/lit/ - Literature

>>16301637
Sci-fi space Opera with inspirations from LotGH and Gundam

>”Are ya writin', son?"

Is it a joke or a reference, I don’t get it

What are essential reads for anyone wanting to tackle a fantasy project?

>>16302469

>>16302490
Ok, now what’s that from?

>>16302508
The original was the dad walking in on his son playing VR porn, fleshlight and all. The term became an exploitable for various hobbies.

Is it worth entering 'writing competitions'?

Most seem to have an entry fee, so it seems like a scam, but I could always drop a few quid if there are legit.

I really wanted to make some slice of life xenofiction from the point of view of semi-intelligent(more advanced than apes/dolphins, less so than prehistoric tribal humans) aliens but the more I think about it the more I find that animal based plots feel hollow since every specimen, (which in this case translates to every character) has pretty much the same overarching set of goals and behaviors.
How much can you really do when every character inevitably boils down to the desire to survive and reproduce? Its hard to craft any sense of unique identities and meaningful opposing dynamics.

>>16301637
I am many hundreds of pages into a book on philosophy. I am recreating metaphysics and have developed a certain criterion of truth to judge existence that I am in the process of applying to the various categories of being. I have read and thoroughly annotated every single Greek or Roman Comedy, Tragedy and Satyr Play, including most of the fragments and use my metaphysics to make a key for them, as it were, the hidden yet obvious significance. I am using it to judge the major works of all the major and many of the minor philosophers. I am using it to create a novel theory of gravity and matter, a new answer to the free will problem, a certain political theory, a system of ethics, a theory of magic, new proofs for reincarnation, the immortality of the soul, and an abundance of new proofs concerning both the existence and the nature of God and the nature of His relation to man. My theory stands up to the fiercest critic, the Greek Skeptic, and contains an absolute demolition of Pyrrhonism by its own intellectual standards.

Is this poem any good? Is the rhyme structure annoying ? I was getting lunch and I saw a woman yelling at her child over a rock he wanted to bring him, something about how rocks come alive at night and eat you so that’s why he can’t take a random rock off the street home, I used that for this poem basically.

The Child who bears the hexecontalithos and the sigillum de septem

“There once was a small child, Who by a stone was beguiled
The child saw its dark face, “come little one, look at my face”
Thus his soul was defiled, “I place in you Words of Wild”

then The child left that place, his mother took him and embraced
“missed you Not very little, where did you go my dear son?
I thought you become displaced, my heart could not bear such disgrace”

“I was walking with the Sun, a stone I found bright like the One
By words of wild set Free, I am no child I am Free”
He told her what had been done, she assumed it just child’s fun

He then went and sought a tree, he found and shaped wax of Bee
In a queer shape formed it, he made Sigilium De Ameth
“With this I shall truly see, for by this no more I and thee”

Thus he took the stone of death, it and by the sigil he met
The Great Lord of the spirits, he looked upon him and smiled
“Look upon me without fret, am I not the god of thy Breath?”

“You shall never be exiled, for you are truly my child”
He praised him with words of stone, for he did behold his bright throne
Thus he was reconciled, mixing holy and defiled

He returned to the black stone, he bound it to the ancient Bone
With it he conjured Fire, naught and all burned in the Fire
“lord Only remains thy throne, and into you I have now grown”

>>16301637
how do i get into writing? i love reading but ive never attempted to write anything

>>16302636
>dumb zoomer thinks writing is something you ”get into” like neon genesis evangelion or post-punk
don’t even bother

>>16302646
>dumb boomer hasnt achieved anything and wants to gatekeep an activity so no one else will

>>16302636
There's no secret method or directions to follow. You simply think of an idea, begin writing, and refine as necessary. If you love reading, try to dissect your favourite books to find just how they accomplish what they did. How do they write, how does the plot progress, how do the characters naturally get to where they need to go, etc etc. It's a process nobody can teach you or tell you how to do.

>>16302636

Writing practices would be to read a short story and try to rewrite it in your own style, also try out the styles of people you like. The key really is getting an idea and the will to pour it out, but just try to write something you find interesting even if you get the idea from someone else.

