/lit/ - Literature

>>12000448
You're your own worst enemy. Good bye.

that's a man, baby

>>12000448
who is this goddess. please post more of her.

>>12000458
y

>>12000448
No, i stopped writting in my last year of school, my teacher humiliated me so many times that i stopped doing written exams and argumentative texts. I used to be pretty good until this teacher show up. After this, for other factors i quitted school (i'm an efeminate gay and teachers and students were extremely mean to me since day 1 in kindergarden). I took the exam to enter university, 800/1000 in my argumentative text, which it's not good but i'm scared and insecure for life, how to cope bros? Any recs about surpassing the fear of writting? I still FEAR my university professors bc of my experience in school.

>>12000448
Who is his fine piece?

>>12000577
That sucks gaybrah, sorry to hear that. Honestly in my experience university English professors are much more concerned with their own writing than finding students to pick on. Maybe you'll have a shitty TA, depends where you're going to school but honestly I think overall you'll be fine.

>>12000448
This will never be my librarian. I will never go to the library on my lunch break or make a stop on the way home from my bike ride at the library and get to talk to this woman about the books we've been reading. I will never be able to make her laugh and feel that sensation, that pure unadulterated essence of being human, flutter in my chest at the sight of her smiling, or laughing, or teasing, or being quizzical, or being smug. I will never feel it in my chest that this the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, this librarian that likes to talk about books or poetry or history or philosophy or cooking. I will never flirt with her and think of her every waking moment of my life, how I can think up an excuse to see her, or think up a line when I see her, to make her laugh and feel that feeling my chest again. I will never kiss her and see that subdued smile on her lips, that smile that is as obvious to me as it is to her a confirmation that she is exactly as in love with me as I am with her, with eyes sparkling and breath shallow and nervous and unsure and me unsure and nervous breath shallow light as a feather in the wind think I will float away. I will never fall in love with her, this librarian that likes to talk about books and art and life and God and meaning and love and food and Europe and mountains and her and me and us.
I will never meet her. I will live and die a virgin and she will never know me.

>>12001600
ok

>>12001600
>I will never ... get to talk to this woman

THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S A DUDE

>>12000448
You can't learn how to write good

>>12001749
then he has some great tits

>>12000462
>>12001749
why are people on 4chan obsessed with this idea that every attractive woman is secretly a man

>>12000577
consider that not all teachers become teachers so they can educate people. a lot of them do it so they can humiliate students. as burroughs said:

"Any body of men will be found to contain ten to fifteen percent of incorrigible troublemakers. In fact, most of the misery on this planet derives from this ten percent.

"It is useless to try and reeducate them, since their only function is to harm and harass others. To maintain them in prisons is a waste of personnel and provisions. To addict them to opium takes too long, and in any case they are not amenable to useful work.

"There is but one sure remedy. In future operations, as soon as these individuals are discovered, either by advance intelligence or by on-the-spot observation, they will be killed on any pretext. In the words of the Bard, "Only fools do those villians pity who are punished ere they have done their mischief."

>>12000448
Yeah I did. It was just another social justice course.
Dropped my English major after that.

I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, majored in English lit, minor in creative writing. I took many writing courses while I was in college.

I have some general advice, OP, and to anyone else interested in taking a writing course:

1. If this is an intro level course (100 or 200 level) then don't take it too seriously. A lot of the people there are either not very serious about it or are terrible fan fiction writers. The feedback these people can give you is extremely limited, I got maybe 1 or 2 people who actually gave me insightful advice on anything I wrote as an underclassman in college.

2. In lower division courses, be prepared to read some really cringe-inducing shit. In freshman year I took a fiction course and I literally had to sit through a guy's Danny Phantom / Bleach cross over fan fiction chapter by chapter, he wrote a new installment for it every class. A poetry course I took in sophomore year featured a young woman who wrote pages and pages of emo poetry about being abused by her father. There was also the faux-nihilist kid that tried way too hard to be introspective and deep. The nonfiction classes were the worst.

3. If you take an upper division course then bring your A game, bring your most ambitious material. My only regret is not taking advantage of the caliber of students that manage to get into 300 and 400 level creative writing courses, those classes are extremely competitive and the profs are very choosy about who they let in. Anyone who is in it will be serious about the craft and you will benefit immensely from a room full of these people scrutinizing your work. You will never get so much valuable feedback in your life.

4. Be conservative with your comments and advice. Before you start rambling off a list of things you noticed as wrong or questionable, start with a very concise summary of your impression of the story. The formula of compliment, criticism, compliment works great here.

5. Phrase your criticism as a personal impression and be very specific about it (e.g. not "the description is vague" but "I had trouble visualizing what was going on in the scene on page 4").

