/lit/ - Literature

literature is waste of time.

>>16254667
This but for some reason i still want to write

Haven't written anything for pleasure / improvement in almost a year. Could finally restart my will to write a little more than a week ago, as I wanted to collect some thoughts on a topic in an essay.
Now that I've mostly finished the (quite convoluted and confusing) first draft of this essay, I tried going back to some short stories I began last year. Managed to write almost three hundred words on a cheap YA crime story, but my other scraps really don't catch my fancy anymore. Perhaps with more daily practise I'll be able to power through a first draft of those ideas.

>>16254651
I feel just on the cusp of my creative development, through philosophy, that is thinking, such as the German Romantic poets like Holderlin. I can feel it, but my visage is not concretified yet. In skill or action.

>>16254667
What a silly point of view.

Here's the beginning of a novel I'm working on.

It's set in modern times (1960) and its about Demons, Angels, and Secret Societies.

https://pastebin.com/YpxAzGKN

The story begins with an amnesiac girl being attacked by "something" and running into the Mojave Desert.

>>16254768
What's the difference to this and Dan Brown?

>>16254768
are you catholic?

>>16254917
>What's the difference to this and Dan Brown?
Mine has fantasy creatures,real demonic or angelic beings, and magic.

>>16254933
>are you catholic?
My family is. The Church wont appear a lot thought. The three main secret societies will be apart from the major religions.

>>16254961
i would actually be interested in reading it if you were writing from a correct theological standpoint, but i'm guessing it'll just be some gay cliche's

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cI2dOanVi77SuIo29AdDpU1X9GFthjd6o9caJohdMYo/edit?usp=drivesdk
Me and a friend originally wrote this to dab on /pol/tard friend of ours but 50 edits later along with a fuckload of meta is turning it into a half baked novel. Right know were rewriting the whole fucking book for the 5th time because my autist partner thinks a character should have "morality."

(NSFW Blog) true stories of hardcore drug addiction, godless perversions and other misadventures...

lukehavergal.wordpress.com

I feel i have a good idea of the universe and characters of my story but i'm still trying to boil it down plot wise to something that filters the higher ideas through a simple human story. Valis comes to mind as a big inspiration. But i am all out of practice and im 28 now and with a lot more damage to my body and body so i hope I can keep it together enough to put the work in and realise the writing pipe dream i had as a kid.

I think I'm working on a novel but I'm not sure. I have little to no plot at all, is more of a feeling. Like I'm unravelling an idea that I yet do not know completely.
Lately, I've been writing about me writing it (the supposed novel). I'm not trying to write meta fiction, but it just ocurred to me to do so. It's helping on expanding my thoughts, but I'm still at loss.
I'd like to hear opinions on how to know if you "have" a novel or not. I see people talk about what they're writing with such lucidity it baffles me. How do you come to know your plot? I mean, I guess there's a moment when all just clicks, doesn't it? Maybe I'm forcing things.

Sorry for my poor English.

>>16255047
>Me and my wife's boyfriend originally wrote this to dab on /pol/tard

>>16255120
>o-only commie soibois hate /pol/tards
lmao, keep deluding yourself wojak-poster

>>16255120
That's what I said, me and my wife's boyfriend originally wrote this to dab on a /pol/tard. Hell I'm even that basedjack in the picture holding my wife's kids. It's amazing how funny and observant you are anon.

>>16254651
My story is about a creature created by science and learning to love. The story actually shows how sexuality destroys society of making it.

I’ve written two short stories, and onto my third one. They’re all part of the same universe as their essentially my proof of concept to see if I can actually commit to a series of novels set in the universe.
Writing is my dream and my only marketable skill, and all I want to do in life is write.

>>16254651
No. But I hope one day I man up and do it. :(

>>16254651
It is about a young man bored of life looking for some proof of the paranormal. He delves deep into the occult and researches hundreds of ideas just to come to the conclusion that reality is entirely subjective and paranormal phenomena exists just for those who believe in it consciously and subconsciously.

Previous thread: >>16212563

>>16254686
Stop whatever you're doing right now and write two full pages on the topic of a mountaineer's arrival to a village after having conquered the mountain that looms over it. For fun.

>>16255492
sounds interesting

200 words a day gang

>>16255522
Does shitposting count towards my daily word count?

>>16255664
only if you're me

>people won't talk about what they're writing unless you put "talk about what you're writing" in the op of a "writing general".

This board is too dumb for me.

>>16255692
talk about what you're writing

>>16254667
You're a waste of time

>>16255664
shitposting actually counts as negative word count

Constantly writing. Writing all the time, every day. Actually making a reasonable amount of money putting out pulp with wordcounts of about 5000-10,000 words a day and recently got a contract to produce a vidya novelization for a certain up-and-coming and already pretty prolific indie game dev. I'm super hopeful about the project and am having a lot of fun working on it. Hopefully I'll get hired to do his next one, too.

How do you promote selfpublished books. I'm writing a fantasy that I think will appeal to the roddit and retarded goodreads crowd. Hope I didn't jinx myself by insulting my fanbase

>>16256069
I know you think I'm probably joshing around or some shit. But congrats Anon. It fills me with pride and hope to see a fellow anon succeeding

A philosophy book. It's basically a PHD thesis that I'm writing for funsies. I have no idea how I will get it published but the world needs to hear this.

>>16256069
Where do you publish your pulp? I'm in the 4000 words a day gang, but I still don't have a business plan or any sort of plan at all really

I could write. but i won't. too little time

>>16256085
Serialize. Write as many books as you can as fast as you can, make it a series. If you look at the fantasy market right now it has a lot in common with the erotica market and frankly a lot of it IS erotica, just miscategorized in hopes of attracting more readers. Everything successful in the mainstream Kindle markets is starting to look like the Japanese light novel markets.

Honestly I think the #1 best thing any writer can do right now to build their audience is to write pulp, as much pulp as you can, and get yourself a Kindle Unlimited subscription so you can pretty much just read whatever you want and stay on top of current trends in the market.

>>16256099
Hey dude, thank you, that's really nice of you to say. I've been coming to 4chan since 2005 or 2006 and I feel like /lit/ was really influential in my reading tastes when it was established as a board, so I feel very warmly disposed toward this community and I'm sure there are at least a few other authors out there who are becoming successful around now and starting to feel the same way. I think as long as people who are interested in writing keep trying to write and are willing to change and learn, they'll eventually start to find success.

>>16256111
Good job, Anon! Get it out there. Just publish it yourself if you really feel the world needs to hear it.

>>16256129
Kindle Unlimited, but my publishing company is going to release paperbacks of the completed serialized stories in a couple of months or so. One of the serials is already finished and the other one is getting to a point where I could release a volume of the first arc and feel pretty good about it as a unified piece. For paperbacks and hardbacks we/I use IngramSpark because the quality is better than Amazon Createspace (or whatever it's called now) and indie booksellers won't buy and sell books you print through Amazon, for obvious reasons. I'd advise you focus first on just publishing on Kindle Unlimited.

It's popular for people to publish dark or controversial erotica on Smashwords, btw, because people write complaints to Amazon about low-quality or very exploitative titles and then those authors get banned, but in my personal experience as long as books with borderline content have artistic merit and a good cover, you'll be okay. IMO Smashwords is a waste of time and potential Kindle Unlimited profits unless you get banned from Amazon.

>>16256157
I frequent royalroad and seeing people make >2k a month off of absolute trash is really making me want to try my hand
I've been a /lit/ consoomer all my life but have never really put my hand at writing
Can I make it success anon?

>>16256364
Of course you can make it! I'm telling you dude, anybody can do it if they're disciplined enough. Absolute trash is right, the Amazon erotica market is such garbage that if you can string a sentence together you could be making at least 200 extra bucks a month within a couple of months of work and research.

>>16255521
Thanks, that's my life without the conclusion part.

>>16256364
It might be trash but it's what the market wants. Writing to market can be harder than it seems. Also, the big thing about serials is consistency. That takes discipline. But I say go for it.

Is getting published even worth a shit?

>>16256669
Getting published isn't but publishing yourself is if you can push out 30+ titles in a short period of time. By 'titles' in this sense I mean really chapbooks or serialized episodes of about 12k to 20k words. You can do longer or shorter but definitely if you have works of 100k or larger you should strongly consider serializing them in this market and publishing the collected work once it's all released, in part because people just don't have the attention span but really because the #1 most important thing is discovery. By developing a brand and consistently releasing 1-2 titles a week, readers who are on Amazon looking for new stuff will basically have no CHOICE but to notice you.

Also, learn how to use keywords.

See, the problem is that people have it in their head that if they write their great book they'll find a publisher, but even assuming they do find a publisher, it may take years and a lot of luck for a book to gain traction, assuming it even does. If you're willing to serialize and self-publish in mass quantities you can start building an audience immediately and leverage your existing fanbase into longer works when you're confident they're devoted enough to transition.

>>16256452
yea that's what was interesting to me, I could find myself in that too

>>16256364
I've been writing there for 3 years, over 500k words posted, and I make whopping $20 per month.

