/lit/ - Literature

>>19261951
Days since anything halfway decent was posted:
13

>>19188360 (Cross-thread)

>>19261951
Where do you start writing?

I want to start writing the opening after I figure out my story, in order to make the opening as explosive and as interesting as possible. Sort of like the first episode of goblin slayer

But I do not know where to start

>>19262268
Start by plotting and use that to find a good starting point.

>>19262268
you start right before the incident that sets things off.

>>19262268
I used to sext random girls (probably bunch of dudes) a lot when I was younger in bunch of internet chatrooms. And I think I have a knack for it. So here I am writing my book and hope someone will spend $2 on amazon or $7 for a paperback. Then give a review and tell me to forgo this fantasy and move on with my life

this anon >>19260732 here
would you say this makes me fucked writing wise? can I even make it anymore?

>>19262330
Stop fishing for pity. If you can't write a story you didn't care enough about it in the first place

>>19262268
Read some of the links in the OP. I'm reading Story Genius. It's useful if you're not familiar with synthesizing stories.
You don't have to write the intro first, there are no hard rules. I like intro "in medias res" and close to an inciting incident. I imagine there are past events that formed the yearnings of the character in that intro. The inciting incident, an external struggle, begins to force him to face the internal struggle of misbeliefs clashing with his yearning.

>>19262339
>fishing for pity
>here
do you know where the fuck we are anon? if I wanted shallow encouragement I'd go anywhere but here

>>19262352
Then why make the post?

>>19262356
because I'm genuinely asking if a 20 something who is just now starting to read can even make it

>>19262268
I think mine starts off as a in media res, or at least the immediate aftermath of it

>>19262376
If JK Rowling a penniless 40 year old made you can too. And that old lady that wrote the crawdads made it. Stop fishing for reassurance and pity.

>>19262376
No you fuck face, if you have to ask, you can't make it.

>>19262376
Lots of great authors started late. Cormac McCarthy only started reading seriously around your age and had his first book published in his early 30s. Just put in the work every day and trust that you’ll have something down the line.

>>19262330
Everyone has a story to tell and a unique voice. Learn from writers, editors and critics about what the writing process looks like for a while. Check the books in the OP first. You don't need to be well-read when you start out. Listen to writer podcasts (I recommend Writing Excuses). Do daily writing prompts. Read a little every day: a short story, a poem, maybe even an essay. Once you've cut your teeth for a while, you'll have the wherewithal to take one idea and spawn worlds, monsters, and vivid characters.

Don't worry about it anon, it's not a race. Creative writing was only childhood doodling to me, but I realized it's not out of reach. One of my teachers jumped from one academic profession to business, and he told me that you always take your experiences with you. You starting anew is not forsaking what you've learned, you're building upon a rich foundation of experiences already.

>>19262224
Are you trying to get feedback for your story or what?
It was OK. It could stand a pass through a computerized grammar checker, like the one in Microsoft Word.

>>19262268
Start writing wherever you feel like.
Don't put constraints on your muse; just let it flow.

>>19261951
What are your favourite character types?

>>19262491
The same guy was shilling this story in the last thread trying to pretend he was some superfan of the excerpt and not the one who wrote it.
Just ignore it like everyone did. It's shit.

>>19262513
is it cringe for me to like corruption arcs where a decent guy turns into a psychopath

>>19262491
What's the point of PRO editor on Word ? Is it basically just the Hemingway App? I used Hemingway to highlight what I'm doing, but I sparingly use its suggestions.

>>19262513
Guys who are pathetic but not too pathetic standing up for themselves and learning courage.

>>19262513

Whatever character it is I'm writing a parody of at the moment.

>>19262513
My personal favourites are teh penguin of DOOOM type characters. They're fun

>>19262570
She deserves all the screentime

Which is why she's one of the main characters in my latest project

Is there a worse feeling than knowing what you're writing is trash?

>>19262513
I like moral irony in characters. There are some ironies that exist simply to confound us. Some things are our fault but sometimes hypocrisy is unavoidable. Take a character like Saul, who had the faith to walk through an army of Philistines alone and survived, and also prophesied. He died consulting a witch and killed himself in a war. Then you have Solomon who has a reputation for being wise, moral, and heaven-bound. He died a devil-worshiper and his legacy led to division of his country. The former many regard as absolutely going to hell, the latter absolutely going to heaven. Why?
I like characters with tragic flaws that appear contrary to their nature, and put them into positions out of their element as if someone is out to get them. It's not to refute them morally, but rather to question our seeking to justify everything that we do or happens to us.

>>19262575
>>19262570
Based.

>>19262605
I wouldn't know.

>>19262605
Don't worry i'm sure your writing is better than mine. This is what I just wrote. If your writing is better, feel better.

>mily finished putting sun screen on Caleb while the others switched places. Matthew took Caleb’s spot and allowed Emily to rub sunscreen all over his body. Caleb looked out to the sea pondering the last time he came to the beach. He dug is feet into the warm sand and turned around to the noise behind him. Corey and Sharlene were bickering again. The two created noise but no words formulated from their mouths. He looked over at Kate and smiled. Kate was taking pictures with Lilian on her phone. The two laughed and posed in different positions. Kate beckoned Sharlene and Emily to join in the photo shoot. Three of the four girls stuck out their tongues and changed their facial positions as they posed for Kate’s camera. Emily smiled in all the pictures.
“Caleb, Corey, Matthew; come over,” Kate said, “we’re going to take a group picture”.
The three boys joined in. Caleb stood behind Kate, Matthew behind Emily and Corey between Sharlene and Lilian. The group took a few pictures as the sun illuminated all their faces at the beach. The photo shoot finished. Sharlene took Corey and Lilian’s hands and walked toward the ocean. The three splashed in the water enjoying themselves as the waves brushed between their feet. Emily returned to her towel with Matthew behind her.
“So Caleb, how have you been?” Kate asked.
“I’ve been doing well. How about yourself?” Caleb asked.
“Oh no big news. I just finished my midterms and now it’s time to relax,” Kate answered, “so I’ve been a bit busy. That’s why I didn’t text you the last two weeks. Do you forgive me?”
“It’s okay, I’ve been busy with work too. I figured you were busy since you never texted me back. What classes are you taking?”
“Just some electives and requirements. I don’t want to talk about school. Let’s go join the others,” Kate said as she got up and pulled Caleb to join the other three in the ocean.
Caleb turned around to look at Emily and saw her preoccupied putting on sun screen on Matthew. He turned back around and followed Kate toward Lillian, Corey, and Sharlene.

Instead of writing stuff like "Caleb looked out to the sea," write "Caleb turned. The sea was golden.." etc.

>>19262768
Yea I need more show instead of tell in my writing.

>>19262224

>>19255325
was in the last thread and is better.

If you're trying to shill your story, this is a dumb way to do it.

It would be fine for an introductory creative writing course, but there's no real character in the prose. Read more, write more.

>>19262605
it means you're beginning to have the sense necessary to improve, bröther

>>19262678
do you actually know someone named sharlene

>>19262807
Nope. Why? I know a Sheryl though.

Is there a worse thing than a mosquito biting you all over your body as you write your story?

>>19262836
Feeling a spider inside your pants but not being able to place exactly where it is

Does anyone know a good book that is literally a bunch of short stories with the same character that loosely ties together forming a longer narrative?
>inb4 Comic books

>research a lot for a new story
>start to panic and feel like I have to make it a series in order to justify all that time spent researching

anyone else experience this feel?

>>19261951
What if... what if I rewrote my whole novel to be in 3rd person instead of 1st?

>>19262976
it wouldn't make any sense because you strayed from your vision.

>>19262979
It'd take forever, too.

Remember /wg/, this lady is able to write for a multi million dollar video game and finished her stories. You can do it too.

>>19262523
Really? So Hemingway didn't point out your uncapitalized use of "English", nor when you used "affect" when you meant "effect"?
There were other examples, but I remember those two for sure.
Fix your grammar.

Just made it to 38.6k words in a novel I started this month.