6. Follow up criticism with suggestions.

7. Occasionally point out interesting things you noticed while reading that aren't necessarily criticism, this shows you're paying close attention to what you read and the other writers will love you for it.

>>12000448
I'd split a roxi with her any day.

>>12002623
Oh, and when you compliment somebody, don't flatter them with disingenuous bullshit. The same rules apply to compliments as criticism: be specific and phrase it as a personal impression.

>>12000577
>i'm an efeminate gay

>>12002058
Because they can only get hard if its a man?

>>12000448
How and why did women get to be so physically perfect?
Look at her.
No man is her aesthetic equal.
And to think there are hundreds of thousands more like her in beauty, each unique.

Its not fair bros.

>>12000448
I’m an English major. I’m talking a creative writing class and it seriously making me question myself as a writer. I get great grades on poetry and the professor tells me I have a lot of potential as a writer but all my narrative prices have comeback torn to shreds. I’ve always considered myself a narrative writer and my poetry trite. Idk what to do

>>12002633
what's the story behind that gif

>>12002683
I got similar feedback. I always wanted to write fiction, but none of my fiction stories went over well, while people raved about my nonfiction essays. I've been published twice in school journals of nonfiction.

>>12002623
I'm mostly through my first creative writing course and whoa lad
some of the cringey things so far
>opening line: "For better or for worse, I am considered the 'gifted child'" followed by two paragraphs about his hair
>a thinly veiled Hunger Games/Harry Potter crossover fic with a "stronk female character"
>a page full of purple prose about God creating the world before the actual story starts
>girl gets diagnosed with endometriosis, meets guy in a club and goes home with him, cries before they have sex because she thinks she can't have kids. The next day he offers to help artificially inseminate her and she says yes, they have a fucking baby nine months later. It was also in first person but switched between characters constantly, three times in a page at one point
>So many strong female characters
>the worst line I think I've ever read:
>"the old man had decided to go to the floral shop with the intention of making a purchase"
>there was no twist, like he ended up not making a purchase
>that was a literal sentence meant to be taken at face value, not leading up to anything else
>girl bitching about how because she sometimes doesn't feel real and has anxiety, she has Dissociative Identity Disorder
>and so does her friend

And so many things that just haven't been thought out at all. One guy wrote a post apocalytic story about a virus that immediately killed whoever got it. Then how the fuck does it spread? Why would a virus immediately kill it's host? One girl wrote a story about a family whose daughter gets kidnapped by a family friend who had a spare key, and literally no one ever considers that person a suspect. And the daughter stays missing for 14 years.

>>12002683
I should also mention I just hate most of my writing in general and find it very hard to put my head down and put the work in without cringing up and spiraling down a pit of self loathing. It makes it really hard to get a gauge on the quality of anything I write

>>12002683
Follow the advice and grow. They wouldn't be putting effort in to help you if you were a lost cause.

>>12002689
the child (Mahmoud bin-Salad) was an efeminate gay

>>12002705
This sounds harsh but you just need to find a way to get the fuck over that.
That instinct to hate your writing isn't coming from low self esteem. It's coming from perfectionism. You're terrified of anything you write being less than perfect, so you just don't let yourself write at all.
Try your best for the first 1,000 words of a story to not think anything critical. Act like no one will ever see it. Once you reach that point, you'll have enough down that you won't just delete it all. And you'll have enough to actually edit and consider.

My composition teacher in community college helped me advance from shit tier to garbage tier. It was actually pretty amazing.

>>12002703
>"the old man had decided to go to the floral shop with the intention of making a purchase"
>there was no twist, like he ended up not making a purchase
This is fucking brilliant. Anyone have a recommendation on the most boring straightforward books about absolutely nothing happening?

>>12002707
She’s a published writing and great teacher but I find it genuinely frustrating trying to talk writing with her. I gave her a short story, she gave it back riddles with edits, tells me to go to office hours, she goes over it, gives me some basic advice like don’t censor yourself and try to stay consistent in your writing. I hand her back a revised version. She tells me to come back again. It’s just as riddles with errors.

>>12002683
maybe he's editing your narratives more seriously because he thinks they have the potential to be actually good. Usually when I'm editing something that's really bad, there's very little to suggest other than "suck less".

>>12002718
Hemingway's got you covered

>>12002698
Try to get a hold of them during office hours, that helped me at least understand what I was doing wrong

>>12002723
I think I have a copy of Farewell to Arms. Is that a good start?

>>12002719
yeah that's called learning. It's painful but it's worth it.

>>12002726
There's no better place to start. It even has the world's first ____ in the knee joke (probably the highlight of the novel)

>>12002726
Start with the short stories. Those are so straightforward boring and about nothing that your brain freaks out trying to find what its missing.