>>16256872
That's pretty despairing anon.
I've seen stories pop onto trending for a couple weeks and walk out with ~1k a month on patreon
Hell, it's happening now. The top on trending is a month old, has 130 pages and is making 1.4k a month

>>16256872
Kindle. Unlimited. Kindle. Unlimited. Take down your stuff and post it on KindleUnlimited, and also do a little market research to see if there's a way you can improve your covers and keywords. If you have 500k words already to post in KindleUnlimited over the course of a few months you'll develop a sizable following as long as you can figure out the right niches and ways to market.

>>16256364
It's possible, as long as you understand what the userbase is looking for. It generally requires writing a litrpg with a twist that gets people to click on it. It's possible to hit it big on there with a less popular genre, but that requires actually writing a decent novel. You also need to read up on how the site functions as far as trending and what not. The general practice by the people who get a lot of followers is to have a backlog of chapters written so that you can post 2-4 during peak hours every day while you're building up the fanbase. It's easy when you're writing 1-2k words of garbage, but if you actually strive to craft decently written chapters you might have a hard time keeping up with the demands of the people who read stuff over there.

If you're determined to put in the work, you can definitely be successful. We can laugh at the writing quality of a lot of the people over there, and a lot of it is genuinely painful to read, but they often put in a ton of work to get where they are, and that in itself is admirable

>>16256872
Link? I'll read some of it and give you a review

>>16256872
Do you have a Patreon, or you just relying on Paypal?

>>16256955
Different RR anon but I tried for a bit. Got a few hundred followers before I dropped it
Serial writing is exhausting. I'd highly advice either releasing a completed work as a serial or at the very least be far ahead of the current chapter

>a lot of it is genuinely painful to read, but they often put in a ton of work to get where they are, and that in itself is admirable
Absolutely. I was working at the time so I was kind of running on fumes to begin with but it takes some decent discipline to maintain the sheer output

>>16257158
>or at the very least be far ahead of the current chapter
Yeah, that's what I'm doing right now. I have a few chapters written, but I'm waiting until I have 10-20 done before I start posting. The benefit of doing it this way is that I've had time to go back and fix things that don't work very well

>>16255516
Where do you think we are? Do you think people on /lit/ just sit down and write?
https://pastebin.com/PBS0iQcR
Choke on my purple prose.

>>16255492
Read Foucault's Pendulum, or alternatively, Haruhi

>>16256725
Probably one of the most sensible posts I've read on this general.

>>16256935
I self-published like 7 ebooks before moving to RR. They're available on kindle, kobo, ibooks, etc. and in 6+ years, they've made me like 300 bucks altogether. It took 5 years before the first review was submitted (4 stars). I just want to write what I want to write and fucking hate pandering and shilling, so that doesn't work for me. All in all, the reception has been way better on RR, even without me spamming my shit everywhere.

>>16257005
Thanks but no thanks.

>>16257019
I only use Patreon and don't accept Paypal donations.

>>16257325
>turning down a review from a fellow anon
>muh creative vision
Anon.. are you ashamed of your work? Is it that bad?

>>16257341
The previous time someone linked their fiction here, I saw them get slammed with a 0.5 star review for shilling. And I want people to read my story because they're interested in the story, and not because I asked to get fellated.

How do I write a depressed person? Especially someone dealing with the loss of a friend?

>>16257435
Read The Waves by Woolf and find out. The entire book is a group of friends learning to deal with the loss of a friend

Are you writing in a horror (or horror adjacent) genre? Do want to join a discord server with others who are doing this?

We also like:
talking about books
talking about horror films
philosophical pessimism
buddhism

FADE TO BLACK
https://discord.gg/R5WVzH9

Anyone struck by any story ideas lately? I had the idea about a man who gets selected to be leader of a country that selects all its leaders randomly

>>16257757
Why would they do that? It doesn't make any sense.

>>16257776
It's fair, though

>>16254768
the first two paragraphs it feels like you wrote 3 topic sentences in a row for the both of them

>>16256157
Is Serialize a website?

>>16257966
That anon brings up a good point, though. Most people would be unable to deal with the amount of stress that comes with leading an entire country, much less have the knowledge to actually make good decisions. Florence and some other Italian city-states did have lotteries for government positions, but you had to be someone who was capable of doing the work to even have your name in the hat to begin with

>>16255697
Talk about what you're writing, desu yo!

The short story I'm writing is shit. Should I bin it or is it worth finishing regardless?

Also, I've been writing short stories to improve before attempting a full novel. Is this worthwhile, or should I just say "fuck it" and start writing the work I really care about?

>>16257308
Samefag
Also, horrific (((advice)))

>>16258011
>The short story I'm writing is shit.
And you're writing it because...

>>16256955
your post is well intentioned, but i believe mines suggestion is more well accustomed. you can't do anything with goals in mind, i encourage you dearly to not think about what lies at the end of a journey but to do what helps you wake up on a day-to-day basis. just remind yourself never set goals thats all that matters

>>16258011
Finish it. And if it's just a total cop-out deus ex machina bullshit. You can always rewrite later.

>The eyes glimmered, a lustre unclean likest to night soil. He laid hold of the soldier, drawing blood in currents around his claws which clutched like iron. And with claw did he weed that larynx and destroy the man.

I only have small sentences. What do you all think of this passage?

>>16258068
Most wretched

>>16258039
Because the idea was good but I've executed it poorly.

>>16257992
Currently writing about a first date that goes wrong when the guy decides to rob a store, and take the girl hostage.

It's in its very early stages right now, but I'll post if when it's ready if you would like, anon.

>>16258068
I don't like it. You're trying too hard. Throw it in the bin and start over

>>16258068
It is almost completely meaningless.

>>16257966
Fair isn't the same as good. Or logical. Nobody would ever use such a system, fair or not.

>>16258134
What part of it comes across as trying too hard?

>>16258068
Feels like you ran it through a thesaurus a few times before posting.
No one writes like this. It feels unnatural.

Despite my low expectations of my webnovel making it anywhere I somehow managed to land on top 50 trending earlier this week on Royalroad. Staying there is going to be difficult and getting back on there will be impossible, but I'm happy I made it either way. We're all going to make it bros.

>>16258167
All of it. Like another anon said, it doesn't feel natural. It reads like a novice writer trying to make their writing sound as intelligent as possible. Just go for simple sentences that show me exactly what's going on
>His eyes glimmered in the night. He grabbed the soldier's throat and drew rivers of blood around his claws
You're writing what I presume to be werewolf fanfic or something. It doesn't need to be as well written as a Faulkner novel. Go for clear descriptive sentences that flow together naturally

>>16258221
Congrats, anon. From what I've read, when you get on trending you want to post chapters as often as possible to try and stay on it. It's expected to fall off of it eventually, so you want to gain as many followers as you can while you're on there

>>16258192
I was trying to evoke a biblical sort of style, though if the piece doesn't work without readers knowing that, then it doesn't work. I'll try to ease off the throttle in the future.

I'll happily boast that I did not need to crack open a thesaurus for it. Most of the words and phrases I used are stuff you can find in any translation of older mythology.
>>16258234
This isn't a disagreement with your point, since I do appreciate any and all critique, but shouldn't all works be as well written as they can possibly can be? I find when I write I do always try to put everything I can into my work, even if it's something as silly as werewolf fanfic (which the passage isn't, it's just a sentence and not connected to any greater project of mine.)

>>16258011
Finish it. Review it after you are done so you can see where the story went wrong. That way you don’t repeat those mistakes.

>>16258121
The guy takes his date hostage or the girl is on a date and a robber takes her hostage?

>>16254651
Just finished writing a movie review for my friend's website.

Currently thinking about starting a screenplay soon. But I get in the habit of merticiously planning great scenes without looking at the bigger picture re: plot. And that's where I get lost, I have no set ending and struggling attempting to find one.

>>16258011
What's it about?

>>16258363
Guy takes his date hostage.

>>16258353
Not him, but that's a good advice. Thanks.
I'm writing my first novel and every time I read my drafts I spots several mistakes. It's embarassing.

>>16258265
>boast that I did not need to crack open a thesaurus for it
I would hope not. Hardly something to brag about.

>>16257988
That poster means that you should serialize your work, as in write multiple installments in the same series and pump them out at regular intervals.

>cat just jumped all over my keyboard when I had scrivener open and messed up my outline

>>16257378
I want to read your work, Anon. Besides, there's no progress to be made without shilling just a little bit.

>>16258147
Unless anon is writing a political treatise, that doesn't matter at all. Did you never read Borges?

>>16255104
can someone reply to me?

>>16258576
Anon isn't Borges and the concepts in novels, for the most part, should make sense. At least a little bit.

>>16255104
I - and I think most writers - have at least some semblance of plot in mind when writing. Usually you have an idea, then want to write it- it's bizarre to think someone would write just for the sake of it without having anything to say. I have an idea come to me, or I believe passionately enough in an insight or experience that I want to transmute that experience into art. If I don't do it, I feel guilty and ashamed, which is worse than the feeling of inferiority I get when I do write.