I'm so fucking tired bros

>>19263034
Same but it took me 3 months. My story is nearing the end though. I think I have about 10k more words or so.

>>19263071
My goal is to wrap it up at 60k on halloween so I can start a Nano project on time

First time writing anything seriously.

Just the first chapter, a sort-of pilot for what might be something I write. Bashing welcome.

https://pdfhost.io/v/81A6QQYn5_emergence

>>19262932
First two Witcher books.

>>19262678
>post snippets of my story on /lit/
>always wonder if anyone is actually interested
>nobody is telling me my story is complete utter shit
>Nobody is saying my prose is crap
>The only logical conclusion is people don't give a shit
I failed as a writer. I completely failed to connect and interest any readers.

>>19263207
Narrorator sounds dead. It's just a string of events.
>you've failed as a writer

>>19263215
thanks.

>>19263207
go to critique circle or scribophile, nobody here owes you attention

>>19263237
Thanks, I'll check them out. I enjoy posting on /lit/ because you guys are completely brutal. It's the reason i stopped posting it on places like fanfiction or reddit. The people that use those sites are just too nice. They offer useless advice to make my writing better. So you guys keep doing what you do.

>>19263249
I wish I had nice people that give me useless advice...

>>19262678
It's only right to share the part I'm worried about.
Describing architecture is a weakness of mine, do you guys feel this description of a huge royal foyer is too empty?
>In the center was a staircase draped in a beautiful red carpet, leading from the first to the third floor of the manor, stopping in a circular platform for each layer. One would usually find themself returning to this area in a visit here, it held various doorways to almost every area in the building. Hanging from the ceiling was an enormous brazier made in black cast-iron, dangling ever so slightly from its chains. While it was generally too much of a hassle to keep it alight in flame, it still reminded Damian of the Erivan Cathedral’s zealotry. It served as an immediate reminder of the Dragon Goddess, Eriva. Or, so it should. Damian himself always thought of it as a hunk of steel. Along the left and rightmost walls were three tall windows, evoking a still and peaceful feeling as the night’s air fell through them.

>>19263422
Imagine naming your protagonist Damian.

>>19263207
aight i'll take it apart

i'll say before i go into it that you spend a lot of words naming characters and describing their actions. it's not bad, exactly, but it's the sort of style i think of as written for young people. if you want to carve into YA, then sure, whatever.

>Emily finished putting sun screen on Caleb while the others switched places. Matthew took Caleb’s spot and allowed Emily to rub sunscreen all over his body.

Is there something relevant to Emily applying sunscreen to Caleb? Are they dating? If there is, then write more, if not, then describe the group as a whole.

>Caleb looked out to the sea pondering the last time he came to the beach. He dug is feet into the warm sand

"pondering" no, not tonally right. "thinking" is fine.

>. . . and turned around to the noise behind him. Corey and Sharlene were bickering again.

Could be rewritten. Arguing > bickering in this context.

>The two created noise but no words formulated from their mouths.

What are you trying to convey with this? Are they actually just grunting at each other? Is he listening but not processing? "Formulated" is bad


>He looked over at Kate and smiled.

looked at

>Kate was taking pictures with Lilian on her phone. The two laughed and posed in different positions.

omit "in different positions"

>Kate beckoned Sharlene and Emily to join in the photo shoot.

"beckoned" doesn't work here

Emily was just arguing. Did they stop? Did Kate interrupt them?

>Three of the four girls stuck out their tongues and changed their facial positions as they posed for Kate’s camera. Emily smiled in all the pictures.

"Their expressions changed quickly, from sticking their tongues, to grins, to kissing at the camera. Emily only smiled"

>“Caleb, Corey, Matthew; come over,” Kate said, “we’re going to take a group picture”.

"Guys, get over here, group picture"

>The three boys joined in. Caleb stood behind Kate, Matthew behind Emily and Corey between Sharlene and Lilian. The group took a few pictures as the sun illuminated all their faces at the beach. The photo shoot finished.

"The boys joined/obeyed"
Unless where they stand matters later, you can omit all of that.
"Pictures were done for now" cuz they're chicks at the beach they're not gonna stop

>Sharlene took Corey and Lilian’s hands and walked toward the ocean. The three splashed in the water enjoying themselves as the waves brushed between their feet. Emily returned to her towel with Matthew behind her.

I still feel like you're overly describing individual action. Is there a specific character you're focusing on?

>“So Caleb, how have you been?” Kate asked.

Too formal. "How have you been?" Kate asked Caleb

>“I’ve been doing well. How about yourself?” Caleb asked.

Still too formal. How good of friends are they? How in-depth are their answers going to be? "I've. . . yourself" ie "good, you?" is so casual. Is that how they would speak with each other?

>>19262678
>>19263207
>>19263573

>“It’s okay, I’ve been busy with work too. I figured you were busy since you never texted me back. What classes are you taking?”

Omit "with work"

>“Just some electives and requirements. I don’t want to talk about school. Let’s go join the others,” Kate said as she got up and pulled Caleb to join the other three in the ocean."

"electives and requirements" is too precise
"join the others in the ocean"

>Caleb turned around to look at Emily and saw her preoccupied putting on sun screen on Matthew.

omit "around"

They just did this? Yeah you're supposed to keep putting sunscreen on, but is that common where you're at?

>He turned back around and followed Kate toward Lillian, Corey, and Sharlene.

omit "around" and everything after "followed Kate"

>>19262678
The most offensive part about it is the
>person did this
>then person did this
>then person did this
>then person did this
>then person did this
It feels like there is no emotion or attachment to each action, just "it's done, NEXT!".

>>19261951
I have so many stories I have to get out! I am so tired of the wicked world with its injustices against women and people of colour, and I just have to raise my voice for the oppressed masses, for the minorities, for the downtrodden toilers! I have a book in mind, exploring precarity and glocality in our variegated world of exploitation infrastructure, productive modes, locutions of power/knowledge.

>>19263645
> variegated
you are using this word wrong

>>19263645
Write a story about this kind of writer protagonist confronting the fact that all his ideas are mainstream and boring.

>>19262330
I once went to this networking course where they taught entrepreneurs how to make connections.

One exercise had us sit with a random person and talk for 2 minutes about ourselves. At one point, I got paired with this hulking chad and told him about my hobbies, how I enjoyed writing.

When he heard that, the chad replied with unexpected eloquence, "Isn't writing just an old men's hobby?" He told me, you should go out there while you're still young and able, live, see the world, meet people, and have fun. You can then write about all that when you're too old to do it anymore.

That guy dabbed on the whole of /wg/ in 20 seconds

>>19263695
oh I wish anon.
Too bad I'm a mentally fucked loser with no desire to make connections.
I do like seeing the world though, nature I mean. For people you can get a good summary while indoors, but nature and beauty, that's something I agree you have to go outside to see.
I have many roadtrips alone ahead of me.

>>19263695
but yeah the chad IS right. I'm just not in the position to be the best kind of person and live my life like that, too many stupid people around, too many things I don't like out there.
once I got my circle of close friends I decided to shut that door and fuck off

>>19263695
Any author who writes from experience is probably telling shit stories.

>>19263695
nah

i have an idea for something set in parts in mexico, but i'll need to travel there before i write it, and i'm not going wandering in mexico until i'm okay with dying in mexico, and that won't be for another 30 years. and, while i'm happy with my writing, i don't think it's strong enough right now to justify the idea. maybe if i went now i'd become good enough because of the journey, but i think the chance of that is lower than the chance of me dying.

sure, many of the greats saw the world and did hard shit before they wrote their masterpieces. but plenty of great works have been written by young guys doing fuck all who just had an idea and the skill to translate it into beautiful prose.

>>19263119
It’s kind of an interesting scenario but it feels more like an outline than an actual story.
If someone loses their vision, wouldn’t they at first hope that it returns soon? How does she so quickly know that it’s gone forever? It feels detached and rushed. Try to immerse yourself in that situation. What would your thoughts be? How would you feel?
Like i said, it’s more of an outline than a story atm.

>>19263670
>variegated
>marked by variety.

