sent up too.
Society may see these situations differently but women teachers get prosecuted and sent to jail just the same.

>>4459170
>Grill spotted

[Anonymous No.4459199]

>>4459171
>Maybe the age of pseudonyms will make a comeback!

I don't see why not, what with everyone having weird internet handles.

>The Spring Fawn, a novel by bonerbiter47

[Anonymous No.4459197]

>>4459170
>>4459180

Not trolling. I am legitimately this self-conscious about my interest in writing romance stories. I generally like to defy expectations and it always puts me a little on edge when I play right into them.

Maybe it's because I'm on 4chan so much. Who knows?

[Anonymous No.4459207]

>>4459197

Jeez, don't go posting a timestamp just because of a few retards. Though I can't say I don't appreciate it.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4459208]

>>4459197
You're supposed to say "Hi /lit/ :D"

(Not that I doubted)

[Anonymous No.4459217]

>>4459197
There are hundreds of timestamps produced every minute. That doesn't matter.

What matters is that you're confusing literature and genre fiction. Austin didn't write about romance, she wrote about whether women were worth marrying as human beings. The Brontes didn't write romance, they wrote about bitches getting their shit fucked up. Shakespeare didn't write romance, he wrote poems on the side to fuck bitches and dudes. Literature isn't "romantic" as such, even when it deals with the relations between men and women in the pants and heart.

If you're going to be writing romance, you'll be writing to a formula, exactly like porn writers. It is a good job if you can push publishable words and get paid.

[Anonymous No.4459218]

>>4459141

tfw Danielle Steel is worth 375 million...

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4459238]

.... Like I said. Practice.

And keep reading stuff. Good high quality stuff but whatever you want.

[Anonymous No.4459246]

write realistic romance at least, please

[Anonymous No.4459251]

>>4459197
what race are u

[Anonymous No.4459253]

>pic: but for girls (romance genre-tier)
if a girl version of the pic existed it would be about banal romantic plots and flat characters

I'm conflicted: initially I wanted to give you a "you-can-do-it" kind of post. Then, I realized I would only be doing that because you are a girl and I don't feel like there are many contemporary female authors who aren't total shit (except Erdrich). Then it turned into a "hmm, that's not fair, if this was a dude I'd call him a bullshit hack"

As another anon said before, go the pseudonym route.
HOWEVER
just because you are better read then your peers and you like Camus, Marquez, Kafka, Woolf, etc. DON'T let that fool you into thinking YOU can write anything good.

if you ACTUALLY want to write, the only advice I can give you is the same advice that was given to me: don't. just stop.

because if you can stop, then you shouldn't be writing in the first place.

[Anonymous No.4459257]

What aspects of romance "excites" you? I mean, you're not self-inserting, right? What is it about romance, and the type of drama it may produce, that appeals to you specifically?

[Anonymous No.4459256]

>>4459197
Show those titties and I'll help you.

[Anonymous No.4459261]

>>4459184

I believe female teachers usually get lighter sentences and lighter treatment from the media.

>>4459158
WOuld any anons on this board be interested in reading this because I don't know if it's a worthwhile idea or not.

[Anonymous No.4459277]

>>4459197
hey how are you going you seem really interesting and funny do you wanna talk to me on email let me know thx

[Anonymous No.4459280]

>>4459261
>WOuld any anons on this board be interested in reading this because I don't know if it's a worthwhile idea or not.

Not from what has just been described, because it's a pretty bare bones description of a well known concept, with nothing really suggesting anything new would be done with it.
But that's not to suggest it's an unworkable idea. It's just that I haven't been given enough information to reasonably assume whether it's more likely to be twaddle or something of interest.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4459281]

>>4459261
1. Oh. I never paid attention.
2. I'm not even interested in Nabokov's
Is it worthwhile? It could be just a good exercise to write it, but if you deem it a pointless thing, (or something with a bad point even) you don't have to show it to anyone. Something else should come to mind eventually.

[Anonymous No.4459288]

>>4459280
>>4459281

Thanks for the feedback.

[Anonymous No.4459303]

>>4459257
>>4459160

This.