I don't think anyone should just write for the sake of it. If you don't have anything to say, if you don't have creativity, I don't think you should write.

>>16258615
Work on an outline. I'm working on a web novel right now where the only thing I knew about it when starting out was the genre and the name of a main character. Working on the outline for it has slowly unfolded the entire plot for me. You figure out why and how things happen, and as you do that you add more characters to facilitate these happenings. Someone does something bad to one of your protagonists? Alright, what are his motivations and why did he do that? Is there a central plot point that he's working around, and how is he involved with that? You ask yourself questions about the world you're writing, and answering those questions builds your novel. Nobody sits down with the entire plot of a novel already figured out. Writers aren't people that just magically have an "idea" and churn out a gorgeous 300 page novel. You have to sit down and figure out what it is that you want to write and why.

Don't spend an eternity on the outlining process though. I've known people who have spent years outlining that novel that they swear they're going to get to this year. Just do enough so that you have a good idea of where you're going

>>16257378
If you happen to be talking about pic related then that was actually in /a/'s isekai threads because a friend told me there was still a homebrew community there that was basically a RRL cabal. But I started lurking and posting after it had mostly died off, on top of it not being a isekai in the first place. Some anons off their meds got ass blasted about the shilling and told people to fuck off to /lit/ where there wasn't a place for things like these until now. I'm glad the anons here are more supportive though but it does make me a bit more cautious about posting a link to it too much.

>>16258553
Control + z

>spent an hour rewriting a few lines
>hate them all

>>16258729
Wastebasket is full
Ten reams to find one sentence
I know that feel bro

>>16258670
I already have that idea you speak of, a charachter and narrator's voice, and a loose idea of how the "world" works. I do have things to say, I'm sure of that. The problem is, I can't make it work like a novel works, I don't know if you get what I mean.
>If I don't do it, I feel guilty and ashamed, which is worse than the feeling of inferiority I get when I do write
Same to me.
>>16258699
The problem is I'm not working by any genre. I never really developed an affiliation with any of them. Well, maybe sci-fi, but that's not what I want to do. So I'm kind of figuring out my own rules (which I think it's dangerous and tedious, but I can't bring myself to follow genre rules).
>You ask yourself questions about the world you're writing, and answering those questions builds your novel
Do you think there's a limit of time to figure out this? I've been smashing my head over this thing the last 2 months. Is that a long time?
>Writers aren't people that just magically have an "idea" and churn out a gorgeous 300 page novel
I'm finding out that the hard way.
>I've known people who have spent years outlining that novel
That's a fear I have. I think if I can't make progress I'd just put it aside and do another thing. But each day it pass I obssess more and more. It's almost unhealthy at this point.

Thanks for your replies.

cyberpunk story is a bout a young underpaid dude working for an outdated company that leases artificial bodies to be used inside the “recreation center “ they offer. The VA pays for A war vet missing his legs To come down a few days a month and rent a full body to swim and climb, a sick little girl with “butterfly syndrome” gets to a be a normal kid for a few hours tumbling and playing, a cute octagenerian couple comes in two times a month to borrow young bodies to fuck in. The MC is lonely and broke despite the position of running the facility. His only friends are the 7 foot tall Cyborg bodybuilder chick “bubblegum dynamite” who’s only keeping a day job until her probation is over for threatening an official, and the old man who sells him noodles and Kirin. There’s body snatchers everywhere and he lives in a small room of a vaporwave themed hostel in exchange for doing maintenance. The robot who runs the servers in the company is using a building repair service to create a “the back rooms” style atmosphere on the unused upper levels of the building. Somewhere between taking a blow to the head from almost getting body napped, a lack of sleep because he’s selling half his nightly REM’s to make ends meet, being lonely and getting lost in the back rooms, the story should develop a psychedelic PKD-esque “what’s real?” Atmosphere. There’s even random sightings of undead Yakuza (see pic) which no one controls but still roam the streets collecting heads for a defunct criminal database.
Those are just the notes but the meat and grit of the story is always in the details; Hologram octopi floating out of reach, absurd shit, tech drugs

>>16255090
I'm in the same boat, friend. Same age and I'm guessing similar influences. I just toil away at the craft and make sure to write everyday - even if it's whiny little journal entries. Tried to write a few novels and they fell apart. So, now I'm focusing on shorter stuff so I can learn to see stories/poems/songs (whatever my hair-brain, half-baked, crack pot mind is fiddling with) through to the end. It really is a long and grueling process to learn how you approach writing and making art - takes a lot of time too. Just gotta keep going; keep reading and writing, and studying how your influences pulled it off.

>>16254667

>>16258842
>Do you think there's a limit of time to figure this out?
There's no time limit, per se, but chances are your first novel is not going to be very good. Sitting down to write something that ultimately isn't amazing is better than spending years obsessing over an idea for a novel. With the former, you're getting practice and can figure out what went wrong; and with the latter you become one of those writers that spends a decade on one novel and becomes deluded on its greatness because they sunk so much time into it. Trust me, I've known those people and you don't want to be like that. They have folders of lines and paragraphs for a novel that is never going anywhere, and they're not particularly good at writing since they don't practice and get a few bad novels out of the way. Stephen King wrote four novels before one of them was good enough to be published.

Was working on my second novel but I got sidetracked by spoken word stuff and now I'm working on a book of 50 poems instead. I like writing something with a point, even if my writing isn't always as polished as I'd like it to be, and when I write novels I usually focus on the story first and the point sometimes comes later.

Here's my first book:
https://www.amazon.com/Conqueror-Scared-Death-Alexander-Culafi-ebook/dp/B08712NDTV/

>can only write when on adderall + microdose of shrooms

help

>>16258952
Thanks. I needed to hear that.

>>16259104
Try coffee instead. I haven't taken a solid shit in weeks, but I'm getting some decent writing done at least

Dumb question but what are the risks of starting with one protagonist that is made to be cool but is then killed off and replaced by a character that's constantly getting humbled?

>>16259711
For one, if they come of as too cool at start, readers might think this is just some wishfullfilment crap and stop before the fuckers gets killed.

Besides that, if they actually like them for being the way they are, replacing them with a different person will piss these readers off. Unless the other character is otherwise very compelling.

Why not have a less extreme version when you introduce both early on, so at least it won't be a huge shock being forced to follow a different person.

>>16259711
Depends on how far into the story the character gets killed. People generally don't like when the character they've been following is suddenly killed off halfway through the story

>>16254651
I feel like writing
but I also feel like I should space myself a bit more so as to not burn out, I woke up, I wrote, I took a break from work, I wrote.
Got back from work, I feel like I should be writing.

but I'm a very single minded person, like with everything else, I might hit the point of diminishing returns if I go too ham on it during a short period of time

>>16259851
Give yourself a daily word count goal. Something reasonable to you. If you're really in the zone, you won't notice when you pass it, and when you're not really feeling it, you'll know when to stop.

For fun I have started working on an 80's style horror novella. It's amazing how quickly I'm getting along in it.
I think I'm gonna make it bros.

>>16254651
Writing a pulp-y sci-fi novel right now. I've always wanted to write, but felt I lacked the life experience to make realistic, worthwhile stories. I'd write what I'd hope to be some psychological horror or nuanced drama, only to end up hating it and trashing it. Recently though, I had a pretty bad identity crisis/existential breakdown where I realized I sacrificed all my dreams for the sake of practicality, and I even though it sucked it really made me re-evaluate where I am in my life and what I want to do with it. I realized that I should spend the short time I have here to do what I want. In my heart I know I'm a writer. Even if all I write is pulp-y sci-fi at least I can be happy knowing I didn't give up on a part of me that I always knew was there. This is the furthest I've ever got into a story, not to mention the first time I outlined the whole thing from start to finish. I actually find myself wanting to add to it and re-read what I've already wrote to improve it. It also helps that since learning about self-publishing online I can really see myself getting it out there. Even if only a handful of people read it, and less than half of those people like it, I can still feel happy knowing I accomplished a lifelong dream of being a published author.

>>16259946
>I realized that I should spend the short time I have here to do what I want.
Based and redpilled.
>I can still feel happy knowing I accomplished a lifelong dream of being a published author.
Well, not to rain on the parade but would self-publishing really count for that? You could self-publish all of your shitposts there.

>>16259913
You can make it bro, keep going.

>>16259851
Take some breaks to do some reading. You may come across something that makes you re-evaluate how you wrote something

>>16259946
Based. And yeah, being a writer is becoming more feasible with all of the ways there are to market and monetize your own work. It wasn't that long ago that if a publisher rejected your work you were pretty much screwed

>>16259985
I mean technically all my shitposts since highschool are archived somewhere. I feel if I release a story, even if it's just online, it's finished. It's not just another doc on my computer I can mess around with, it's out there and available for people to read. Even if I have the option to edit it, I wouldn't want to because I know someone might of read it already, and whether they hate it or not, it's now a story in someone else's head and that can never be changed. It's less about the prestige of being published, and more about the finality of the work being avaliable for others to read. I have always obsessed over my writing being perfect and never actually finished anything, so I want to be able to write something, look it over, tweak it release, release it, and move on. Ed Wood never made any great movies, but he got what he wanted out into the world. He will never be remembered as the best or even a good filmmaker, but he'll be remebered more than the tortured geniuses who were never satisfied with their work.