>>19263695
There are a lot of authors who develop a fear of old age way before their time (Patrick White comes to mind as an example), so the Chad may be on to something here.

>writing a story for the last ~6 months
>have what can be considered a happy ending where the "will they won't they" get together
>feel pretty good about ending it like that despite potential clichés
>develop feelings for someone out of nowhere but it's completely hopeless
>suddenly get the urge to rewrite the ending into something more tragic where they don't get together
>actually find a neat thread of character development and parallels to an early point in it

Do you let personal experience change the course of your writing? I know Dan Harmon got a lot of shit for letting his divorce influence his writing on Rick and Morty S3

>>19264001
Is it something you've shown/plan to show other people? Then don't fuck it up on a whim.
Is it just your private scribble? Then do whatever the fuck you want

>>19264001
It can't hurt to try the idea out

I'm looking for some very specific things to reference in a novel I'm writing and I'm struggling to find sources online to help educate me and flesh out my world in a realistic way.
First question: What do you guys do when you're finding it difficult to find factual, historical reference material?
Second question: This is my current specific problem. I want to know how much money an average person could make off of winning a horse racing bet in 1860s England. I don't suppose any history buff here could ballpark me an amount?

>>19264001
I'm in a similar boat as you (writing a story since late January/indecisive about endings). I think personal experiences are kept best when they don't involve either side of a romantic relationship. If you're bitter that you can't be with this person you're crushing on and vent it into your writing, your readers will pick up on it and be soured, just as Rick and Morty viewers were.
Or you can do whatever you want like >>19264036 said.

>>19264186
>First question: What do you guys do when you're finding it difficult to find factual, historical reference material?
I don't write anything so autistically detailed that I'd need reference material so obscure no one even bothered to put online.

>I want to know how much money an average person could make off of winning a horse racing bet in 1860s England. I don't suppose any history buff here could ballpark me an amount?
Jesus fuck dude, did you even try?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_racing_in_Great_Britain

>9500 words done in around half a week and now all I need to do is polish until I can send to a magazine
Feels good, man.

>>19264202
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_racing_in_Great_Britain
Yes, and this doesn't tell me what I need to know. It's not specific enough.

>>19264186
>>19264289
Takes ten seconds on any British newspaper database, bruh. Trawl through it.
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results/1860-01-01/1860-12-31?basicsearch=%2bhorse%20%2brace%20%2bwinning&exactsearch=false&retrievecountrycounts=false&sortorder=score

>>19264302
thanks, will look into this

>>19264302
Written by a retard who has probably read a handful of books in there at most

>>19262807
Not him but I know a Charlene and an Arlene.

>>19264338
>in there
In where?

>>19264186
>>19264289
Do you honestly think anyone cares enough to scour through 200-year-old records just to point out the random sums mentioned in your story are not historically accurate?

Honestly, you rank right up there with the guy who studied Latin texts on demographic structures for his vampire ninja story, the army autobiography guy, and the animefag OP as the most insane people in these threads. /wg/ is a full-blown online Arkham asylum by this point. What is it about writing as a hobby that lures in schizos like flies to honey?

>>19264452
pleb

>>19264452
Finnish army guy isn't insane, he's just Finnish.

I can't escape writing "purple" prose or just like overly descriptive and hollow words. Man, it's kinda tough to write well, huh?

>>19264686
>I can't escape writing "purple" prose or just like overly descriptive and hollow words.
Cut it out when you edit and rework it.
>Writing's hard
Only an honest, smart person can say this. Only addlepated simpletons think it's easy because they (1) don't read; (2) don't write well; (3) have no self-awareness. Just keep going, anon. You'll work it ou if you're already this self-aware.

I just cut a whole chapter. I'm a fucking slasher over here. Did I just take a step forward, or back?

Real question. How many posters are gardeners or achitects? Have you tried out the opposite style of your preference to see if you could gain any insight from it?

>>19264762
When I was a kid I wrote with no planning and usually gave up pretty quickly on whatever I was doing when I ran out of steam. As an adult I see why outlines are necessary and wouldn't even try to do anything without one.

>>19264452
Don't be retarded about the realities of obsessive fans. They will, go fix it.

>>19264686
Maybe you should focus on poetry then? A trick is to leave the prose in, highlight it, and cut it post finished writing. That way you can space out descriptions that must be kept without overwhelming the reader and dump the 'fluff' since you can always look at it as a whole verses stopping yourself at every paragraph.

>>19264753
Does it break your story in a major plot way?
>yes
then you took a step back
>no
you took a step forward

>>19263573
Thanks. I rewrote it last night, but I'll take your suggestions and change things around. I took out a lot of the characters doing this then this then this as suggested by different anons. Appreciate it

>>19264782
>Does it break your story in a major plot way?
Nah, I just had to take like three lines and put them somewhere else and the same exact thing was accomplished. The chapter was pointless.
It was also the first one I wrote, so maybe that's a good thing.

Time to write a magical chick fight between a Greco-Jap and a dragonlady.

I want my characters to be able to jot stuff down in journals on the fly in my fantasy story and I don’t want to bother with them using fucking ink and quills.
Would just having them use pencils or pens bother people?

>>19264794
Mate, if you want a fucking pen or pencil in a -fantasy- setting, go right-a-fucking-head.

>>19264794
i don't think they had pencils in the medieval times. that's pretty recent technology probably.

>>19264794
There's no reason a fantasy world couldn't have invented proper writing utensils.

>>19264794
Charcoal and left over campfire sticks can be used. If it's for a day/quantity count purely you can replace the journal with a marking stick/bone on a cord. If it's just writing but a longer entry if might be really dumb to have a character fucking with a book during interaction and events. Non bullet journals are end of day sorta thing and implies some form of catching wind/break.

>>19264762
I do both and don't restrict myself to just one

I'm writing a story about a person taking a shit. What's a great metaphor? Monsters and dragons seem too overdone.

>>19264931
anchor, bomb, hurricane, baked beans

>>19264931
The mole is an animal that digs through the earth, questing for the sun.

>>19262678
terrible
>>19263119
horrendous
>>19263573
retard
>>19263695
unrelentingly based

>>19262268
think of a scene where a thing happens to a person and write it. then read it and see what suggests itself next. don't overcomplicate this shit or you'll fall into a procrastination hole like half of this thread where you're drowning in "notes", "outlines", "character bios" and all that horseshit but no real writing

>>19262523
And, ultimately, your story is the sort of thing that gets posted to reddit.com/r/libraryofshadows/ all the time.

>>19263695
that just sounds like a typical normie lack of perspective where he just can't imagine anyone having a different temperament or personality. i could be out there "meeting people" and "seeing the world" and every minute of it i would be wishing i was alone in a room again. i already know this about myself from experience, so why would i be torturing myself with this shit just to meet somebody else's idea of "fun"?

>>19262932
Mrs. Bridge

>>19263207
Take it to WattPad

>>19265184
What interesting can you tell anyone, if you only see the walls of your lonely room? Your readers have already lived out your fantasies and can tell exactly where they diverge from real life, exposing your inexperience, and all you do is embarrass yourself.

>>19264931
childbirth

>>19265223
What do you get out of behavior like this?

>>19265184
>i know this about myself
>torturing myself
you have no self composed of actions or experience, only emotions and that all you'll ever be able to write about. any attempt to write about experiences you haven't tried will be akin to medieval art of african animals never seen by the artist.

>>19265289
>Stop writing! Woobwoobwoob

>>19265223
you have a matchbox-sized idea of what fiction is.

i want to give up writing my first novel (im 10k in)

>>19264452
>animefag OP
At least he wrote.

>>19265334
Literally all of the people he called schizos wrote. Coincidence?

>>19265301
You're the one living in a matchbox world

>>19265223
>>19265289
a typical attempt at (self-?) sabotage by inducing pointless anxiety. writing has nothing to do with whether you travel a lot or go to parties, that's idiotic. if you can dream you can write.

if anything the opposite is true: deprivation breeds sensitivity. a full participation in modern social life with its flood of constant overstimulating imagery is creative suicide.

