/lit/ - Literature

>>14700408
Doesn’t pic related literally criticize modernists like Joyce, Proust, and Kafka because they don’t adhere to his shitty genre fiction plot structures?

>>14700408
>muh plot
>muh character development
>muh 3 act structure
>muh smoke and mirrors
>muh getting characters through check points to complete a fetch quest

kys

Horribly. My prose is awful, my ideas are cheap. My characters are shallow.

>>14701340
Yes. For Joyce, iirc, as for Lawrence, he criticizes their focus on perversion and eroticism, creating stories that never quite come to a satisfying conclusion. His "shitty genre fiction plot structures" though, are universal, encompassing everything from Chinese fairy tales to the works of Homer. That's why they're so prevalent in genre fiction as well, they're just the plots humans are unconsciously drawn to.

It's a decent read but I personally found it very repetitive after a while. The critical essays on modern/post-modern literature are pretty interesting though. It's probably better just to read Jung or Campbell.

>fiction still shackled by the ancient greek three-arc tragedy/comedy structure

>>14701391
>he hasn't read Pope
laughinggirls.jpg

>Those rules of old discover'd, not devis'd,
>Are Nature still, but Nature methodis'd;
>Nature, like liberty, is but restrain'd
>By the same laws which first herself ordain'd.

I'm writing a romance novel with dual protags, my female character is going really well but I'm having a hard time avoiding self-insert on my male one. its kind of odd, you'd think i'd be able to write male characters better as a male but it feels like the opposite.

Would not being an autist make me a better character writer?

>>14700408
I'm writing a novel about writing novels.
It's going okay.

>>14701385
I didn’t mean to imply that all traditionally structured narratives are bad. I was just under the impression that he goes into an r/books-tier condemnation of anything slightly experimental or narratives that aren’t plot driven.

I just scanned the Wikipedia page and apparently he praises ET and Crocodile Dundy so it seems like my assumption that he’s a champion of shitty genre fiction isn’t completely baseless.

>>14700408
It's going, man, that's all I can say. Going somewhere.

>>14701431
idk, I'd assume autism prevents one from empathy and therefore prevents one from writing. I've never heard of an autistic writer before, except maybe Emily Bronte.

>>14701460
He's a dipshit who managed to misread Lord of the Rings. His analysis alone should make you question any conclusions he claims to have come to.

>>14701847
>He's a dipshit who managed to misread Lord of the Rings
what was his /take?

I finished a novel a couple months ago and gave given it a round of editing. It's s piece if /his//lit/ that links three thematically similar stories set in different times.

I'm trying to find an agent but since it's not LGBTQI++ YA fiction nobody gives a shit.

>>14703318
>nobody gives a shit.
That's probably because you're attempting to publish something so ambitious for (what I assume) is your first novel and maybe even first publication. You just try to get some lesser publications under your belt first to build credibility.

I'm doing research so that I can properly start writing when summer starts
I'm also trying to write smaller shit here and there

>>14703318
>I'm trying to find an agent but since it's not LGBTQI++ YA fiction nobody gives a shit.
That's not how it works.
That shitty excuse is the fall back that people use when their story isn't good enough to be published in the first place. And, the reason you see notes about adding those types of characters into your story is because your story is so bland that the only thing remarkable about it would be the inclusion of one of those kinds, potentially drawing them to your book to read rather than it being for literally no one but yourself.

But keep blaming the boogey "man" for your lack of success, not the fact that you're a poor writer.

>>14703373
>not getting published means you're in fact a poor writer
How new are you?

feeling like it could drive me mad it just keeps going, I have the inverse problem of no ideas where I have so many that it's a thread I keep chasing.

>>14703373
>t. tranny who doesn't want to believe his shitfest only got published because it ticked all the diversity boxes

>>14703381
Experienced enough that I know if you actually hand over a good manuscript they'll accept it.

Sorry that your generic-YA-fiction story didn't grab their attention because they've read hundreds of similar pitches in the last week and yours is just one more among the weeds. But the reality is you writing skills are poor, and that's what's holding you back, not some mythical homosexual boogeyman.