>>16302662
>>16302673
thanks for the pragmatic advice anons.

>>16302556
They're worth it if you don't mind paying $15-20 just to wait months and not hear anything from them. I recommend reading through previous winners for each competition to get a feel for what the judges generally like

TEACH ME /lit/!

I have a bunch of hazy related ideas I want to explore but I find it impossible to make choices when it comes down to setting specifics in stone because it feels like there's infinite possibilities of what I could potentially do. Any techniques to help me narrow things down so that can I find the most appropriate ingredients to best convey what I'm going for?

>inb4 just write
I'm literally unable to do anything if I don't have a clear plan overview to execute.

>>16302636
>how do I get into writing
Unless you’re illiterate this is a really fucking stupid question

>>16302749
Just do what George RR Martin does and write both options and choose the better one

>>16301637
YA masterrace. Not even sure if it's speculative or sci-fi though. Then again, it's only YA based on the widest definition.

>>16302660
What sort of gatekeeping is anon doing? The question IS silly. You get into writing by writing. Open a word processor of choice or grab a notebook and start writing. Congratulations, you just got into writing.

>>16301717
try something else

>>16302769
>both options
>implying there is only 2
AHAHAH

>>16302660
Sounds like you’re a failure who’s self-conscious and you simple imagine that trait in people you don’t like.
Some of us are just mean because we hate people with dumb questions and nothing to offer

>>16302749
Start by writing down the actual fucking ideas then.

>>16302776
look fella, you’re probably not as smart as you think. if you’re not just being vain and actually want a solution i suggest a good night’s sleep, a glass or two of fresh orange juice upon waking up followed by a morning of rigorous outlining. be brash, be harsh; if your ideas are worth anything you’ll get somewhere. don’t entertain some tired old schizo artist pose to distinguish yourself from the herd, it’s generally a bad look if you have to actively cultivate it

>>16303063
>poster does exactly what he is criticizing

>>16302769
GRRM is probably not the best person to take writing method advice from. The man has been working on The Winds of Winter for nearly a decade now

>>16303281
no....he doesn’t

>>16302772
I did start a short novel, low-fantasy Calradia-inspired ficiton, but I don't want to distract myself with two projects, so I'm only doing the sci-fi one until the end of the current arc

>>16301637
I didn't know before you asked, and I hadn't even figured a name. So, thanks, I guess.

I've been working on my book's prologue for like 2 weeks. It's really heavy on description and setting a mood and I just cannot find the right words. Fuck writing is harder than I thought it would be, but I'm really enjoying tweaking it and trying to get it just right.

I have written 4 stories that are 50-200k words and a whole bunch that are 10-20k words. I am about a quarter of the way through another one that will be at least 100k, taking it really slow to try and reduce the editing work.

I'm too scared and unable to research to approach editors. Unless there is like a pastebin list of emails I can mass send my submissions to I basically won't do it. Should I just self-publish? Maybe sell my shit on Amazon for $1 or post it on a wordpress or something? I don't really want to make money off it but it seems a waste to have it sitting there doing nothing.

>>16303499
If you've finished a story, you should just go for it.
I've been writing since I was fifteen, and have never finished a single story and I'm about to fucking neckrope.

>>16303499
self publish on amazon

>>16303603
If you're not twenty-five then don't worry too much. Having a lot of ideas that you don't follow 100% to completion is normal until you're older and more patient and disciplined. I had only finished one story by about 23-24 and it was only 60k words and pretty simple.

>>16303609
Is there any con to this? Or is it as simple as uploading it and writing a short blurb etc and people will spend $1 on it every now and again?

>>16303603
Publishing on sites like RR has helped me a lot in the way of having the willpower to continue working on and finishing a novel. Even if only a few people are reading my stuff, I feel obligated to finish the story

>>16303615
>and people will spend $1 on it every now and again?
Lol no. If you don't spend huge effort on self-promition, you maybe would get 5 people who accidently clicked on buy in 5 years.