>>19265382
and here, on a literature board, in the writing thread, we have a man who absolutely refuses to understand introversion

>>19265425
It's not like we write anyways, so why does it matter?

How do you guys come up with names for your characters?

>>19265432
I filch them from other places. For example I took three last names from people who host a show on the radio. Doing this will make people who listen to that show think I'm making a reference of some kind, but in truth I'm just being lazy and unimaginative.

>>19265429
Some of us write.
https://reddit.com/user/ulatekh/comments/pluf8q/hello/

>>19265223
Apparently you've never seen the young-adult romance fiction on WattPad...or the best-seller list.

>>19265404
>a typical attempt at (self-?) sabotage by inducing pointless anxiety

>you can't know life if you don't live
>S-SHUT UP!! I'M HAVING A PANIC ATTACK
This never stops being funny

I posted chapter 13 of my story. Also here’s a sketch I did of Tad and Keg.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/41979/a-hero-among-monsters/chapter/770325/chapter-thirteen-precision-tools-made-by-goblins

>>19265300
'you can only write about emotions'
>stop telling them they can't write anon!
Oh, thank god we'll get yet another Steven King clone that hyper focuses on childhood imaginations and writers. Sure don't have enough of those.

>>19265404
>if you can dream it you can write it
Yeah tell that to all the virgins writing terrible sex scenes in romance novels. They're on pare with people that've never been in an environment without running water writing about every stopover in their fantasy novel providing full functioning bathroom set ups for the characters.

Some of y'all fuckers really convinced yourself you have passable reading comprehension. Mental escapism is not a substitution of real life. Criticism on the internet may do damage to your feels but it's there regardless. What you do with it decides if it's useful or not.

>>19263695
In fairness, he may be on to something.
I considered myself a writer in my younger days, but struggled to complete a novel in my late 20s, and didn't finish.
I had also written maybe a dozen short stories between the beginning of college and then.
A quarter century later, I've cranked out several dozen short stories since I started writing again (about 6 months ago), and completed a novel.
Maybe I needed those extra 25 years to develop some depth to my thinking.

>>19265511
>Yeah tell that to all the virgins writing terrible sex scenes in romance novels.
S-show me.

>>19265511
>can't even spell Stephen King's name
I think this is the part where you need to calm down and go back to writing. Stop telling other people they can't write. Go work on your own thing. How much have you done today? You filled your quota if you're here, right? Maybe try for a little more.

>>19265516
not until you learn to hold hands anon...

but srsly you don't even need to pay to read virgins writing terrible sex scenes. >>19265446
anon here makes a good point. oh, there's also AO3 were the fanfic writers do the same shit and eventually become published or self published.

>>19265524
Perfect writing and grammar does not a good writer make, but it helps. You've no counter argument to the topic of discussion so it's no shock you've completely ignored it. Why don't you go read more, maybe that'll help with the lack of topical comprehension.

>>19265563
>still not writing
Arguing with me won't make the blank page go away

>>19265570
I used the page to wipe my ass! Now it’s filled with shit.

>>19265511
>Yeah tell that to all the virgins writing terrible sex scenes in romance novels.
tell that to people who are successful con-men, impostors, self-mythologizers. do you think they did all the things they said they did? it's all just language, and if you get the language right nobody cares if you had the "experience" or not, people will not only not scrutinize the details but actively suppress their own experience in favor of your romanticized vision, if you can get the words to be compelling enough. people cannot WAIT to forget their own mundane lives in favor of a fantasy.

also please don't do subtle edits to quotes so you can argue a different point, that's real cunty.

>>19265570
>continues with teenager level of riling up and fail trolling
>your so mad bro
>why aren't you trying bro
>it ain't gonna fight itself bro

Do you have anything to actually contribute or offer as a counter argument at this point? I'm here for discussion and argument over the best ways to write and critique for those asking for improvement or perspective. You ask why I'm here, but have you asked why you're here?

>>19265672
>does the exact same thing they accuse others of

so you're saying your a conman?

>>19265677
Not him, but I just come here to shitpost and derail any attempts at conversation because you idiots don’t deserve any better.

>>19265693
?

>>19265465
>only people with my exact set of hobbies are "alive"

So I read some Solzhenitsyn and I kind of like the gulag aesthetic. I want to write an absurdist comedy set in a prison camp.

>>19262799
1 difference between the two pieces. one is written well, and the other is not

>>19265815
The classic British comedy "Allo Allo" has a several-episode arc inside a Nazi prison camp.

Today is the last day to get my book, Son of the Sun, for free on the Kindle Store. If you like ancient history, mythology, war fiction, or adventure, please check it out!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09J8HJJN8

https://justpaste dot it/8y75l

>>19265815
His stories are so absurd you'd laugh at them if they weren't all true. Secret police randomly catches you in the street, puts you in a box too small to sit in for a day without a word, without food or water, and then lets you go, still without a word. You're free for a few weeks and then they come and do it again. You complain about your neighbor being noisy to a friend. The next day, they send your neighbor to labor camp. A few weeks later, they send you to labor camp. Normal people can't comprehend how fucked up their society was back then, though it kinda explains why they're so fucked up now.

So I've been writing this one story for about a year now. It's about 60k words long and nowhere near done and barely edited, and I'm feeling really burnt out. Would it be a bad idea to start working on a different story? I figured if I work on something fresh I might get the motivation back to finish my long story, but I worry that I'm just going to burn myself out on both and not finish either. I don't really have a system yet because I'm amateur so I'm not sure what the best course of action is. Any advice or is this post retarded and overthinking it?

>>19266900
No never write a different story. You will then confuse yourself and finish NOTHING. What you should do is stop writing and then READ your story from the beginning. That keeps you focused and gives a nice set of eyes for you to change or adjust things.

>>19266959
Ah okay, thanks anon.

Hey, got a question that I'm sort of struggling with. Specifically; how do you decide which of your primary characters works best as your main character? I've been working off the assumption that one of the characters I've been brainstorming will be my main character, and while working out plot beats to add to the outline I've discovered that another one of the primary cast is running into similarly complex problems and scenarios to the MC. The result is this unshakable doubt that I might be writing the wrong character as the MC for this particular story, and while thankfully I'm not too far into the project and thus can theoretically change it if it's a good enough idea, decision paralysis is eating at me.

Do you guys have any advice for someone in this position? Are there any strategies you guys employ for deciding on what your main character should be like that might help me break through the decision paralysis?

>>19267053
The most boring character is your main character. Because he often is the most reactive instead of being proactive.

>>19267053
I have a protagonist, a deuteragonist, and a triagonist in my story and so far the deuteragonist dominated the story in terms of pov chapters with the triagonist getting the fewest st only two chapters so far. I had a friend tease me that the deuteragonist was the real MC the whole time at one point. But that will change since the deuteragonist's character arc was concluded later on (for the time being). Don't think too much on who the "main" main character is if that makes sense. All I can really offer since you're still on the outline phase is to write the actual draft and see where it takes you.

>>19265827
This is 4chan, don't be a vague little bitch.

>>19267053
your first mistake was coming up with a bunch of characters

if there's a narrative importance to having competing/contrasting arcs, like a detective and a murderer, that's one thing, but it's the fallback of shitty online writers to shift characters because they don't have the skill to stick to one

the mc is whoever you decide it is.

My MC ditches all the women to go to the gym with his bro.

He's gay isn't he?

>>19267463
My MC fucks a guy in the ass and still isn't gay.

>>19267463
There's only one way to find out

>>19263722
This guy has no experience in life or stories to tell

>>19267463
Depends. Is he the bottom?

>>19265429
6 books sold so far, feels good!

>>19267513
Writing what you've lived is just an admission that you are either incredibly egotistical or uncreative.

Eight words into my novel. I'm gonna make it, bros.

>>19267531
Wow, you completely miss what that phrase actually means, huh?

>>19267533
post them

>>19267513
Ian Fleming was one of the most interesting men alive yet his writing was all boring dogshit. Experience is no substitute for empathy, creativity, or skill.

>>19267534
Go away ESL.

>>19267548
I'm not the one misunderstanding the core meaning of a common phrase.