If you were actually, ya know, GOOD at writing, you wouldn't have to force-include some shitty LGBTQ+ character in it. But because you're not, they suggest to add one of those characters so at least there's /something/ they can market it with.

>>14703405
That answers it. Don't miss the train now, and be sure to say goodbye before leaving 'Anon'.

>>14701427
Perhaps ye a tranny lad?

>>14703405
Go away, nerd

>>14703419
>>14703411
>t. incels that were rejected because no one wants to read their run-of-the-mill-average-in-every-way story about a white man doing white things

seethe.

>>14703424
Have you looked at what's being published? It's all run-of-the-mill-avarage-in-every-way stories which are picked up, read and immediately forgotten since they have no real qualities. A lot of them also have the kind of characters we're talking about simply for the sake of them being hot topic in contemporary Western literature. The autists shitposting here would make something remarkable in at least some way or another.
And what does the hypothetical central character being "white", whatever that even means, have to do with anything?

>>14703460
>It's all run-of-the-mill-avarage-in-every-way stories which are picked up, read and immediately forgotten since they have no real qualities. A lot of them also have the kind of characters we're talking about simply for the sake of them being hot topic in contemporary Western literature.
Yes. That's exactly my point. They're not going to publish your run-of-the-mill-average-in-every-way story /unless/ you have some kind of LGBTQ+ hook included.

If you were actually a /good/ writer, you wouldn't have to resort to using LGTBQ+ hook characters, and publishers would see that.

But because your work is no better than the run-of-the-mill-average-in-every-way story AND it lacks the LGTBQ+ hook that's so popular right now, it's rejected.

Why is this so hard for people to understand? If you want to write mediocre trash then you include a LGTBQ+ character and it will get picked up and published. If you want to write truly great works, do so, and if it actually is truly great it will be picked up and published as well.

This idea that "you NEED to have LGTBQ+ representation of we won't publish it" is insane. That's the answer they give to people that submit their incredibly dull manuscripts that they otherwise wouldn't give the time of day to.

>>14703469
I'm not writer Anon but you couldn't possibly believe half the publisher would even recognize "truly great works" even if they were right in front of them.
Half the classics we have make it to the top lists here every year were slammed upon release if not ignored, several of them have even been rejected by publishers at first, "truly great works" or even just good ones way too often have to go through the wrong people who won't appreciate them unless they are literally told to do so.
I can certainly see that being the case here, especially today.

>>14703469
Why are you pretending that these agents are anything but plebian angry femoids with an agenda and a quota behind them?

Just look at #MSWL and tell me any of these people would recognize truly great writing.

You're being purposefully disingenuous, just like all lefties who know full well what the deal is.

They would never let our ideas be disseminated, no matter how well written.

>>14703485
>>14703501
>My writing is among the greatest writing of all time but I was rejected because I didn't have any LGTBQ+ characters in it!

That's basically what you guys are saying, and I hope you realize how insane that sounds.

Fyi, little faggot with your #MSWL - go search it for yourself. Over half of the posts that I see with it tagged are all inclusive and basically say "come up with something original and unique with a voice". Are there SOME that say shit specifically like "#MSWL a modern, POC, queer Bewitched rom-com"? Absolutely.

I mean there's even shit that SPECIFICALLY calls out what you guys are complaining about;

>I've received a wave of queries from incredibly talented LGBT authors lately, so it seems like a good time to send the reminder: I'm always looking for diverse voices of ALL varieties and cultures, in YA/Adult/MG. I want to know your unique story.
AKA
>Give me something other than LGTBQ+ trash to read, please!

>>14703485
>I'm not writer
Then your opinion on this subject isn't worth very much, now is it?

>>14703547
He said he wasn't writer-anon, you imbecile.
Go back to r / books4fags.

>>14703536
>went through hundreds of posts to cherry pick one slag who was finally sick of tranny fiction

exception proves the rule dumbass. The fact you are so elated you found ONE single example validates everything I just said.

>>14703547
What? Did your smoothbrain already delete what started this whole exchange? Alright, it happens.