>>16303615
>Is there any con to this? Or is it as simple as uploading it and writing a short blurb etc and people will spend $1 on it every now and again?
I looked into it a while ago, and I didn't find any. I even heard that you can still get picked up by publishers later, so, amazon doesn't own the rights to your book or anything.

Anyway, yeah, no cons, except that it's amazon.

>>16303632
>RR
? I don't know what that is

>>16303658
Royalroad. It's a website where people publish novels in a serialized format.

>>16303646
Maybe I should make it free then? The $1 is really just so I can "say" that I've sold a book which isn't very important, but it feels a lot better than just giving it away for free.

>>16303650
Awesome. Is it better than using something like Royralroad?

>>16303677
Even if it's free, you're competing with so many fucking works for the readers time, why would they pick yours? How would they even find it in a flood of self-published shit?

>>16303677
>Is it better than using something like Royralroad?
sorry, no idea.

>>16303741
Well do you have an alternative? Even that is better than having them sitting on my HDD with 0 chance of ever being read.

>>16303751
He figures if he gets a publishing deal with a reputable publisher it will be a free pass to absolve himself of the cringe feeling he gets when he thinks of family, friends and girls he went to highschool with reading the thoughts he’s put down.
So for him, letting it sit unread on an HDD is literally better than self-publishing and exposing yourself to behind-your-back snickering without the protective veil of a business partnership depersonalizing the whole thing and giving validation.

>>16301637
fantasy novel. all extinct animals exist alongside current animals. Biology based magic that everyone has (looks like pic related). four stories in it so far. I hate beginnings so I sort of just skipped past them
>student who specializes in celestial navigation gets drafted onto a military research vessel alongside his friend, who may or may not be a reborn warlord
>city guard(baltimore pd) has to work with a guy from the inquisition (FBI) to track down a cannibal in a city where the main religion involves beating others senseless
>slave is freed and goes to the top of the world to get swole with Zyzz, Scooby, and Rich Piana
>chosen one becomes a Toa of Mata Nui and uses his gift to serve the people and conquer nations
about 60 pages in
>>16301717
sounds cool
>>16302607
this is something I would read in a heartbeat. If you're doing semi intelligent then you're right, it would be hard to craft personalities and goals. It'd be like writing everyone as a mental midget. Maybe you could write it like a documentary, from a third person point of view like a planet earth episode
>>16302616
any romance or sex bro? you dont want to come off as a sneedster incel
>>16302626
I like it
>>16303499
what's it about?

>>16303833
>all extinct animals exist alongside current animals
that would be super cool if you played it straight.

>>16303833
>what's it about?
Fantasy story about a maritime raider who is enslaved and becomes a noble's household slave and falls in love with a noblewoman. It's the first time I've ever written a story in a genre I've written a story in before (my others were psychological crime thriller, sci fi, historical fiction, and then fantasy).

>>16303883
Not gonna lie, that sounds kinda like a premise for a historical erotica

>>16303896
He is exiled from the kingdom after it is discovered but I didn't want to go into the developments after that. It's actually my most child-friendly story, I've tried to cut out the unnecessary edge.

>>16303751
Try traditional publishing first. It's not that hard to find a damn agent and writing a query. Them actually reading it, is another question but it's probably better to give it a serious try before picking self-publishing. That's an option that is always there.

And if you do self-publish, spent a good while thinking about your online presence and shilling concept for it.

>>16303828
That's some 8k HDR projection, my dude. Though the part about publishers giving it validation ... can't disagree with that, man.

>>16303920
I'm not American and I don't know how to approach American agents. Do I just google 'literary agents' and spam them all with emails until I get responses? I know they have guidelines and shit but most of them seem geared towards generic fiction, like romance and drama shit.

>>16303974
Well, if your work is in English...

>Do I just google 'literary agents' and spam them all with emails until I get responses?
Basically, yes. Just read up about how to write a query.

https://agentquery.com/
Or
https://www.manuscriptwishlist.com/find-agentseditors/how-to-search/

>I know they have guidelines and shit but most of them seem geared towards generic fiction, like romance and drama shit
If you have a story that lots of people would reasonably want to read, there will be some agent who represents something like it. You don't need to care about most agents, just find the right ones.