>>19267531
Yeah, again, you're a boring person so naturally you will take that POV

>>19267533
It was a dark and stormy night and
Pretty good, right? Now I'm struggling with writers block.

>>19267632
You clearly haven't experienced enough dark and stormy nights to really get what you're trying to write. Sorry anon but you're never gonna make it.

>>19267309
I've become exhausted of going through a detailed examination of the merits or demerits of writing posted here. The vast majority of what is posted is shit so bad that it can only be chalked up to laziness. Those barely deserve one word critiques, since the people posting them just want smoke blown up their ass for putting pen to paper--or more likely, cheeto-crusted digit to butter-slick keyboard.
>>19266223
esl. Get your head out of your ass.

>>19265480
Nice drawing anon. Very cool.

>>19265480
Badass lookin pig

>>19263722
Tell that to Ian Fleming, Jack London, Mark Twain...I could go on

>>19267869
Twain can do both. His best book is Joan of Arc.

>>19267649
>It was the DARKEST and STORMIEST night and

>>19262513
antihero. i love miserable middle aged bastards in particular.
>>19263034
insane wordcount but is it any good?
>>19263695
i'd like that better. /lit/ will have you suicidal if you aren't published by age 30.

>>19264794
watch ascendence of a bookworm unironically.
>>19265815
based. just use a modern office and it will sell like hotcakes. office, gulag, same thing really.

>>19268329
bookworm is both farcical and grimdark

>>19267649
heartiest kek I've had in a while

>>19264794
A quick search says that pencils were invented in the 1500s shortly after the first discovery of a suitably large deposit of graphite. You could have them just by saying that happened earlier.

>>19268333
it's wholesome and relatively factual. better than your attempt obviously you dumb faggot. how dare you insult Main.

>>19263838
>If someone loses their vision, wouldn’t they at first hope that it returns soon? How does she so quickly know that it’s gone forever?
I'm pretty sure the flash of light was a nuclear bomb.

>>19263119
Several of your sentences aren't sentences; they only have a noun phrase, not a verb. Are you doing this for effect?

Please use a computerized grammar checker before asking anyone to read your stuff; easily fixed mistakes are annoying. Two examples:
a earthquake -> an earthquake
principle -> principal

Overall, it looks like the sort of stuff that gets posted to reddit.com/r/libraryofshadows/ all the time.

>>19268405
i wrote it in fucking atom in latex
no i dont have a grammar checker

will find one though. those aren't intentional im just shit at writing

Ok, I want your guys' opinion on something. I'm currently writing a story about a homeless man who reads a single book every day at the public library for several years, marking on arms the serial number for each of the books he's read (eventually his arms are stained a permanent blue and patterned with mostly illegible characters). The story ends with his death, which I put to you now:

>It happened one morning in the well-lit alley between the bookstore and travel agency where Davis would sometimes spend his nights, where a local troupe of drunks found his ink-stained figure in a huddled mass leaned against the brick, still basking in the warmth of a steaming vent. It did not immediately occur to them what had happened to their friend, one asking if the library was closed today, and another if, perhaps, some new holiday had been introduced that only a man as erudite as he would be privy to; but even that would not have explained the reposed and quiet way he seemed to take his sleep, the look of undisturbed peace which now appeared so natural on his brow which in life he had not shown even at his most content; and collectively it dawned on them, the realization that none had the strength to put into words.
>So instead, wistful and smiling, they said to one another how good it was he should finally take a break from all his tireless study and allow himself, for once, a moment’s rest; and it was not without some private sadness they sat beside their tired friend and kept him company as he slept, holding for a time an unbroken silence out respect for the fallen monument, and because they knew that if any one of them spoke there would be nothing then to keep them from surrendering to their tears.

Should it be longer? Sadder? Clearer about what is actually being conveyed in the story? Is it overwrought? Any kind of comment would be greatly appreciated.

>>19268487
dude if you're going to write about the homeless move to a city with a ton of homeless and do some footwork research you absolute faggot.

>>19262268
write the beginning and end first, because that's what people will remember. the middle doesn't matter as much.

>>19268487
awful

>>19268589
Care to elaborate? Does the prose just suck or something?

>>19268593
no

>>19268593
Stop writing like it's the 19th century
Also, homeless people are trying to survive they're not going to be reading. Your writing has this saccharine bourgeois tone to it as if you want to peer close over the threshold of literary depth but are afraid of encountering something you don't understand

>>19268562
Made me chuckle.

>>19268619
Could have warned me you were a pseud before I read your first post.

>>19268619
>as if you want to peer close over the threshold of literary depth but are afraid of encountering something you don't understand
I genuinely have no idea what you mean by this. Also "saccharine bourgeois tone"? Is it the subject matter that's the issue here, or just the way it's written?

>>19268639
The only pseuds here are the fucking retards who can't write anything that doesn't read like you pulled it out of the ass of some unknown faggot from the civil war.

>>19268487
sentences are way too long. all those words before the first line break are TWO sentences. looks more like 3 or 4 without reading it. don't overcomplicate shit. also it took me a bit to realize that the guy was asking the dead man if there was a new holiday.

>It happened one morning in the well-lit alley between the bookstore and travel agency where Davis would sometimes spend his nights. A local troupe of drunks found his ink-stained figure in a huddled mass leaned against the brick, still basking in the warmth of a steaming vent. It did not immediately occur to them what had happened to their friend, one asking him if the library was closed today, and another if, perhaps, some new holiday had been introduced that only a man as erudite as he would be privy to. But even that would not have explained the reposed and quiet way he seemed to take his sleep, the look of undisturbed peace that appeared so natural on his brow which, in life, had never been there. And collectively it dawned on them, the realization that none had the strength to put into words.


also what the others said, it's hard to believe some homeless guy would be reading in the library instead of begging for food or rooting in some trash cans. maybe it can be explained by soup kitchens and shelters nearby, and him being an erudite fellow in his previous life before the fall... but that would beg the question as to why he doesn't try to exploit the resources available to him to become not homeless. if he's educated enough to see the value in reading books, surely he has the acumen to get a job flipping burgers or some shit to get an apartment. is he too old?
I also agree that your prose makes me think of a bougie cunt. like you're writing the idea of a story instead of the reality of one.

>>19268642
I think I understand him, the subject matter of death is very heavy and very easy to fuck up, to make it seem like you don't really care about it. this is a man's life. and he's just reading books instead of focusing on survival. maybe the dude is a schizo about books or some shit, I don't know.
>>19268639
very cool response to criticism, I'm sure you'll go far with that attitude. just pop on over to kiwifarms and take a look at any old lolcow's thread to see where that road leads buddy.

>>19268454
>i wrote it in fucking atom in latex
And I wrote a novel in Pluma, in Markdown format.

>no i dont have a grammar checker
Find someone with an Office 365 subscription and borrow it for a few minutes.

>>19268671
Well, I appreciate the input! I'll work on breaking up the sentences and maybe try for a plainer style. But I feel as though I should mention that this story is in no way attempting to be some grounded limning of the reality of homelessness. It's meant to be an absurd situation, the protagonist less of a person and more of a personified mystery. The questions of why a man in such a position would be so fixated on reading and why he wouldn't be looking to put his knowledge to good use is addressed in the story, though never really answered. I guess I didn't communicate that clearly in my post, so sorry about that.

Anyone remember /crit/, a thread with genuinely helpful anons instead of the passive aggressive princesses we have now?
https://archived.moe/lit/thread/15734149/#15734155

>>19268680
That guy >>19268639 isn't me.

>>19268680
>take my shit criticism seriously or I’ll make a Kiwifarms thread about you
Pseud threat. Projecting your fear of having your face attached to your work.

>>19268642
first of all i'm not either of the first two anons who were shitting on you, I just joined the party

it's (1) oversentimental. sounds like you wrote with the purpose of portraying the homeless man as a "noble savage" instead of truly understanding his struggles (2) narrator does not use contemporary vernacular, comes off as elitist and disingenuous (3) believe it or not people can tell when someone is dead pretty quickly and their responses would not be so quaint as reminiscing on good times.

you are out of touch with people just in lower tax brackets than you, never mind the homeless. reflect on the myriad perspectives other people have to offer. but I feel like this will be a lost cause anyway. go submit this to a credentialed publication and they will use your excerpts in their creative writing classes as cringe material

>>19268671
Wasted breath.