>>14703562
>hundreds of posts to cherry pick
It's not cherry picking when it's literally half of the posts with that hash tag. Like I said, there's SOME that specifically say they want LGTBQ+ or PoC MCs or whatever, but an overwhelming majority either didn't specify anything like that, or said give them a unique story with a unique voice, and there were even a few that I saw (about equal to the ones saying they want only PoC / LGBTQA+ MCs) that more or less read like "I'm sick of getting nothing but LGTBQA+ based stories, give me something else please."

Your stories aren't being published because you're a shit writer, not because of the LGTBQ+ boogeyman. The minute you accept this is the minute you'll become a much better writer. Understand that maybe, just maybe, you're not as good as you thought you were. Then, you can go back to writing with a clear mind and a clear focus instead of being clouded by the negative thoughts of "oh well I'll never be published because I don't have [xyz] so whats the point".

Or, and this is just a wild idea I'm throwing out there. Write a story that happens to include a LGTBQA+ / PoC in it, and treat them like a normal person instead of pointing them out. It's 2020. You have to get over your gender-based-phobias if you want to be a successful writer in the modern world.

>>14703783
The 20s will be the decade your idiotic ideology falls, your current year argument is meaningless.
And I'm not the above anon, I have not mentioned my own publishing history ITT.
You are clearly not from around here, since you don't have the ability to distinguish different anons.
Go back.

>>14703783
>this is just a wild idea
To include something in the book Anon doesn't want to, can't utilize to any meaningful extent, and never intended for it is a pretty wild idea yes. Maybe you could even say it's a dumb idea.

It's going terribly, not writing a novel but a collection of short stories all revolving around the same group of characters. But I've basically given up because although I love what I've written, no one will want to read it. I don't think there's any theme to any of the stories really. I've written a sequence that starts and ends midsentence, of a meth-addicted Native American man in his 30s going around with his fat wife having a difficult time scoring, and then when they score they keep trying other things and other things, it all degenerates throughout the day. I really love it, but it has no meaning or theme really.

>>14703821
Then don't do it? Also, keep in mind I specifically said to write a story that includes them, not to add them into your already existing story where they have no place.

I'm just trying to get it through your thick skulls that this idea that "my book was rejected because it didn't have LGTBQ+/PoC MCs" just means that you're not as good of a writer as you thought you were in the first place, and you're only getting those kinds of notes back because that's the only way to salvage your mess of a narrative in the 20's modern market.

Like it or not, LTGBQ+/PoC bullshit is on the rise and are selling like hotcakes, so of course publishers are looking to exploit that. But, as I've said probably a dozen times already, if you're actually good at writing and have a great story to tell, they're not going to give two shits whether or not you have some LGTBQ+ PoC MC, because it's good writing and a good narrative. It's only when your narrative and writing and voice are subpar that they suggest adding /something/ that makes it somewhat marketable, since, ya know, that's their fucking job.

>>14703783
Hey nigger, how about you put in an outspoken Nazi patriot in your next book. Just treat them like a normal person instead of pointing them out. It's 1938, you have to get over your biases if you want to be a successful writer in the modern world.

>>14703783
>Write a story that happens to include a LGTBQA+ / PoC in it, and treat them like a normal person instead of pointing them out.

But they're not normal, they're freaks. That's why the media loves to fetishize them so much. If they're just like everyone else, why have them at all? Then it's just a regular book but with a redundant label on random characters.

Your idiocy is remarkable.

>>14703862
>Like it or not, LTGBQ+/PoC bullshit is on the rise and are selling like hotcakes,
its a fad and people are buying them to virtue signal.
Your shitty books arent going to keep being published, rest assured.

>>14700408
I'm working on a fantasy novel and I rewrote the first 50 pages or so 3 times, trying to imitate styles like Tolkien, Dunsany, and Wolfe. Every time it was fucking awful and took me forever. So now I'm just writing it in my natural style. Things are progressing quickly but now it all reads like a giant greentext and I'm fucking embarrassed.

>>14703866
>>14703870
You guys are fundamentally misunderstanding what I'm saying.

There's no room for mediocre stories anymore, unless they have the [current trend] hook in them. The [current trend] hook right now is LGTBQ+ / PoC MCs. Will this stay the same for the next 100 years? Absolutely not. Will this stay the same for the next 50 years? Absolutely not. Will it stay the same for the next decade? More than likely, it will.
Unless your narrative and story is just so goddamn good that it stands way out above the rest, or you're already some prolific author, the reality is your mediocre story isn't going to published today.