>>16258390
what movie?

>>16259946
Right there with ya, man. I think after years of scribbling I've decided to just do pulp shit.

>>16257325
7 books isn't enough, Anon. Especially if you're writing in an obscure niche like I am, you may need 30-100 before you can get anywhere. It's like a deposit of time. You don't have to shill if you're just constantly putting out new titles, see what I'm saying? Pick an empty niche--if you can find one--and dominate it.

>>16258011
Okay my advice is just take a pause on the short story and write a novel instead. The truth is that short stories and novels are very different mediums and you might actually find novel writing first helps you grasp short stories better. I think starting with short stories is incredibly bad advice people love to give because they don't understand that the narrative flow is different, so as a result modern literature is a bunch of empty, vapid, overblown short stories. Come back to short stories when you're more impassioned or write novellas of 20k to 40k words.

>>16254651
If I want to publish my novel online (in a serial format), should I used Royal Road or a Wordpress site?

>>16260476
I think something like RRL will have easier accessibility. A wordpress will require you to promote it everywhere(and some will have rules that make it difficult, like 'you have to be part of the community to self promote' and you can always post on one that you're also posting on the other, I see some fiction blurbs do just. There's also scribblehub, Wattpad, and Quotev as well.

I've convinced myself that I have some kind of undiagnosed disease that has evaded detection which is slowly draining my life and will kill me before my time.
Whether or not that may be true it has enabled me to absolutely buzzsaw through pages and pages of writing at max speed.
Maybe I have the disease. Maybe not. But the thought that I do has proven to be a tremendous power. I highly recommend you convince yourself that you have a fatal illness. It's nature's greatest productivity hack.

I have completely disillusioned myself within the last year of all my various ideological beliefs. I want to write more, but I can't. I'm certain other anons who have experienced this know what I mean.

>>16259711
It sounds risky and hard to pull off but it could be great if you could pull off a Raiden. The beginning part would need to be genuinely great on its own though, and the shift of characters and tone would need to serve a purpose.

>>16260535
>I have completely disillusioned myself within the last year of all my various ideological beliefs
Congratulations anon!

>>16260535
walking in nature or engaging with a man you find mentally stronger than you should help with the ego

>>16259737
>For one, if they come of as too cool at start, readers might think this is just some wishfullfilment crap and stop before the fuckers gets killed.
I'm basing him on Jules Winnfield. More of the man men want to be but know it's not optimal to be like IRL.

>Besides that, if they actually like them for being the way they are, replacing them with a different person will piss these readers off. Unless the other character is otherwise very compelling.
I'm trying to make her compelling but it's costing me to be honest. She used to work as an assassin and spy, and her arc is partly about taking responsibility for the things she did even if they weren't her idea but mainly it is about turning away from that life but that also implies abandoning her new brothers in arms. I kind of feel like it's a problem too big for her.

>Why not have a less extreme version when you introduce both early on, so at least it won't be a huge shock being forced to follow a different person.
Both of them are introduced at the beginning, though the second protagonist is introduced first. The cool character has a side plot that is more important to the greater story and gets him killed but is not part of his day job as a mercenary; it's like a pet project of his. He also acts as the mentor for the second protagonist while she is more of a sidekick/cool little sister to many of the characters on their group.

>>16259760
It's about halfway into the first arc. It's important to the story despite being really low profile and happening with almost nobody noticing because it gives the protagonist a hint towards finding a guy that has been behind everything weird surrounding their group and who is an agent of the main villains.
I still have to find a point for her going after him since in the end he scrams away at the last minute. At least in the current, yet to be fully transcribed, draft.

>>16260543
>Raiden
The cyborg ninja guy?

>The beginning part would need to be genuinely great on its own though, and the shift of characters and tone would need to serve a purpose.
My problem right now is that I had a solid beginning when I started, at least I felt like that, but then I decided to go back some time before that point so the beginning is the youngest part of the story as of now. I'm trying to flesh it out by adding small chapters for characters from this faction I plan to use later but I'm yet to make it not feel like an edgy slice of life, or decide if that's the right choice for the beginning.
As for the shift, its purpose is to take the focus away from the cause of this mercenary group to be accepted back into society by force and turn it towards one character being convinced to work on herself rather than recklessly attack the machine to make ti do what it wants.

/toy/ here.
I want to have pic related as part of my stop motion story as a living statue who possesses the memories and personality of King David because I think he is a pretty cool guy but there are no jews in my setting. It's mostly robots, monsters, and anime girls.
Should I cut him out?

I have a criminally inefficient writing process. I write everything by hand first which alone would not be so terrible if it weren't for the mode of production in which textual products are realized. Writing by hand cognitively allows you to immerse yourself completely in the task at hand, without notifications and the various other pokes and prods of the digital world. It has the one awful drawback that it is not digitally portable in its initial form. So I have to go through this tedious process of typing up everything I wrote into a word processor which let me tell you is a special kind of hell. All whilst striving with every fiber of my being not to go on the internet and vanish into its infinite corridors as I am now. If I had the money I would pay someone an average year's salary just to type my shit up.

>>16261021
>If I had the money I would pay someone an average year's salary just to type my shit up.
Fuck that. I would pay a lot more.

im never going to get better at writing, am I?

>>16261021
If you are still interested by the middle of september I have to take the TOEFL for the carton so I can tell employers I know english despite being fluent or so I could help you.
5-6 dollars per hour is middle class income on my country lol.

I wrote a book and epublished it a week ago because people who aren't big on twitter can't get books published the old way anymore. It sold 6 copies and then tapered off.

>tfw wasted a decade

I guess I'll teach abroad and then join the military as an officer, if they'll take me.

>>16261481
>judging success by sales

>>16261481
You spent a decade on one book? Is it the sequel to finnegans wake or something

>>16261481
who the hell cares, retard. keep writing, and talk to people who know their way around the industry

>>16261515
>le starving artist meme

A cover for people who are unsuccessful but so averse to work they'd rather live in a slum than get a job.

>>16261552
Reading over the posts in this thread I can see most of you aren't serious writers but probably teenagers engaging in hobbyism.

>>16261571
>talk to the industry people

You clearly haven't, agents don't want to publish the books of people who aren't already well known or have a social media following. Armchair writers will have a rude awakening when you try to publish as an unknown.

>>16261574
>>16261481

Post an excerpt please, I'm quite curious.

I want to write a children's fantasy book series about a squire and his adventures with his knightly mentor. Something that can come out over a span of years so kids can grow up with the main character. There's an evil order of knights bent on taking over the world, you know the drill. But the thing is that it's all just a lead up to what I actually want to write. The climax of the children's book series will involve preventing a villain from going back in time and preventing the events of the first novel. However, reality gets "split" at the end, with the main character lost for a heroic bittersweet ending.

Then comes the "alternative series," a much more adult toned version of the children's story, where the mentor knight character is killed in their first battle from the original first book, and instead of being raised by a hero, he's forced to squire under the villain of the first book (who is killed in that same book). He ends up becoming an evil knight and rises to power. The story won't be an "edgy" kind of evil, but a more subtle turning, where the main character insists his convictions are still righteous, but he continues to make more and more compromises while making red-flag expressions like, "I don't have to be a good person to make the world a better place." The story will take potshots at certain events in the original series along the way, some of which turn out the same and others getting subverted. The "lost" main character from the end of the children's series will show up and have to face the evil version of himself.

>>16254651
Novel.
Chacters in my world have their atmospheres representing their internal world.
The atmospheres and the condition of said atmospheres are described to the reader but it is left unclear if they themselfs are aware of it, although signs point to them not being aware seeing as they can't seem to devine the meaning of these atmospheres.
It's all inspired by Gaia theory, absolute sympathy and a heavy acid trip I was on.
Probably won't release it, but I need to "materialize" (for lack of bother to find a better word) to be able to move past it.

>>16260464
>Especially if you're writing in an obscure niche like I am, you may need 30-100 before you can get anywhere

Even when I was writing full time, the best I could manage was 2-3 60k word novels/novellas per year. So I'd be writing 10-30 years before it would get profitable, by your estimate. That doesn't sound like a terribly smart plan.

I've been making up a fantasy world for the past 10 or so years. I'd say it's really coming together and I have ideas for multiple concurrent storylines, but sometimes I wonder if I'm spreading myself too thin with different PoV characters that cross paths along with the story or if I should break things apart in a way similar to the Discworld books.

The main family I came up with is now (imo) less interesting than their rival family, which I've been working on a lot for the past year or two. At first I was a bit worried, but then it got me thinking that it might not be a bad thing that they're more interesting, or that it's just more interesting because it's what I've worked on most recently. I probably can go back and flesh out the main family's culture and background more too anyways.