>>19268653
This anon is correct. A lot of writers on this board adopt this very stilted, false-sounding style that feels like a bad Chekhov impression.

but also consider
https://justpaste dot it/8y75l

>>19267524
Good work! I only recently achieved that milestone.

>>19268715
the number one defining lolcow trait is that they never learn. it has always and shall always be so. also nice strawman bro you really got me.

>>19266137
I still want a paperback!

>>19268704
I mean that can work but without seeing the rest, it really just begs more questions than it answers. the eldritch allure of literature which, to this man, is more powerful than the survival instinct. perhaps it serves as an allegory for all the stupid people today who focus so much on pointless capeshit and videogames. we truly do live in a society.

>>19268705
Not what I've heard from others though. People always used to say it was even worse than this gen, probably why it died because due to fewer and fewer people showing works.

>>19265326
Oy yeah? Well, I gave up after 20k words!
Bow before my obvious superiority!

>always done my best writing while unemployed
>just lost my job
TIME TO WRITE FUCK YEAH

How do you guys feel about POV swapping? I have the main character who is isolated from the overall setting of the story and the first chapter is them very slowly trying to understand the surrounding circumstances. The 2nd chapter was going to take place from the POV of a group of important characters who do understand the overall setting of the story and would continue in their perspective right before meeting the main character. The purpose of this would to be establish a slightly stronger setting rather than revealing it bit by bit from the MC's perspective because I feel like then I'll fall into the trap of having everything explained to them in dialogue which is a bit boring. With the perspective swap I could establish some of the setting through prose since the POV of those characters it is already established information.
Any thoughts?

>>19268762
>need money to live
>work takes so much time it's impossible to write
We live in a society

>>19268767
lotr did it. y not

>>19268775
this bro. this. work is 8-5 plus an hour commute each way and another half hour each way to prepare and unwind. our fathers fought and died for the 8/8/8 and here we are having lost it all in one generation. work eats up more and more of our days until work life balance is completely lost. all for pay that diminishes every year and can never buy a house or fund a retirement or a family. you may as well just do seasonal work or something and enjoy several months off from the toil.

>>19268767
I swap povs when I feel it makes sense to do so: like if switching to another pov helps move the plot in some way that I couldn't do with the previous pov then I might do it. After my first book in the series I decidedly toned down the head swapping so there's more focus on MCs

>>19268767
>How do you guys feel about POV swapping?
It's what I'm doing, and it really works best when it's between characters with entirely different views/ideals. That way the reader can feel they're getting a different perspective in more ways than one. If you're doing it for the sake of fleshing out the setting, I think you can find a better way of doing it, like having "visual" cues for key story elements rather than having it explained. Either that or perhaps have a "villainous protagonist" who's actively engaging in things that are crucial to the main character's journey.
Also, I personally think writing a story from the point of view of more than two characters is too difficult/clunky, you may have more luck than me.

>>19268767
the last books I read that had POV swapping were the sequels to blood song by anthony ryan. they were overall much weaker than the initial installment. in no small part, I think, due to the swapping. the most obvious problem is that you have to make double or triple or quadruple the amount of protagonists interesting, engaging, and generally worthwhile for the reader to give a shit about. invariably people will have their favorites (unless you are a god who can write everyone perfectly), which will make sections without them seem boring and dull by comparison. this isn't a death knell for swapping, you just have to work twice or three times as hard to make sure your shit is worth reading in the first place. people form something akin to relationships with the characters they read, and if you're constantly swapping away from the ones they actually care about, they just won't bother.
it wasn't the only problem with the books I read though. the first book was very enjoyable not only because of the good main character and the focus placed on him (growing from boy to adult as a warrior monk in a medieval setting), but because of the world and supporting characters as well. it's just that the first MC had an entire book to establish himself and to connect with the readers. the two other pov characters in the later books have about half as many scenes in the first one.
also, anthony ryan's subsequent trilogy, the draconis memoria, is in my opinion overall totally worse than blood song by itself, due in no small part to the sometimes pointless POV swapping. but this is the series of books in which every chapter, LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER, ends on a cliffhanger, only to swap to a different POV. so clearly it had bigger issues.

I never know where to start my story.

>>19268818
Don't worry about the beginning, just write whatever and figure things like that out later.

>>19268803
>>19268805
In this case it's primarily just for world building + some tension. It's just that they are SO far isolated from the story that without a swap I feel like I'm going to be trapped in a scenario where the character is just sat down and talked at. It's a post apocalyptical + magic realism setting and I introduced them to it in a slightly varied "just woke up in the hospital" method. There's just so much that they aren't aware of that I'm not sure I can key them through it.
This is more so a POV swap of one character (third person) to multiple characters (third person) rather than a one to one swap .
>>19268808
>ends on a cliffhanger, only to swap to a different POV.
Incidentally that is what I'm doing here but the plan is for only this chapter to be like that. As of now the MC is entering a building in which the other characters are waiting in ambush, the plan was to write the 2nd chapter from their perspective starting from a typical day in their lives, right up to the entrance of the MC and then swap back to the MC upon stepping inside the building. Then a majority of the story would be told through the MCs perspective with maybe the occasional swap off.

>>19268818
maybe you should spend more time taking it more seriously and less time saving anime pictures

>>19268826
>Incidentally that is what I'm doing here but the plan is for only this chapter to be like that.
as long as it's not every single chapter. because I am not shitting you, literally every single chapter of every single book in the draconis memoria trilogy ends on a cliffhanger only to swap to a different POV in the next chapter.

Posts since an asinine question:
4

Posts since bitchy passive aggression:
0

>>19268719
Thanks for the feedback, I guess, even if most of it boils down to me sounding like a pretentious dick. I am, anyway, so that checks out; I frankly don't give two shits about homeless people. I mentioned earlier that garnering sympathy for or from them was never my intention. Fuck me though, I know it shouldn't surprise that most folks prefer my more unadorned stuff, but I can't help but feel saddened by the fact. I mean, is there no place for that kind of thing save for film critiques and literary journals? Where's that old notion of the beauty of language gone? Why can't I use larger words or antiquated phraseology if I think the phonemes sound nicer? I imagine that if I were a better writer to begin with, it wouldn't matter in any case, so I really have only myself to blame. One of those cases where the sophistication of one's taste exceeds actual artistic ability, I suppose. I know I'm going to die a bitter cunt because I think we ought to turn back the wheel of time on literature by about a century. But I'm tired of this modern crap. Of this "subjective human experience" bullshit. That asinine "realism" that ends up with 30-40 exercises in intellectual masturbation consisting of some Seinfeldian plotline and a moody protagonist that sound like they were written by the same three people. And that's doubly true for short stories. There are some good novels that have come out in the past decade, or even in the past year, but I've yet to find a short story published anywhere near the current decade that I thought was properly good. I hate it, and I hate myself for being incapable of writing my way out of it.

Could someone please critique my poem?


I climbed a mountain yesterday
as the sun was about to rise
behind it in the deepest
alcove of the valley
and where the tall pines
with leaves like icicles
drip dew onto the ocher undergrowth.

From atop the mountain yesterday,
I saw villages to my left and right,
And to my front I saw a flight
of birds flying high
towards the crimson sun,
Why?
Were they not afraid of being exhumed
out of this universe like a burning fuse?
Did their hearts not beat fast at the touch,
of shafts of light so unjust
to all the men who lay sleeping in the valley,
And all the crewboys of all the galleys below
in the foamy white sea,
dotted with memories?

I climbed down the mountain yesterday
as the sun was about to set
back into the cobalt blue mat,
when I saw the birds returning
into the tall pines
with leaves like wriggling worms.