That's all there is too it. If you want your mediocre stories to be published, they need some kind of current trend marketing hook, which just happens to be LGBTQ+ / PoC MCs right now.

Personally, I think it's a bit silly to get so worked up over this shit. LGBQ and PoC are just normal people. Transgender people are pure abominations, but the rest are fine.

Seems to me that ya'll are just projecting because your current writing isn't up to snuff and you're bitter over rejection letters from publishers that say you should include LGTBQ+ characters. Maybe take some time off of 4chan and work on your prose, writing style, and writing voice, instead of getting bitter and angry and blaming other people for your own shortcomings.

>be me in 2019
>write a novel, 80,000 words
>hey that was satisfying
>start rereading it, about 70% is trash and needs revising
>well I'll get around to it soon
>3 months later I still haven't touched it

The internet keeps me from being productive. It's too easy to get sucked into the vortex. But I need it because I'm a college student and all my classes are online. Yet I know I will never finish that fucking book if I have internet and access to 4chan and YouTube. At this point I am seriously considering cancelling my internet and forcing myself to go the my school's library to get my work done. Then over the weekends I would be disconnected.

>>14703881
Then stop bitching and moaning when your books get rejected because they lack LGTBQ+ characters and accept that maybe your shitty run of the mill story isn't something anyone wants to read right now.

It's supply and demand. The demand is there for books with LGTBQ+ and PoC MCs. It's not the publishers fault for doing their job and supplying what the market demands.

>>14703898
Nobody's misunderstanding anything--we just see right through your idiotic feigned ignorance and pitiful attempts to make us feel like we're bad writers (which, some of us here are, but some are not, and you cannot discern one from another because you yourself have no talent).

Nobody here respects your opinion--do you understand? You and your 'insight' mean nothing to us.

But hey, keep writing LGNBBQHIV over and over, maybe you'll get someone to reply to one of your mentally barren boilerplate twitter posts by accident.

>>14703898
I can appreciate your point a bit more now. It's just sad that this is the garbage state of the industry we're living.
Although
>LGBQ are just normal people
No, homosexuals, bisexuals and lesbians are normal people even if they give themselves over to lust, people who base their identity on the alphabet organization are definitely not normal.

>>14703898
>LGBQ are just normal people
Homosexuality is only promoted by those who hate themselves and desire to end their own lineage. It is objectively an evolutionary dead-end. And we are firmly against that. The only story we should be writing about them is the tale of how we routed their disgraceful existence from the face of the planet and reclaimed the vitality of our humanity.

>you're just projecting! just git gud!
I will concede that there is some merit to this. It is true that it's easy to blame external factors for one's shortcomings. And yes it is true that most of us would be better writers if we didn't spend so much time online. But you are being outright foolish if you think the gate to mainstream success isn't being kept by people demanding arbitrary diversity quotas.

>>14703908
>supplying what the market demands

Or what they're telling us is in demand? The average non-pozzed person doesn't give a shit about fag and nigger stories.

>>14703940
based and also true.

>>14703940
and the average non-pozzed person doesn't read. what's your point?

>>14703921
I'm not going to act like I know who is who in this conversation or in this board, because it's anonymous. But the fact of the matter is there are countless threads and countless posts about people bitching that their narratives and stories won't be picked up by publishers because they lack LGTBQ+ or PoC MCs. The reality is, those people wouldn't get picked up even if they had LGTBQ+ or PoC MCs in their books because they're poor writers and aren't telling. I'm just using this thread to vent my frustrations with this board. The amount of "post your writing" samples I've read that are utter trash is easily in the 99% percentile. And the 1% that actually handles prose and structure and theme well absolutely would get picked up by a modern publisher even without a LGTBQ+ / PoC MC. But the other 99% of you? Your writing isn't even at dime store trash levels.

>>14703929
Thank you. I'm not saying that you need LGBTQ+ in your books, but I'm saying if you're a mediocre writer the only way a publish is going to pick up your narrative is if you include what they want in it because they can then market it specifically as that and build an audience surrounding it.