>>16304049
Thanks for the links anon. I will try to summon up the courage and energy to try some agents before self-publishing. At the very least there'll be some feedback I suppose.

>>16303287
> GRRM has been working on anything related to books
AHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA

>>16304267
Someone post that image of him rolling around in a giant inflatable ball

>>16302749
There is a dichotomy between writing planned and unplanned. Unplanned is more fun because you can just let the creative energy flow and write whatever you think is cool at the time. Planned is necessary for longer or more complex stories because otherwise your story will be an incoherent mess. I usually find the best medium is to do a loose framework for the most core features of the characters and story and setting and then write as freely as I can while not disobeying those.

Fuck, I've got writer's block

>>16304252
>At the very least there'll be some feedback I suppose.
Ehhh. I wouldn't count on that. They get hundreds of queries a month, so unless they ask you for a full manuscript (which is a great sign), the most likely feedback is "This isn't for us at this time" and similar copy/paste stuff. And that's even if you write cookie cutter stuff.

Traditional publishing might be a more realistic way to actually someone reading and even paying for your work but shit is still a huge gamble. Not saying it to discourage you, just to help adjusting the expectations.

Also one can't really empathize enough that you should take all the time you need for the query. It's usually what makes or breaks the whole thing. If the query sucks, they most likely will even skip sample pages.

Good luck, mate.

I've got an idea for a series of novels: what if all the characters in classic literature .............. were black? And not only black, but specifically African American.

I'm going to write Dracula, but everyone is black. My novel will be called Count Blackula.

Dracula (Blackula) is black
John (Jamarcus) Harker is black
Mina (Moesha) is black
Van Helsing (Voshawn Hakeem) is black

>>16304331
>>>/reddit/

>>16301637
I like to write pulp horror

>>16304331
I mean, it'd be an improvement to having all the whitoids in media but still such a waste. Old stories are already told. So much more new ones are waiting to be written.

>>16304438
How many black people do you think have read the original Dracula, compared to wh*tes?

>>16304494
Not too many I bet but they could just do it now. I get that lack of representation sucks but a part of literature is about going into different times and into heads of different people.

Besides, it's likely there are other shitty messages of old times in there … one could always fix it but one could also use the time to write original stuff for the modern audience.

>>16304513
Why not keep the shitty old messages? It'd be silly if everyone in the 19th century were woke. Part of the fun of reading old literature is seeing what life was like back then

How would you write a story about a serial killer? making them seem likeable or sympathetic seems cheesy. But will people follow a story about a character they hate?

>>16304513
>I bet but they could just do it now.
They could, but they won't. They wouldn't voluntarily read a book, unless there's a black character in it

>>16304552
Then the whole "same shit but black" feels even more pointless and is less likely to connect with anyone.
>>16304560
Harry Potter was/is popular among people of all skin colors. Generally, a lot of modern works that are still full of whitoids tend to attract a diverse audience.

A story being less relateable to current times and the language used (to say nothing of different writing style) likely hurts the popularity of old stories much more than the colors of the characters. White audience is obviously more likely to read it since stuff gets pushed as "muh classics" while darkies learned to expect that "muh classics" means "white male adventures" but it's not like most whites read the shit either.

>>16304587
>"same shit but black" feels even more pointless and is less likely to connect with anyone.
I'll wait for the release of black James Bond and black Little Mermaid before agreeing or disagreeing with you. Normies might really like "same thing but black"

>>16304634
But Disney stuff and Bond are examples when "it's the same shit again and again" is what draws the audience in. They manage to do it with live action remakes too.

Recreating the same without their reputation and marketing budgets sounds tricky to say the least.

>>16304652
Semi-successful ersatz products isn't something that only Disney can achieve. I even have a Transmorphers and a Roseart coloring pencils

>>16304668
Can't argue with that.

Guy writing a stop motion epic for his toys here.