>>12002703
same experience honestly
>female protag has sex but still feels sad and ronery ;_;
>male protag does drugs but still feels sad and ronery ;_;
>female protag is victim of sexism but she's so stronk that it doesn't quell her indomitable bitchiness
>male protag is victim of bullying and commits suicide *tiny violin plays*
not to mention the girl who would come in to a three hour class reeking of cigarette smoke and sit next to me, giving me a migraine. There were three other writers in that class I somewhat respected, two of the were Asian chicks who wrote interesting things involving their cultural backgrounds and one was an Arab guy who wrote some edgy existential shlock that I secretly enjoyed. Everything else was fanfiction-tier. That was the class that pushed me from creative writing to literature.

>>12000448
where do I meet moe girls like this? what books do they like?

I took a legal writing class the first year of law school. Out of the ten or so professors I only ever heard good things about two of them, neither of which were mine. The professors identify favorites in class and become biased when giving “feedback.” Everything they attempted to provide were simple edits, while other students got quality in depth one on one time. When I had other professors look over my work they gave slightly better, but still simplistic feed back. Other students saw my writing as better than their own and couldn’t give me anything either. I found the best way to edit was printing out a copy, grab a red pen, and murder your words. Something about the physicality brings out the best and worst editor inside yourself.


So really spite made me a better writer, and the class only gave me the opportunity to do so.

>>12000448
I'm insanely attracted to short haired girls
help

I'm currently an undergrad and taking the highest level writing course available to me, and really, I don't feel anyone else is trying all that much in their writing, a lot of their stories largely serve as introductions to some wider concept that they never explore.
It's been pretty disappointing honestly, and the everyone in the class acts far too nice to ever want to tell you they dislike what you're doing with your writing, so the feedback is often just surface stuff, this sentence is structured weirdly, I like this because "the prose is good".

>>12000448
2nd time I've seen a woman look good with short hair ever in my life.

>>12002713
Damn, that's so sad

>>12002683
You gotta get better at writing prose bruh. Practice the things they are criticising you on.

>>12002771
You are gay anon. Deal with already

>>12000448
I can never understand why women make themselves uglier by cutting their hair short. My gf once said she thought about cutting hers, I quickly put an end to that idea.

>>12000577
Get therapy. Seriously.

>>12002771
there is no helping it - short haired girls are the best

>>12000448
Basically everyone wrote either fanfiction with name changes (literally the dark knight bank heist with a few elements changed) or directionless realistic fiction about someone getting revenge on their cheating ex boyfriend. All inevitably flat characters except the protagonist who was of course always in the right.

My professor liked me a lot because it was abundantly clear I was the only one who actually read a ton and tried my best to at least emulate great writing. Workshops were usually garbage and consisted of dumb people telling me my story was too complicated, and a few more well-read people telling me I was amazing and that I shouldn’t change anything.

Now I just go to the office hours of three of my professors including the English Chair of the Department, and I share my new work with them, and they give me good criticism.

>>12002703
>a page full of purple prose about God creating the world before the actual story starts
Patrician

>>12004071
You can't understand that someone has different taste than you?

Your gf probably once thought about dating a smart man, but she put an end to that idea didn't she? You should follow suit.

I’m a literature emphasis at the moment and my major requires two creative writing courses. Instead of taking the traditional creative writing classes though, i’m in a personal essay focused class called, “The Art of the Essay.” I’m thinking about continuing this into next semeter for my second requirement because there’s a writing course/single author on Montaigne. So far the personal essay is my faforite medium foe creative writing because it contains all these personal, quirky elements from the writer. Listening to my peer’s papers are actually enjoyable and I would recommend creative writing courses like these if you’re not so much into transformer’s fanfiction or if you’re not interested in a narrative about rape.

Also phone posting ease forgive

OP here

>>12002623
I don't know what you mean by "100" or "200" but yes it's a beginner's "starter kit" course. I signed up to it mainly because I'm a horrible, horrible procrastinator and hoping this will force me to start writing on the regular (I've only ever done it in bursts). I like the idea of not taking it too seriously. I also really dislike "deep" stories and my aim is to write stuff that's entertaining first and foremost.

>>12001788
Bullshit, it's all about practice practice and more practice

>>12000448
Got a writing minor more or less on a whim, since it was only 2 extra classes. Had fun, learned a lot. Your peers will like your work more than you think. Even if you're not good at writing, you'll get positive feedback on what works along with the constructive criticism.

>tl;dr — It's worth it, don't be afraid.

>>12004460
t. short haired dyke.
Short hair makes women less attractive and more masculine. Fact.

>>12005451
depends how short. The op girl is qt af

>>12005451
WRONG

>>12000448
the qtp2t is the only valid thing about your thread