It's completely and totally fucked, shouldn't be that way, but it is what it is and there's not much you can do to change it other than wait it out and hope in a decade the paradigm shifts again.

>>14703933
>people different than me are icky!!!
Funny thing is, in a majority of cases where people are staunchly anti-LGBQ, they end up being closeted homosexuals.
>But you are being outright foolish if you think the gate to mainstream success isn't being kept by people demanding arbitrary diversity quotas.
It's not. You just have to have an exceptionally well written narrative if you want to break into mainstream success UNLESS you want to add LGTBQ+ or PoC MCs in your story.

Consider it a pass/fail test. You need 50 points to pass. If you put LGTBQ+ or PoC MCs in your story, you're automatically granted a free +30 points, so your narrative and prose only need to be +20 to get published. If you don't have a LGTBQ+ or PoC MC in your story, then you don't get said free +30 points, which means your narrative and message need to be that much better.

Welcome to the free market.

>>14700408
I’m too busy

>>14703986
>One paragraph
>used 7 acronyms

didn't read lol

>>14703986
>in a majority of cases where people are staunchly anti-LGBQ, they end up being closeted homosexuals

Do you have a single statistical fact to back that up and not just cherry picked examples?

>>14703995
if you get vertigo on a tall building you must want to fuck heights, too.
I have the data

>>14703995

>>14700408

smashingly

look at this lunatic in here.
You stand out like a sore thumb, redditor.

>>14703995
Do you have a fact to back up the claim that homosexuals are self-hating?

>>14703986
What if one of my MCs is a PoC but I'm a dirty wh*toid? Does that help or am I just opening to attacks by ravenous hyperoffended wolves on Twitter?

Also you should know that most agents either (a) only ask for pitches before writing samples or (b) have 19 year old unpaid interns read their emails and never see the slush pile themselves. Are you telling me college interns know great writing on sight?

t. Writefag who kicked off this shitstorm ITT and hasn't posted since.

>>14701362
The only real answer here

>>14704187
of course, admitting otherwise would devastate your fragile ego, huh?

I'm almost done with the second book in my Amara's Rose series! The first one made almost 50k.

>>14704181
I'm not the same anon, I never made that claim. What's interesting is that you're kind of making that claim when you say that people who hate fags end up being fags.

>>14700408
After 2 years of work, almost finished. Starting the last chapter, which will be small, at the end of this week.
Still want to finish it by the end of february, but with another round of editing I'm feeling it will be impossible. Final wordcount will probably be around 80.000

>>14704204
wait is this you

It's just a hobby but I really struggle with plots and characters but not worldbuilding. I'm extremely autistic when it comes to worldbuilding because I thoroughly research every location and time period I intend to use, everything from personal daily hygiene to species of animals that were most likely to be in that area at the time.

My characters are usually close to archetypes because its a bit harder to really nail natural sounding speech vs dialogue for the purpose of narrative. If I base them on people I've had the pleasure of knowing, they are chained to the modern day. Also modern day speech sounds utterly cringeworthy when written down.

>>14704242
...Oh my god how long has this been floating around for? I remember this guy from years ago. We talked for a long time and I sent him some topless and feet pics out of sympathy. Did he post those too or is this the worst of it? How do I go about taking this stuff down?

Either way I have learned my lesson.

>>14704242
not bad feet compared to most posted here

>>14704259
can I fap to them babe

>>14704275
No... I was underage when I took those pics. If you share or even look at that image you are commiting a crime.

>>14704282
so you are admitting to posting cp online?
tut tut

>>14704282
Literally says you are 19 in the image liar.

>>14704204
what are you doing on this website mingling with us losers then

>>14700408
editing and revising a satirical post-cyberpunk novel I've been working on for the past five years. Not sure what to do when its done however... in terms of publishing I mean. Thought about dumping it on Amazon... or trying for traditional publishers, but I don't think the market's good for guy to get something published these days...

>>14704236
How tiresome is the editing process? There must come a time where you're pretty exhausted of reading the same shit and thinking it's shit every time you change something

>>14705058
Use a diverse pen name

>>14705058
There is no harm in trying to get published. Post excerpt and we'll rip it apart, how's that?