Just to check, would it be too edgy to use the term fuhrer for a faction leader? Even if it's the title of the leader of the monster nation? Even if it's a toku reference?
What if the term has a neutral connotation in lore and will be inherited by characters of varying moral quality throughout the story?

>>16304824
faction leader is fine
fuhrer is probably a little dicey. lore and shit doesn't matter. that's what you learn later; what's important is the first impression. Imagine some dumbshit who has never heard of any of this reading the synopsis on the back. You have to imagine how they'll react to things.

>>16301637
I wrote a lot of short stories lately (really short, I think each one is bellow 10k words) that pretty much only I would care about. I love writing for myself, but I still feel like an amateur. I need to learn more about the craft and maybe even gather up the courage to get feedback.

>>16304824
I mean, it technically just means "leader" in German and words like Reiseführer (travel guide) or "Führung" (leadership or excursion) are perfectly normal.

You should be aware that it doesn't instantly lead to people thinking about toku, so if you're fine with them thinking of Adolf when you mention the character, why not. Doesn't necessary sound edgy given the info.

>>16304863
Yeah. It's the retards I'm concerned about.
I could give the title at first to someone that's obviously evil, say Blackheart, and I suspect I still could get in trouble for what I think it's just a neat callback.

>>16304870
I thought it would be fun to have the monsters have a somewhat bizarre society so evoking evil just by mentioning their leader could be part of that, think Nightmare Before Christmas, so I guess I'm fine if the first impression brings forth that sort of idea.
Maybe I'm putting the cart before the horse as I'm yet to pick a figure in specific, but the plan is for the first fuhrer to be featured to be a shady but generally inoffensive leader. Basically, the monsters have been beaten with such frequency in the past that the best they can do is hide away and bluff in every appearance they make before other factions.
The second one would be a genocidal maniac that lives to kill, and the last one would be a more noble figure to show that it's possible for them to be good but have been always put on a difficult situation.

>>16304824
This post already indicates you'll be writing glorified fanfiction, so might as well do whatever you feel like doing.

Idea: Snow White .......... but black

Title: Black Ice

Ugly Duckling, but he grows up to be a black swan

How do any of you edit your poems?

>>16305315
>read it aloud after a week
>rewrite
>is its content finished? does it have an end, a message, or a punch line?
>rewrite
>could it sound better than it does?
>rewrite
>is it good enough for all intents and purposes?
>rewrite
>do I love it or will I burn it?
done

Total autism warning.

I decided to do a sort of personal NaNoWriMo for a somewhat advanced novel in progress (got like 60k words already) ... but feels like I'm missing something obvious when it comes to counting the words. Just noting the wordcount difference would be obvious, but I might end up deleting some passages already written and bean counting is bound to slow things down ... but I also really want to get an accurate number. Doing it in another document sounds suboptimal too.

What do I do?

>>16305368
50 k is already a short novel. 80 k is average sized. focus on story arc and chapter size now. is every essential part of the plot finished?

>>16305368
What do you mean, like your words per day progress or what?

>>16305406
It's a sequel, so it's going to be on the longer side at about 130-135k
>focus on story arc and chapter size now
I got the length/content of about 75% of the chapters sorted. Basically I know what I have to write and roughly how many words writing that will take.
>is every essential part of the plot finished?
Essentials, yeah. But a couple key scenes are only in outline stage. The sideplots of other POV characters is ... more work in question and some sort of multiple choice mess when I have some ideas but it's like remembering a movie you watched five years ago.

One can say that I almost finished the novel, and only have to write it. So going at it with the "just write your 2k words a day, bro" approach sounded really fun to try out. Just wish I could also get a somewhat accurate amount to compare my progress with NaNoWriMo guys for the fuck of it.

>>16305430
Yeah, but somehow without including the older stuff I'll likely cut at parts or will rewrite in a more efficient way.

>>16302607
>How much can you really do when every character inevitably boils down to the desire to survive and reproduce? Its hard to craft any sense of unique identities and meaningful opposing dynamics.
Maybe make one of the characters a mother willing to die for the sake of her spawn? Just a quick idea, nothing much else.