Like myself, when I was younger, I was obsessed with grisly crime fiction without really questioning why. But the thing that drew me to it was simply an interest in human drives and behaviour - what is it that causes people to do these extreme things? How does it affect all those involved?
And these days, I'm interested in that same subject, but on a less overt level - just the drives of every day people and what makes them distinct from each other, the general workings of human interaction.

Just figure out what matters to you and why. What comes easy to you, what you enjoy consuming yourself, what you want to create, and why all of that is so. You'll gain both focus in your work, and confidence in it's justification.

[Anonymous No.4459309]

>>4459257

I honestly like writing things that give me a warm, cuddly feeling. Romance does that to me.

[Anonymous No.4459312]

>>4459309
>I honestly like writing things that give me a warm, cuddly feeling.

Oh. Ew.

[Anonymous No.4459320]

>>4459312

Yeah. YEAH. This is why I'm self-conscious about it.

[Anonymous No.4459316]

>>4459309
You don't have to be a writer. Or to have readers.

[Anonymous No.4459315]

>>4459184
That's just a blatant lie.

[Anonymous No.4459321]

>>4459309
>muh feels
>typical woman writer

[Anonymous No.4459322]

>>4459309
well, if you like it. by all means do it. who cares what this shitty place thinks. but kafka disagrees with you

[Anonymous No.4459323]

>>4459309
>Romance does that to me.

Why do you think romance has that effect on you? Also, what are some of your favorite literary romances?

[Anonymous No.4459326]

>>4459322
I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief

[Anonymous No.4459329]

>>4459312

Also, my teacher/student story came from a teacher/student fetish I have. The meaning of the story that I created came from the realization that female students in that situation usually have little or no respect payed to their sexual agency. They are always the victim as opposed to male students, where it is almost always assumed that they wanted it.

[Anonymous No.4459335]

>>4459329
That's because women in general are the victim of the catastrophe of male desire. Dworkins, Lacan.

[Anonymous No.4459343]

>>4459197

[Anonymous No.4459356]

>>4459329
>a teacher/student fetish I have
Have you ever acted on this fetish or come close?

[Anonymous No.4459361]

>>4459356

Nope. Probably never would.
>>4459335
Women have desire too, brah. Trust me.

[Anonymous No.4459364]

>>4459092

At least you can live on your writing that way. No shame in getting money from doing something you like.

[Anonymous No.4459365]

>>4459329

You seem to be exploring this from an odd perspective though. From what you're saying about the phenomena itself, it seems to me like it'd be more natural to explore this through the eyes of a boy who DOESN'T want it, or a female teacher who DOES.
But as is, it seems like you're basically saying that the cavalier way that female teacher/male student affairs are treated is correct, and is how the opposite should be treated.

And young women aren't simply treated as victims in these situations either, they're also often treated as sluts by their peers, even when they really were taken advantage of. Whereas male victims are often either ignored in favour of the drama over how to look at the teacher, or they're seen as lucky regardless of how they themselves see the situation.
And modern male teachers can occasionally be the victims when they didn't really do anything wrong, due to hysteria over baseless allegations or inappropriate student behaviour that he didn't know how to handle.

It's a complex issue, with a lot of interesting avenues, but I don't really see anything that's actually being challenged with this premiss of yours. It sounds as if you're just doing it because you're into it, and trying to justify it as having meaning after the fact. It sounds more like either a simple romance/erotic story, or like a potentially interesting side-plot in something bigger.

[Anonymous No.4459367]

>>4459361
>Women have desire too, brah. Trust me.
Read Lacan. Their desire isn't pathologised, and it functions in different manners.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4459369]

>>4459320
Don't be.
These guys are not the audience you're aiming at.

Writing a decent book is half the battle. The other is finding the audience.

[Anonymous No.4459372]

ITT: Misogynistic Shitlords that need to go back to /pol/

>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.4459371]

>>4459365

>It's a complex issue, with a lot of interesting avenues, but I don't really see anything that's actually being challenged with this premiss of yours. It sounds as if you're just doing it because you're into it, and trying to justify it as having meaning after the fact. It sounds more like either a simple romance/erotic story, or like a potentially interesting side-plot in something bigger.