When I was a boy my family had a cat that liked the water. Between our backyard and some fields there ran a river or murky brown water, and there this cat of ours would dive. He'd come home soaked, dirty and often carrying a dead or dying rodent. We'd have to take the cat to the shower to clean him, which he didn't seem to mind, and we'd have to scrub the blood and guts of whatever he'd brought us off the kitchen floor.
Those were the days of landline phones and VHS tapes, when new stretch of asphalt invited all the kids on the block on their bicycles to come and have a go at it.
My friends and I built a secret hideout but it was crushed when a car drove off the bridge and fell right on top of our base. Rene never walked again and had to get horrible stitches on his head. We made fun of his bald head and the icky scar on it.
Rene's father beat my mother with a snow shovel one night and chased me with a kitchen knife. Even after they took him away, someone left poisoned sausages in the neighborhood, probably to kill our cat. The only victim was another neighbor's dog though.
Someone took a shit in the sandbox so we couldn't play in it anymore. Someone put glue into our front door's keyhole so he had to get a locksmith to open it. After that Rene's family moved and things got back to normal.
I saw him at the library nearly two decades later. I wouldn't have known it was him if I hadn't checked his ID when making his new library card. He didn't recognize me. I would cancel his book reservations as a joke, for old time's sake. He came by to complain a lot, with great difficulty due to his wheelchair.
I was the cat and he was my small rodent. The play was cruel but a hot shower was all it took to wash away my guilt.

>>19261951
Days since anything halfway decent was posted:
0

>>19268958

>>19268958
damn
there are some slight improvements you could make but this is good

>>19268936
The enjambment is strange, for a start. It feels like you wrote a paragraph and then chopped it up to look like a poem, which I know is a common criticism, but that doesn't make it any less valid. A meter or something like it would greatly improve it, imo. Content-wise, a lot of your imagery is either too esoteric to decipher ('Were they not afraid of being exhumed/ out of this universe like a burning fuse?') or too cliched to warrant attention (as the sun was about to set/ back into the cobalt blue mat). I think the parallel structure of the beginning and ending stanzas is pretty neat, though, and I enjoyed reading it. What was your intention when writing this?

>>19268979
Thank you for the criticism. I climbed a mountain the other day and wanted to write some poems about how I felt. In particular I saw birds from up there and while this isn't a strictly honest account of my experience, I thought it would be nice to write about it somehow.

You're correct in that it feels like a paragraph broken down. I'll try to add a more strict meter. When I say "exhumed out of this universe like a burning fuse", I meant that just as a fuse burns out, the birds too diving into the sun will (burn out). Like once a "burning fuse" is burnt, it gets "dug up" (exhumed) by somebody on the other side of the universe and so ceases to exist on our side and so too will the birds. I was trying to use it as a metaphor for looking death in the face and not caring.

Can you give me some tips on how to develop a metered style? It seems everything I write is just prose with line breaks. That said I did try to rhyme in the second stanza (right/flight, exhumed/fuse, fast/shafts, touch/unjust, valley/galleys). I know these feel cheap though.

>>19268974
>>19268977
Praise for such a small thing bodes well for my actual book, thanks.

The cold white porcelain bowl opened it's wide mouth eagerly waiting for its next meal. It waited hours patiently hidden inside the cold damp walls of the restroom. A light illuminates the room. The bowl finally sees and opportunity. It settles in, salivating with delight as the water filled it's porcelain hole. A warm fleshed body touched it's lips. A loud putrid gas emitted inside the bowls mouth. It tasted wonderful. The aroma was unlike any other. The strong smell of euphoria filled the room. It delighted the nose and mouth of any that would embrace it's smell.

How do I continue?

>>19269021
>sees and opportunity
>it's lips
>it's smell
Anon...

>>19269025
oops

>>19269013
Yeah, even after your explanation, the fuse metaphor feels, at best, forced, though it's a nice concept. Also, I admit that I didn't notice the rhyming until you pointed it out, but I don't feel like it adds a whole lot to the poem in any case, even upon rereading. Just my two cents. As for writing in a meter, there are multiple to choose from, which I won't list here, but are only a Google search away. Just keep writing things in whichever you choose and eventually you'll develop an affinity for it, and it will come without you having to think about it.

I took a big o' shit
It's another day to offer remit
Ick, it splashed with little discomfit
Idly my ass continued to sit

>>19268930
your language isn't that beautiful compared to the greats and you just admitted you don't give two shits about homeless people. why should anyone give two shits about what you're writing, then? perhaps start caring instead of indulging in detached cynicism. you just wrote a passage about a man who fucking died. imagine if you just fucking died, asshole.

>>19269073
based and shit pilled

>>19268487
I like your writing, don't know what these faggots are on about mate. I would say keep it up. Seems like a fine length to me

hail mary post because I can't write while inebriated so I might as well shitpost again
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A7xDXOgqMkbx1dOQOrFNDWVB5PRaOa0XauO3hLuXRmI/edit

>>19269108
This comment is so fucking retarded and out of left field, I have no idea what to say about it. Homeless people are not wild animals that spend 24/7 looking for food, and a lot of them have no desire to stop being homeless. They have leisure activities and friends, and the man's prose was good and in no way demeaning towards anyone, death can be a beautiful or bittersweet thing as well, and even if this isn't "moral" or "right" that is how some people's minds work. I think the man did a great job of capturing his characters emotions. Why would you dare to invalidate the way he wrote or the reality or motivations of his characters based on your shallow understanding and hasty assumptions.

>>19261951
How do you focus on not over-explaining or going into unnecessary detail(for the moment) when starting out?
I have an idea in my head that I want to build a world out of and characters, and when I go to write a scene with that specific character I end up explaining the laws of the world and explaining everything else 'unrelated' to that current scene and character.

How do I stop myself from giving lore while writing specific scenes? I don't think it's too hard to tie in, but I always go overboard and start to ramble on about why the character is doing what they're doing in that moment instead of focusing on the current dilemma/problem they're facing.

>>19269152
Yeah, the people who are replying with "DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRR WHY IS HE READING INSTEAD OF FORAGING 24/7" are retarded.
First of all, it's a fictional fucking character. Who gives a shit if his actions aren't 1:1 what the average person would do, if the author wants to give him a unique characteristic that's his decision.
Second, that doesn't mean the author doesn't "understand" homeless people. He may not, of course, but if it serves the story's theme it hardly matters.

>>19268593
Dude... you'll notice that regardless of quality, there are pseuds that will shit on and viciously attack anyone who is writing and working towards publishing.

Any anon who reads this will know, if you finish a project and release it and tell /lit/, they will only come at you with daggers and unkind words.

Don't fear though, because Gardner and others are watching these threads, and when you finally release your product, you will get sales from the people who lurk here while the pseuds will vomit their hatred at you in an attempt to make you feel like you are not a writer and that you're:
>ngmi

But brother, believe me.
>we are all going to make it

>>19269209
based and hope pilled.

Suppose you have a young woman who's lower-upper class, or upper-middle class, depending upon how you draw that line. It's one of those "Daddy was a Doctor, Mommy was a Lawyer" situations. Grew up in America, spent a lot of time vacationing in France.

As love interests go what constitutes a comfortable level of exotic for her? A black guy with a nice job and a nice car who wears suits? A blue collar white guy who rides a motorcycle and wears a leather jacket? Where do you imagine her comfort level doesn't quite crash but her interest level peaks?

>>19269217
Whatever her parents forbade her from

>>19269217
>As love interests go what constitutes a comfortable level of exotic for her?
Another woman

>>19268818
>start story with mc waking up
>get tould to not do that because it is cliche
Guess I will fuck myself than.

>>19269219
I feel like mommy and daddy were big on work ethic, being a lawyer and a doctor, but they were also big on perceived social class. So suppose that our black guy from, let's say Europe and she's an American, has a very hands off business and is very upper crust, but our biker guy likes to get his hands dirty with his business.

>>19269231
This anon >>19269228 has a good idea.
Mother and father definitely frown upon same sex relationships. Would be even better if she was a successful upper class woman. Not a butch though.

>>19269238
I don't know that a successful upper class woman could get away with anything but being a token butch.