I haven't worked too much on prose though, it's more like I get ideas and write them down as notes on my computer or phone. When I do work on prose, I'll get stuck mentally rewriting the same story or chapter for months at a time. Maybe I just like worldbuilding more than writing, or maybe I just need to push myself to devote more time to practicing writing things out in a story format.

>>16258068
Don't start sentences with 'And'

Can someone please post an example of the subtlety between a correct sentence and a beautiful one? I‘m trying to deconstruct what distinguishes them.

>>16261847
Beauty is subjective; but after a quick google search it seems most sentences that are considered 'beautiful' make comparisons between feelings and objects, while remaining as ambiguous enough to mean anything the reader interprets.
For example:
>His love for her were like a chipped vase, slow to retain water.

>>16258265
>all works should as well written as they possibly can be
Sure, depending on what you mean by well written. I'd say the writing in each work should be well adapted to its goals. For werewolf fanfiction, for example, I'd say the goal is to portray overt sexuality, gratuitous violence, and long stretches of a female protag coming to terms with who she is ('am I really a monster for disembowelling those gangsters?'). The biblical shit only distracts from that, and is therefore bad writing.

>been watching a tonne of old Bachelor and Bachelorette during quarantine
>start writing my own Bachelor fanfic

This is probably the most cringy shit I've ever done, but there is something comfy about it.
May even post it up on RoyalRoad when it's done, and make a bit of cash on it.

>>16262761
>Bachelor fanfic
whatever floats your goat, anon

>>16254651
I dont know what to write other than political Essays. My other short stories suck ass on a cyclopean level. Any tips?

>>16262915
Get better.

>>16262427
I can agree with that. Would you say the biblical shit could work if there was some framework around it? Say, a story about some sort of demon in antiquity.
>>16261815
Under what logic? Many successful writers from all genres and times start their sentences with 'And'. It's not even grammatically incorrect.

>>16254651
Can I really earn easy money writing smut?

>>16261630
The more you write, the faster you get. Have you been writing for 10+ years yet? I've been writing in a formalish for let's say 12 years, and I'd guess that I didn't boost myself up out of the 1 big novel a year + 2-6 short novels a year territory--even while I was ghostwriting, mind--for the first 10 years of my writing career.

In all that time I also 100 percent refused out of misplaced pride to write to market. I thought it was beneath me and I thought that people who were able to churn out 10+ books a year were clearly writing trash. And most of them are--but some of them just have practice under their belt and bills they gotta pay. I think for me reading about Philip K. Dick and looking up the authors who are recognized record holders in, say, most novels published or most short stories written really opened my mind to the upper limits of human capabilities when it came to writing in general, but then understanding that there were ways I could write to market and enjoy what I was writing also really helped me push my wordcount up this year. It's been a really humbling experience and it's also interesting because, frankly, I was intent on providing readers with a very deep intellectual literary experience and in doing so I sacrificed the pleasures of reading and even sometimes of writing. I think my old novels took me longer than they should have and that honestly it took me about 7 years of writing before I fully grasped how to tell a really good story.

You know, my career is just beginning so I'd definitely encourage you to take my advice with a grain of salt, but your situation right now reminds me a lot of me about 2 years ago.

Also, I would argue that the business of writing 2-3 60k word novellas is inherently profitable because you don't put a lot of money into the initial venture of writing and publishing pulp. You're paying for stock photos, probably Photoshop, and maybe Scrivener or Vellum if you don't already have one. My first month of publishing this new penname I made $70 in three weeks with 4 titles of about 12,000 words apiece--these titles were just chapters of a longer work that I wrote for fun a couple of years ago and just had sitting around. I had to clean it up a lot to publish it but holy shit, I mean, by halfway through my full second month on the market I had recouped everything I put into the venture--those stock photos and all, all the e-mail newsletter slots I got to boost a couple of early releases, one or two other miscellaneous fees. All of that was 100 percent already paid back to me by the end of the second full month and I'm pretty sure I had about 25 titles by then, but 13 of those were related to one serial and 7 were related to another serial. In other words, really I only have about 10 different stories available...but I'm doing SUPER well, especially compared to how my original 5 books still do even now on my old name. Just something to think about.

>>16263591
Yes that's what I'm saying my dog. I'm >>16263910 and the related posts. If you can take the time to research and find not only a niche that you like to write but a niche that you understand and like to read, you're in the money. It's a matter of understanding the themes and patterns in covers and marketing keywords and the general beats of your genre's plots. Just go look at the fucking Amazon erotica store's subcategories and look at how many author names occur multiple times--like all of them on the front page. You just have to start, get some momentum and stick to an internal schedule once you have that momentum.

>>16254651
My first project, that I'm making also in order to learn to write, is some kind of diary of the times when I used to live in an another college city and I was a stemfag. For some kind of aspects, is a way between My Twisted World and the Recherche by Proust. I've wrote like 30 pages of Microsoft Word

>>16263910
>The more you write, the faster you get.

I'm only getting slower though. Nowadays, it takes me more or less a year to write a single book. I like to do longer narratives, and put more effort into planning and research now too. I only want to write something I personally find fun and fulfilling, and that I'm not embarrassed to put out there.

In my opinion, if you start pouring your time to writing quick trash only for the money, then you might as well be flipping burgers. I've tried that too and it's a lot easier and pays more reliably. And god if there isn't enough trash fiction out there already. But best of luck to you on your career. Hope it makes you happy

>>16264106
What do you think of Robert E. Howard's works?

>>16264136
Haven't read any, I'm afraid.

Post your current typewriter. I couldn't write at all until I went back to one. Smith-Corona Super-G designed by Ghia. Every falling type hammer cuts my soul and bleeds story on the page.

>>16261418
It's completely possible to get better at writing. The only thing that's impossible is getting published.

>tfw i forgot the unironically smart names for my UFO themed witch characters
always take notes frens

>>16264106
>In my opinion, if you start pouring your time to writing quick trash only for the money, then you might as well be flipping burgers. I've tried that too and it's a lot easier and pays more reliably. And god if there isn't enough trash fiction out there already.
This desu. The first priority, imo, is writing something that satisfies you, the author, the second something that satisfies the reader and only then something that makes money. I can't imagine a worse hell than writing for a living, it would suck the joy out of it completely.

>>16261418
Here's a simple exercise to see if you have what it takes:

>Write a dialogue between a husband, who has just lost his job and hasn't worked up the courage to tell his wife, and his wife, who has a lover in the bedroom. Do not reveal the secret but make the reader intuit it.

I'm writing my PhD dissertation in literary studies. I am a pseud, but that's life. I'm progressing slowly. I feel like a lot of my shit are just other people's ideas and then slightly modified. I am unimpressed with myself.

I'm writing a small story subverting the standard D&D fantasy schmuck. Read the first books of the Black Company by Glen Cook and really like the minimalist approach he takes.

Fuck describing shit, here's your story bitch envision it urself hope you enjoy :^)

I'm doing that 1 short story a week thing Ray ButtBary talked about because I haven't finished a story in over a year

>>16254768
>Wounded but not broken. Exhausted but not defeated.
Horrible way to open. Sounds generic and doesn't evoke any sort of strong imagery. Which is bad because you have a great image which grabs you the very next line, with the limping woman. If you want to keep those sentences though, put them after that, but I personally wouldn't due to how trite they sound.
Now, for the lines before that, I'm not sure what you are stylistically trying to do with them. We're you thinking of a movie? This is not a script, this is fiction. Expository information like that, especially numbers, people dislike and gloss over. I immediately jumped to the next line, which is bad because I skipped the crucial information of being near Vegas. And why are you wasting so, so, so many words? Cut them down, keep it tight. Is it important that it's "between 3 and 4 AM"? Just say "around 3 AM", or better yet, just "3 AM". Usually when you say that, it means it's past 3 anyways, so you've lost no information.
Are you a native speaker? Because it's "September 4th, 1960", not the way you wrote it. Also, is it even important it's the 4th? And I would cut out "Nevada." Everyone knows about Vegas.
Further, I don't think you can use the word "clout" the way you do. And I glanced over the paragraph and found other weird usage of words, like "impulsed by adrenaline." You don't seem to have an especially outrageous style, so things like that just seem like incorrect usage instead of something intentional.
Anyways, the way I would write it so most information is retained, while cutting out the bullshit is:
September, 1960. Outskirts of Las Vegas. 3 AM.
Under a starry sky and with the great city of neon behind her, a heavily wounded woman limped towards the Mojave Desert.
That's a great opener though - the imagery, the contrast, the active nature of the protagonist, the immediacy.
Remember, in your opening lines, you have to be ruthless when editing and cutting words, much more so than in the rest of the book, and be sure you have something that grabs the reader from the get go.
And lastly, an in medias res opening like this is in my experience successful in grabbing the reader at first, but if you rewind back in time to show how it's gotten to that point, you're gonna lose a lot of people if you don't get to the opening scene fast enough. It's gonna seem like the opener is the culmination of the story, and you don't want that. You want the opener to set up even greater payoffs.
You didn't ask for criticism, but I was procrastinating on my studies so I hope you don't mind.