You hit the nail on the head. This is what I thought too. This is why I never developed the story passed it's outline.

[Anonymous No.4459376]

>>4459371

Honestly though, if you just want to write a romance about a teacher/student, go for it. Just know what it is. If it's something you're emotionally invested in, it will show in the writing. Don't force yourself to do something 'smart' just because you think you're supposed to, or else it'll read like someone simply trying to be smart.

[Anonymous No.4459389]

i'm just gona ramble, maybe it will be useful:

my fav female authors are the brontes. the thing i liked especially about their writing was the ambiguity in it, more so in wuthering heights than in jayne eyre. nothing was ever totally clear, love was never certain, sex scenes could have happened if you weren't paying attention, nature flowed into and through different bodies, connecting and separating them.

i also like the way soseki evoked feminine eroticism in kusamakura: diffuse, knowing, uncapturable, otherwordly. in comparison anias nin has quite a masculine style: very visual and descriptive, things either happen or don't happen, obvious nods to frued. i think the charm of real a real feminine style is the way it dissolves barriers, melts the clear, rational world of the day and reveals the subtle, almost imperceptible colours and feelings of the night.

maybe i'm just fetishising women, but i think there is a distinct feminine aesthetic and it is superior to the masculine one if done properly.

good luck.

[Anonymous No.4459391]

>>4459371
It sounds interesting, but I'd be cautious not to inject some explicitly political message into the narrative.

[Anonymous No.4459394]

>>4459376

Truth. It's very hard for me not to do that though. I always feel like I have to prove myself intellectually as well as artistically and emotionally.

[Anonymous No.4459409]

Romance is boring, I don't relate to it.

[Anonymous No.4459413]

>>4459092
By romance, do you mean like stereotypical love relationships? Or do you mean like romanticism, dramaticizing the world around you with themes of heroism, love, death, and honor?

If it's the former, you're not a hack if you bring something new to the table. Don't be like those other "romance" novelists who write smut, or worse, who write about a shy girl who meets a handsome but mysterious man etc...

If its the latter, just be indulgent as fuck. Make everything super dramatic and make your reader love life.

[Anonymous No.4459419]

>>4459409
>tfw no gf

write about your experiences with beta males OP, give them some advice

[Anonymous No.4459429]

there is nothing wrong with a little romance mon cherie

[Anonymous No.4459464]

>>4459369

So glad you trip. It let's me skip right over your inane posts.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.4459496]

>>4459464
>Implying that was inane.
>Implying this is a trip.
>Implying you skipped.
Grow up.

[Anonymous No.4459497]

Fujoshi go home please.

[Anonymous No.4459746]

>>4459253
>pic
Now I realize just how lucky I am for finding this shit where I am.

[Anonymous No.4459749]

>male author posts on /lit/
>sucks
>gets no attention
>goes out and either fades into obscurity or becomes worthy of attention
>female author posts on /lit/
>sucks
>gets attention
>doesn't fade into obscurity
>doesn't become worthy of attention
>just has boobs

the reason no female nabokov

[Anonymous No.4459782]

>>4459092
>tfw mudling subhuman with no interest in blatantly leftist social novels
I kind of feel you, OP.
You're a cunt, though.

>>4459166
There was an entire running manga with that exact plot.

Apparently, it was pretty good but I don't know.
It all looks like pedoshit for the sake of pedoshit.

[Anonymous No.4460864]

>>4459154
Nicholas Sparks does pretty well for himself.

[Anonymous No.4460874]

Post feel plz

Seriously

[Anonymous No.4460911]

>>4459253
Actually DFW's debut novel was a bildungsroman where he swapped the genders.

[Anonymous No.4461275]

>>4459092
>I'm a hack already, aren't I?
I don't think so. I think you have to actually write something, and probably actually sell it and make money from it, to be a hack. If this is right, I also doubt becoming a hack is as easy as /lit/ makes it sound.

[Anonymous No.4461284]

>>4459092
>I'm a hack already, aren't I?

No, that's pretty much the market for female readers.