>>16264248
For distraction-free writing I use an ipad and a bluetooth mechanical keyboard, auto saves to the cloud for editing. Don't think I could be arsed being limited to paper.

Here is the greatest advice you can give to someone who wants to be creative. Don't ever ask people to critic your work. Or release it before it's done. The sole reason you created it was because you found it entertaining. Fuck what other people think. Now if you're trying to make money. That's a complete different story.

lmao imagine reading all of this and taking it serious. >>16264928

Write and read on alternate days or both each day but split 50%?

How often do you submit your works to contests? My first short story submission was rejected yesterday. There are 4 more contests this year I want to join. I’ve also decided to have a wordpress for any rejected stories just to give them a chance to be out there.

>>16265375
I stopped submitting to contests when I recognized that the same few people were winning some of the contests I was interested in every year. That and many of the judges for contests looking for very specific subject matter turned me off of them. I remember writing a story one time that multiple people thought was far better than any of the finalists, and it didn't even get an honorable mention

>>16265415
This.
NaNoWriMo is the absolute worst offender of this.
Only gay black women with a limp get any attention, regardless of how shit their work is.

>>16264981
Extremely based advice.

>>16265467
To be fair, I’ve always thought NaNiWriMo was kinda trash.

>>16265467
I would just stay away from submitting anything to publishers until after the new year because of nanowrimo reddit garbage. I imagine that they get absolutely swamped by horrendous submissions and just toss a lot into the garbage bin

>>16264981
>Don't ever ask people to critic your work
Then don't ever ask anyone to read it at all. You don't improve writing alone in your basement, shutting yourself away from the cruel world, never taking a word of advice from anyone. That's just masturbation.

>>16264981
>fuck what other people think
The purpose of writing is to communicate a story and/or ideas to another person. Writing for yourself is one of the most pointless things you could do with your time. I could come up with a story in my head and be entertained, I don't need to write it down to enjoy it

>>16257776
They're aliens where their god has demanded that they run their government that way. Shit doesn't matter why its happening just explore the idea.

I started my biography today. Here's a sneak peak:

Fat Jamal put his hand between his butt cheeks and farted loudly. “Oeeeh wee thatta be a big one huha!”. He shifted the hand below his nose and sniffed the gentle aroma birthed from his derriere. He was a creator. He was a god. Life was good. But racists... Racists were bad.

>>16265904
Incredible.

>>16261418
Read Techniques of the Selling Writer.
This goes for everyone in this thread.

>>16263164
>could it work
Sure. Neil Gaiman once wrote a whole horror story in ye olde english just for kicks (it was something about owls). 'Found document' type tales often use different styles as plot devices

>>16264579
>The first priority, imo, is making a burger that satisfies you, the cook, the second a burger that satisfies the eater and only then a burger that makes money.
I mean, sure, I agree, and I'm constantly pushing myself to improve, but at some point it would be nice to pay the bills, you know? What's wrong with flipping burgers for minimum wage while I perfect my recipe and technique?

>>16255120
>>16255692
>>16256872
>>16258553
>>16258729
>>16259104
>>16258936
>>16264512
>still no sitewide permaban
Brb, gonna ghostpost

>>16266143
Nothing, really. But some people just don't want to make burgers.

I want to write but might be autismo and have trouble understaing social situations and body languages, help

>>16267022
Read Asimov, especially Foundation. Asimov is one of my favorite authors despite the fact that his characters are razor-thin autistic exposition machines. There's an audience for that kind of stuff (a big one considering the stuff on the RoyalRoad everyone keeps talking about) so long as the ideas and the plots are interesting, so just focus on that and make sure everything else is, as Asimov suggests, clear.

>>16258460
Different Anon, but my method for writing is very "engineer" like. The subject mater I like to write may fit well with serialization and "Young Adult" readers, but I always feel the need to plan and consider almost everything.
For example, I wrote a 3k word chapter for a Touhou fanbook and It took me about 3 months. I researched 2hu lore, non anime Yokai and Edo Japan as I outlined the stoy and wrote the prose. Part of this time was also because I haven't written in first person before and was using org-mode for more then the outline.
It was successful and I'm outlining the rest of the book.
I could think about splitting my books into different volumes like Lord of the Rings if a novel is to long for a zoomer's attention span.

QUICK TELL ME THE BEST WAY TO WRITE NONFICTION THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO READ

>>16267910
>nonfiction
just write a time travel isekai where some dude finds himself as a advisor to napoleon right before trafalgar/invasion of russia.

>>16267910
>Nonfiction
>Something people actually want to read
Lmao good one. People only want to read nonfiction if it's about a subject they're interested in by an expert in the field. Just write a historical isekai like that other anon said. At least you'll be imparting some historical knowledge on the weebs who like that genre

>>16268000
idunno, I personally know a guy that loves reading historical nonfiction novels. Check me on the genre name, I have no idea what it's really called.
Of course, he has enough prior knowledge to pick up which ones got what right but from what he has shown me they were good novels.

Hey, guys. How do I make a character blame themselves for the death of someone close to them?

>>16268126
"My friend is dead and it's my fault," he said to himself, out loud.

>>16267910
Just write a historical isekai. here's an example. japanese high school girl dies and wakes up in the 1830's in Vienna and meets Napoleon's son. She gets into a love triangle between him and this girl that Nappy II used to talk to before he died.

>>16268126
Either give him the idea that there was something he could've done to prevent it, even if it was out of his power, or make him realize that there was something that could've possibly prevented it that he overlooked at the moment.

>>16254651
how do any of you get the balls to write something? i feel like you have to be a narcissist to think anything you could write would even be worth writing. im not saying its not possible for me, but theres no way im ready yet and i should just read instead

I've been DMng for years and finally decided to write down a campaign concept I've had for awhile, but was always unwilling to run because my friends only play DnD and it just didn't work for what I had in mind. Also players ruin stories.

I'm starting with a short story about a man called Hart who is left behind with his company of marines when the empire he's soldiering for erupts into civil war. Basically the general of his local campaign decides that the empire is collapsing, and somebody has to make peace in the territories that the empire is abandoning. Fast forward a few years later to the start of the story, and the general is now the high general for a newly formed nation built out of previous governors for the territory, and Hart is the right hand man of this high general. This high general rallied a few routed armies and held his own force back, giving him control over a former expeditionary force of the old empire. They start nation building, but before long a new threat shows up from the direction that the old empire retreated. This new empire bears a shocking resemblance to the old empire, but twisted and malformed, like a cruel mockery of the people and their magic. Lots of former veterans of this empire are in the High General's new army, and the war is costly.
The actual story begins with Hart escorting a food wagon to a local merchant, in a besieged city. The high general is in the city, and they've not heard from the next closest city in almost 2 months. Supplies are low, tensions are high, and Hart stumbles onto a plot involving the machinations of the new empire, centered around a new recruit named "Mouthy" and a company of sell swords. The short story is in progress, but will end with the fall of the city and the survivors escaping.
If I write a full novel, it'll be focused around the sell sword company hired to defend the city, and what they get up to after the siege. Hart and Mouthy eventually join the survivors of that company, and from there they move into the games that gods play with mortals. I have a general plot line and world, I just need to sit and write it out now.

Hart is meant to be reluctant and melancholic, he's tired.
Opening Paragraph (Let me know how shit it is) :
The sea sprayed the weather-beaten docks of Paltoon with a cooling salty breeze that whistled through the rows of houses, as if the city took in one final, rasping breath. The wind flowed through the streets and over the small coastal city, out past the docks, out towards the walls of red stained granite, where it crashed against stone to be scattered upward and away. Hart felt the cool breeze, smelled the salty brine of the ocean, and wondered at its journey beyond the walls. He wished the wind would carry him with it, above the red walls, over the army at the gates, and back to his home, thousands of leagues away. Or maybe Hart would just tie himself to a barrel of sand, jump into the bay, and hope Kimu wouldn’t play with her food.

Wrote this in about an hour or less. Should I keep going or dump it?
>tfw just arrived at the "crisis" or middle act of the story.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qizVnHreSy7gw5Lr894GaaT71Jp4-_JLwWv8bq-aoyU/edit?usp=sharing

>>16268190
you sound like a massive fucking cuck. My writing is dogshit and even then I can say this with absolute certainty. You are one of the dumbest motherfuckers i've ever seen. I can probably find a random down syndrome retard from the street and be absolutely confident in their ability to out preform anything you can possibly write down, you fucking asshole. And yes, I mean asshole in a literal sense. Because anything that comes out of you can only be shit.

>>16268190
if you write because you're thinking other people will read it, you're writing for the wrong reasons

>>16268183
hey thanks buddy

What's the quality of fiction that someone with three years experience should be? (From when they wrote their first story with the desire to one day be published) Can someone post examples or link me?

>>16268494
You can spend three years going to the absolute limit of your craft or three years doing the same shit over and over. You can't measure it on a time-based thing, but by performance and your own goals.

>>16268504
can you show me an example of a novel writer who went from starting writing fiction on day 1 and meeting their absolute limit 1000 days later?

>>16258850
Sounds neat. Got any written?

Currently writing two things: a science-fiction superhero novel set in a racially-charged America, and a series of erotic novels where all the main characters meet their lovers at the same bar. Thinking of finishing the erotic novels (probably around 10 at 5 or 6k words each) and publishing them on Amazon or Apple Books while I finish the later drafts of the sci-fi novel. Any anons have any thoughts on this?

I'm doing a scifi fantasy space opera that involves a fractured eldritch entity being freed from its seal and my protagonists end up teaming together to defeat it.
It's set in the distant future where humanity is not a retarded and gets along with most xeno races but they are just part of the universes lore. It focuses on the belief of human goodness vs human wickedness and how it the eldritch entity is exploiting those human flaws to facilitate its restoration. I am not giving the eldritch entity any dialogue but its pawns speak on its behalf and executes its will.
I still have to work on names and many other things but I am getting closer to what I truly desire.

Anyone here writing porn?

>>16268331
what makes you say that? because you think i'm a cuck? why are you so angry? did i strike a chord?
>>16268346
The implication is that I'm necessarily going to read it, in a rolling release kind of way

>>16268819
>what makes you say that? because you think i'm a cuck? why are you so angry? did i strike a chord?
lol nah buddy. I've been watching a certain debatebro streamer and I wanted to improve my insult game

>>16268791
I just wrote a scene about a prostitute yesterday. Most anons on this board would probably count that as porn.

>>16268838
what was the context? was is just mindless sex or did you depict the prostitute as a victim of a broken system?

>>16268791
me but you can't read it it's only for me haha

>>16268846
The context is a short story. She moved in next to the other main character and it was her introduction. It‘s going to be about a broken system, yes. So idk if it actually counts as porn. But if you listen to the debates about sexual content on here then it‘s too detailed and obscene to be considered anything else. Pic rel

>>16268791
Yep. Erotic shorts which are essentially just two people meeting in a bar and then fucking.

>>16268313
Quite nice. You repeat "cool" ("cooly") and "salty", and I'm fairly sure the "could" by the end should be a "should". But following the wind to describe the city is a good device, and Hart is well characterized.

>>16268330
I need to know how it ends before I give my answer. Right now it's nice and readable, without many bells and whistles. Keep going.

>>16268523
No. What a weird thing to ask.

>>16268582
Don't use the same pen name for both. It will confuse your niches.

>>16269032
No, I don't plan to.

What do you guys think of that trope seen from new writers in which they use a short descriptor for the character each time they want to refer to them without just using a pronoun?
I always feel it's clunky and forced even if I get the point of it, which is to avoid repeating the same name over and over again.

>>16269109
People that actively avoid repetition are amateurs.

>>16269113
People that repeat things are amateurs.

>>16268146
No matter which tombstone he looked at, it had their name.

>>16269574
It‘s a learning curve. Idiots repeat things and then you can do it again because you are above rules once you have mastered them.

>>16269109
How often do you guys mention character descriptions such as hair, eyes, clothes? I imagine if you only mention it during their introduction the reader won't remember it.

>>16269786
Not at all. It leaves the reader free to fill in with their own imagination. It makes it easier since each reader can then slap on their individual physical stereotypes according to the character i built.

>>16269786
Only if there's special attention drawn to the looks (character identifies another by their hair color, they're having a staring contest and pay attention to the eyes, etc), otherwise I avoid mentioning any of that.

It's not my problem if the reader is demented, it's worse if the reader feels he's being treated like demented, getting constant reminders about superficial shit that's actually completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. And excessive descriptions of clothing give such a fanfic feel. People generally wear clothes, yeah, why does that deserve special attention? It's more worthy of note if they don't wear any.

>>16269855
>they're having a staring contest
I hope you don‘t do that.

>>16269855
>It's not my problem if the reader is demented, it's worse if the reader feels he's being treated like demented, getting constant reminders about superficial shit that's actually completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. And excessive descriptions of clothing give such a fanfic feel. People generally wear clothes, yeah, why does that deserve special attention? It's more worthy of note if they don't wear any.
Based

>>16269865
People underestimate staring contests. They can do anything, settle disputes, assert supremacy, and get you laid.

>>16268346
>the federalist papers were written for the wrong reason
>safety protocols are written for the wrong reasons
Dang man, I at no idea...Thanks for letting me know.

>>16260513
Won't your writings all be tainted by dread and fear?

>>16269899
Ask me how i know you‘re autistic.

>>16270261
>.t can't hold a 5 second eye contact without looking away

>>16270272
Appropriate eye contact and staring contests aren‘t the same thing.

>>16268190
On the contrary I find writing with intention makes it hard to be narcissistic, any self awareness during the process makes it obvious you're not actually creating the ideas in any meaningful way, they just arise spontaneously. Even when an idea gets improved or refined it's a largely automatic process. The human mind is inherently mysterious.

The only free will element is in how truthful you want to be and whether or not you want to scrap it or do another draft.

The more you write the more distant you'll get from the writing too, in that you wont feel personally offended if someone shits on it. When I go over my writing a few months after generating it I often think it's shit but often find it good too, or good elements within the shit. I don't think it's narcissistic at all, not that there aren't narcissistic, masturbatory authors.

Do you think that BLM and LGBT literature will be "hot" in the upcoming years? I'm thinking of writing novels for that demographic under a penname, nothing obvious like Shaquesha Tamika. It can be escapist fantasy for them, like the ending will be black people are on top of society

>Start writing
>having a good time
>re-read back what I just wrote
>"This is terrible, no one will want to read this shit"
>never write again

everytim.

>>16270399
it already is, there's books published like this all the time. i remember one specifically (I think it was called BLACK but I'm not sure) where black people got superpowers, don't remember what happened though. if you want to make some quick and easy money then that's definitely a viable subject to write about.

>>16270417
Blacks can't read though, so who is the target audience?
Booktubers, and dumb women?

>>16270446
My university's book club's current book is How to be an Anti-Racist or something. I've seen how many black people are crying because that Wakanda guy died. I'm going to try to write a similar booklet and see how this goes. First I'll need to find a good black pen name. Should I be a black man or a black woman? Black mtf?

>>16270446
Woke allys

How is this?
Main character is insecure black woman and becomes stronk black woman, over the course of 3 books
> Book 1: gets accepted into Columbia with journalism major, learns to be a good journalist and fights against imposter syndrome and accusations of affirmative action
> Book 2: reporter at local TV station, fights against hair racism and learns to wear her natural hair and not perms/weaves
> Book 3: starts own media empire, Patreon, newspaper, books, learns to embrace African culture, passes this on to the younger black community

>>16270607
You could honestly condense all of that to one book. It doesn't really sound all that interesting but the BLM people will probably lick it up.

>>16270634
Yeah, but you sell more books on Amazon if you have more books under your name. Series > stand alone. I guess I'll see if the blm crowd will buy anything

I can make a series for the insecure black man becoming wakanda black man. What are the black male issues?
> affirmative action
> police brutality
> racism at work
> ???

>>16270655
>What are the black male issues?
I used to be friends with one, and he would constant complain about having to 'fit in with the black community', regardless of his likes.
He wanted to be a chef, and go to college, but was basically forced to give it up because of his community.

>>16270684
>Used to be
Did he end up on the wrong side of a cop's gun?

>>16270684
No no no. That's no good. The antagonist must be the whites, not the black community

I could write a twin book series about the black male
> Book 1: high school black kid learns to cook, despite whitey telling him that he can only do fast food like kfc and popeyes, wins local cooking competition with white people food but with black American twist
> Book 2: goes to college, does business major to create packaged African foods for Mall-Mart, has to overcome whitey stereotyping what black people like she only selling waffles and fried chicken
> Book 3: teaching children about their roots, not just black foods, but the American-fusion-traditional-African foods and culture and shieeet

I'm thinking for book 3 for both female and male version, they should get a husband/wife and get pregnant so they now feel a need to pass on the African culture

>>16270607
> Book 1: gets accepted into Columbia with journalism major, learns to be a good journalist and fights against imposter syndrome and accusations of affirmative action
For this one you can use Make Your Home Among Strangers: A Novel by Jennine Capó Crucet as a template of sorts. It has a similar premise and is apparently so ridiculously woke that Georgia Southern students held a book burning of it, which means your target audience will likely eat it up.

>>16270741
No, but almost.
We just fell out of touch over the years. We were kids when we met, and Teens when we departed.
He fell in with a 'bad crowd' during high school, all who thought gang and drug culture was cool, so his life just got worse and worse. He bought a knife to school one day, and got kicked out. After that we barely communicated.
Last time I saw him, he was on crutches because he jumped off a bridge while on drugs, thinking the police were after him, and tore the muscles in his legs. He then got arrested at the hospital because he attacked a nurse he thought was going to turn him in. I remember him telling me that story like I was meant to think he was 'cool' or something.

It's such a shame that Black Culture is so self destructive.

>>16270751
kek, she also wrote a novel called My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education

i have the opportunity to submit to this indie press by the 10th, and i have a decent story, but can’t figure out how to end it

>>16270811
And [protagonist] awoke to find it was all a dream.

>Try writing the first chapter of my novel.
>Paint the text I don't like red. (No reason to delete it until I'm sure).
>Now I have like 15 pages of red text and a bunch of unconnected black fragments and I no longer have any idea if these actually function as an intro.

Fuck.

>>16254651
I've been working on a book for a couple years now, I love it but worry others won't. But I think I've done a good thing. I'm worried about trying to get published, though. I have no idea how to navigate this world or what my first step should even be.

>>16255047
>>16255120
>friends would never put that much effort to "dabbing" on me

>>16255492
Just sounds like your diary desu

>>16270962
Just delete things if you want to delete them. The words aren't sacred. Rewriting the ideas will probably turn out better.

>>16270984
Post first 2 chapters.

>>16270962
Get it finished and do a second draft from scratch. It works.

>>16270790
damn, I didn't know that. fucking lol

>>16270607
>not insecure black man becoming stronk black woman
think about your target Margaret

Does anyone have a list of websites that let you post erotic stories with minors? I know of asstr and adultfanfiction but asstr is extremely archaic and nobody uses AFF anymore.

>>16270811
There's nothing anyone can say to this post except "That's tough, anon."

I've written a book before and I've started another one. I want to enter the first 5000 words in a competition with the deadline on the 6th. I don't know why but I'm really struggling to just sit down and write. I keep thinking about it and I've got most of the storyline figured out but the writing itself is really hard to force myself to do.

>>16270845
Kys

>>16258068
Difficult to parse and void of meaning, rewrite with each action having only one description for now

>>16271749
Try setting up a routine and lowering the bar. Maybe set an alarm for a time that you can sit down an write to remind you, and then just sit down and write for 5 minutes, no more than that. Rehearse it a couple of times: alert, sit down, 5 minutes. It's usually the initial hurdle that poses the problem, once you start it's much easier to continue.

We are in a period of great flux, and we have little idea what the future holds. We don't know how society will change over time, or if it will ever reach the idea of utopia or singularity at all. The singularity and realizing the universal truth is something that humanity wants to happen, but in reality there is no such thing. We will soon have humanity fully integrated with the digital, and yet we do not understand ourselves well enough to know what this means for us. We are not evolved enough to comprehend the technology we have created.

>>16271780
That's good advice, thank you. I will do that.

>>16254651
I'm starting a rough draft for medieval fantasy story about a paramilitary of knights (somewhat like templar knights but some have super human abilities) uncovering the mysteries of monstrous abominations that begin to show up, MC is a boy who witnessed his parents being brutally killed by a beast.

Do you guys self-publish using your real name or a pseudonym? I'm almost done with something I want to put on Kindle, but I'm not sure if I should put it in my own name or not.

I finished up writing pic related. There's some text here and there that has to be touched up.

It's a 5,100 word short story:
https://u.teknik.io/LCa2l.pdf

>>16271749
>>16271749
Set the lowest possible bar. Even lower than writing one line, set yourself a daily goal of just sitting with your writing app in front of you with no distractions for like 5 or 10 minutes. Increase the time gradually because it's more important to deeply ingrain the habit than to write a lot in one go.

Also helps to have a dedicated writing spot with whatever tool ready to go, if possible. I mentioned earlier in this thread I use a mechanical keyboard hooked up to an ipad, it's a dedicated writing tool that's always in the same place.

Some people have an aversion to working under a deadline, developing an automatic habit is the solution.

Read Atomic Habits by James Clear for habit advice in general.

>>16271885
If it is lewd I would. Employers and all kinds of people will do background checks on you over the course of your life. Your grandma will google you trying to find your social media and the first result will be I Can't Believe I Was Reincarnated as a Tentacle Loving Futa. I learned the hard way anon.

>>16271885
Consider the fact you can always reveal your real name later, but you can't undo attaching your real name to a product.

I use my pen name because my real one is kinda gay, and two variations for two different genres.

>>16255047
I've just filed a copyright on your book. I will be copyright striking your google account

Should I keep writing this poem or is it complete enough? How did it turn out?

Some Memories of bliss.

“ Colors of amber and lovely green
The soaring of many birds i have seen
Dark forests where dwell the elven kin
Golden cities which no man has been
Remember a past that never was
What the blessed of many years does
The wings of the wind rushing forward
What The servants of flame go toward
beautiful world I cannot fathom
It is beyond the kin of Adam”

>>16268791
I am. But as soon as I start writing I get horny, I coom, and then I don't feel like writing anymore.

>>16272133
Don't coom just edge. Don't nut until you hit a word threshold.

>>16269109
>avoid repeating the same name over and over again
I got over that one very quickly by reading massive chinese novels with hundreds of characters. Names are repeated every other sentence otherwise you'll get lost, and I realized that it didn't bother me very much. Anything that an author writes while actively trying to avoid doing something is probably not very good

>>16270488
Black man. Go NFL black to sound dignified, I suggest James Wademore-Arthurius III

>>16271917
>Your grandma will google you trying to find your social media and the first result will be I Can't Believe I Was Reincarnated as a Tentacle Loving Futa

I'd only laugh if it were my grandma, but I'm more concerned about applying for a serious job, for the employer then to make this same discovery and inform me this particular investment of my time is not at all related to my profession, and as he can't tell which is my personal priority, my application is rejected. That would kind of suck.

>>16272133
>>16272172
You'll build a pavlovic association between writing and a massive cocaine-hit-tier orgasm and within two months will have the War and Peace of coom literature on your hands.

After killing the head of the Post-Post-Socialists, a fringe political group, Joseph Kent finds himself in the center of a conspiracy that may or may not exist.

It's only 180ish pages long, 43k words. So my biggest concern is that it's going to be seen as a novella. But I'm on my beta reader phase, and I'm hearing good things back so far.

Opener from my short story

Hellfire, all-swallowing hellfire. Dreams of agony, vistas of writhing sodomites fused into a crawling, blistered slop forever and ever and a day. His fever dream made a seamless transition into the waking world and for that moment his body told him he really was in hell. The fear was grounded in proper sensation, like any good farce. Lights blazed from the window, red specters and amber phantoms dancing a jig that wrapped around the bends of his room like a film. The sound was relentless, crackles and moans much louder than a simple assault in the night. Something was dying. His body was wrapped in a gimps harness of moist sheets, and the constriction was dominating his thoughts after the light from outside ceased to dazzle him.

>>16272253
Trying too hard.

>>16254667
Doesn't sound like a good premise for a story desu

>>16270750
If this doesn't win awards, then I don't know what does.

not mine. i modernised this and thought it was funny.

(a lord of england and william wallace, englishman first)
"What should a Scot do with so fair a knife?"
'So said the Priest that last janglit thy wife;
That woman long has enticed him so fair,
While that his child grown up to be thine heir. '
[Then Wallace executed the cuckold]

>>16254667
Yeah but so is everything else so so what you want

>tfw a user on royalroad registers just to follow your fiction
It's a complicated feel.

>>16272628
It's probably your dad. Classic scenario.

>>16254667
So is the rest of your life LMAO

>>16272174
>reads chinkshit
>thinks he can say anything about the quality of anything

>>16270048
>my fiction is on the same level of importance as the federalist papers and safety protocols

>>16254667

>>16272713
jokes on you he's been dead for decades, nobody even knows I'm a writefag in meatspace

>>16272826
>he doesn't read cozy wuxia novels
Genuinely missing out

>>16271793
I like it. I'll peruse the military fantasy section on amazon two months from now looking for your book

>>16272253
What >>16272330 said. How about, "On the third day the fever got worse."?

>>16272253
Reminds me of Rectified Anonymity (AKA "The Pokémon Story").

>He flipped her bleeding, limp body over. His mouth met hers, lashing about inside of her toothed maw. He kissed hard and deep as he carefully fit his shitty dick into her pokevagina. The head slid in easily and she whimpered. With a deft hand he massaged her clitoris. She tried to pull back to cry out but he pushed into her harder. She screamed into his mouth. The vibrations filled him in ecstasy. He violently penetrated her and wave after wave of pleasure engulfed them both. It was beyond the realm of human understanding. Collapsing universes whirled about them, being born and dying in an eternal, idiot firestorm.

https://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/07/fan_fiction_friday_the_pokemon_story.php

>>16272253
Sorry anon, but to join in the choir - you're going too hard on the vocabulary, going too hard on the rhetorics.

>>16272360
#rekt

>>16272253
Do you want your readers to hate you or something? Keep your paragraphs concise and to the point, you don't need emphasis on every minute detail.

>>16260762
um, academics?

>>16273448
Use him like art attack used the head

Someone make a new thread since this one is about to die

>>16273661
>>16273661
>>16273661
migrate

>>16268530
First chapter is done