>>19269246
What, why? You don't think an upper class woman couldn't be beautiful, refined and cunning? She has to be a token butch to be upper class?

>>19269266
I said that backwards. I couldn't imagine her getting away with butch.

>>19269266
>>19269238
>>19269228
Alternate framing: how do you write an upper class lesbian in the middle of a love triangle/square/dodecahedron who doesn't come across as opportunistic and predatory?

>>19269319
Blinded by ideology but well-meaning. Aka most liberals except she has deeds behind her words. However she lacks self awareness and her dogmatism comes off as narrow minded

>>19269327
Too straw-lesbian.

>>19269319
Seems easy enough, just don't write her as opportunistic and predatory(duh lmao).
Make her motives wholesome and pure, but determined to 'win' out in the love triangle/shape.

Super generic character: Is upper class and luxurious but isn't blind to other lower class struggles, does her best to help others. Often to the criticism of her own parents and friends, tries to see the best in everyone.
A hopeless romantic, if you would.

This anon >>19269327 has a much more fitting stereotype though, for an upper class woman.

>>19269349
It still smacks of strawman. Granted, it's my responsibility to bring life to these people so that they don't feel like tropes, but I've got to give her some kind of initial twist to introduce conflict there.

>>19269356
I did say it was a super generic character idea.
I too have no idea how this upper class lesbian would even meet and fall in love with your upper-middle-class girl anyway, they seem worlds apart.
Your initial task was to ask which love interest would fit best for your heroine, and the answers were
>whatever her parents frowned upon/said no to
>lesbian
but your original ideas of foreign men and motorcycle Joe Schmo also fit, it depends on what you want from them to fit into your narrative.
Are these relationships solely for character development? Do they tie into a major conflict your MC has to resolve? Which one fits best in that case?
You have options. Write out some drafts of said conflict and try to apply it to each different character. See how it goes with each one, and pick the one you like the most.

In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with tropes as long as they're well written. They became tropes because they're liked and received. Readers often enjoy stereotypical characters that are predictable but lovable or hateable.

>>19268487
I love it, keep going. At first I thought it might have been to verbose but I think you have the sensibility and imagination to back it up and not sound like some cunt

>>19268619
>shits on the homeless
>"saccharine bourgeois tone"
You sound insincere like one of those Marxist Leninist mandatory critique and self critique session

>>19269368
I guess I could walk it backwards and ask what's attractive to an upper class lesbian in terms of an upper-middle-class workaholic.

>>19269017
and re-reading it, I don't even think changes are necessary. really good, would love to read more.

What do you think of this guy?

>>19268958
>>19269017
>>19269406
eh i'll be real needly

>>When I was a boy my family had a cat that liked the water.

might be better to change "my family had" to just "we had"
for humans "who liked water" would be better than "that liked water" but i honestly do not know if that should apply when describing an animal.

>>backyard

ultra-caviling, but "back yard" feels better to me

>>there ran a river or murky brown water

"ran a murky brown river"

>>He'd come home soaked, dirty and often carrying a dead or dying rodent.

"soaked and dirty and often"
"with" might sound better than "carrying", idk

>>Those were the days of landline phones and VHS tapes, when new stretch of asphalt invited all the kids on the block on their bicycles to come and have a go at it.

I feel like this could be just slightly better

>>The only victim was another neighbor's dog though.

"A neighbor's dog died, though" might sound better

>>After that Rene's family moved and things got back to normal.

Is the implication that someone in Rene's family was responsible for this? It's a little vague, Rene's family moved "after" those things happened, but it could come across as they moved because those things happened

>>nearly two decades later

nearly twenty years later

but again, this is super minor stuff.

>>19269413
It reads too much like an emotionless list of events

>>19269437
>Is the implication that someone in Rene's family was responsible for this? It's a little vague, Rene's family moved "after" those things happened, but it could come across as they moved because those things happened
Not the writer but I think it implied they were responsible fine because of the crazy way they behaved beforehand

I wanna write a detective novel for NaNoWriMo. Is SS Van Dine's list a good start for how I should write? First eight:

1. The reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery. All clues must be plainly stated and described.

2. No willful tricks or deceptions may be placed on the reader other than those played legitimately by the criminal on the detective himself.

3. There must be no love interest. The business in hand is to bring a criminal to the bar of justice, not to bring a lovelorn couple to the hymeneal altar.

4. The detective himself, or one of the official investigators, should never turn out to be the culprit. This is bald trickery, on a par with offering some one a bright penny for a five-dollar gold piece. It's false pretenses.

5. The culprit must be determined by logical deductions — not by accident or coincidence or unmotivated confession. To solve a criminal problem in this latter fashion is like sending the reader on a deliberate wild-goose chase, and then telling him, after he has failed, that you had the object of his search up your sleeve all the time. Such an author is no better than a practical joker.

6. The detective novel must have a detective in it; and a detective is not a detective unless he detects. His function is to gather clues that will eventually lead to the person who did the dirty work in the first chapter; and if the detective does not reach his conclusions through an analysis of those clues, he has no more solved his problem than the schoolboy who gets his answer out of the back of the arithmetic.

7. There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader's trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded.

8. The problem of the crime must he solved by strictly naturalistic means. Such methods for learning the truth as slate-writing, ouija-boards, mind-reading, spiritualistic se'ances, crystal-gazing, and the like, are taboo. A reader has a chance when matching his wits with a rationalistic detective, but if he must compete with the world of spirits and go chasing about the fourth dimension of metaphysics, he is defeated ab initio. (((Gotta get that creeping sci-fi or fantasy element out of the way. Makes sense to me.)))

>>19270109
They are well respected rules for a reason. There is absolutely nothing more annoying than wasting your time trying to work out a mystery that the author doesn't actually want you to solve. You can break some of those rules if you're really talented and know exactly what you're doing (and, more importantly, why you're doing it), but it's better not to.

Looking for feedback on a poem:

Virulent devils crane their necks to match the gaze of the man ambling,
Ambling,
Striving,
To ensnare the world in his vision.
Tempests breath down the man’s neck and launch him into the stratosphere,
Up and away past the tint of dead cosmonauts’ helmets—
Bloodied and bludgeoned by the satellites circling the horizon—
The man circles interstellar orbits and hears the pulse of radio towers from far-flung planets—
Choking on their own mixture of radiation and haze.

Rays cascade from the triumphant man’s head—
He has sunbeams shooting out from his anus,
Explosive discharge wreaks havoc on untold fairy tales and myths—
A new narrative digested and spit up every second
From the archive of arch-angels which have a radio antenna linked up to his mind
Into the heart and soul, causing the body to fits and spasms (it’s impossible to unwind).

Destroyers of truth peer out on the rising moon, the city is awash in a thin-orange haze,
Trembling tributes to gluttony’s gut continue to pierce through this opaque maze,
As stockbrokers rate the next quarter’s return on pork, oil, gas, radiation, smoke, and wrought devastation.

Blood! The walls are rippling tides of blood,
The sewers are caked with bodies
And have been soaked with heavy mud.

Putrid linoleum tile decks out the man’s apartment,
Forever squandered fantasies pave the way to redemption—
In order to breath, love, and stuff the gut
With toxic decay in life’s disarray.

>>19261951
I have a wonderful story for all of you.

>>19262268
>He woke up

Rate the start of my novel desu
>The city was a broken whore, and I was the prophylactic that it kept using, night after night, to save it from the sickness that plagues every godforsaken dick in this cavernous vagina.

>>19270109
I don't agree with 3, mainly because a lot of the emotional significance in Mike Hammer novels comes from his developing romantic relationships.

>>19270136

Pestilent toes struggle against the linty litter
Scratching,
Stretching,
Cavorting amidst the squalor of toejam
The sock comes off, launching them into bitter freedom—
The apartment a graveyard of innumerable garments
The man stumbles and hears the sirens
Silent and sullied by their own dirty socks—

>>19270346
She was a whore, but she was my whore. This town wore too much makeup and took the change off my nightstand when I wasn't looking but I loved her anyway.

>>19270217

A short “romance” set in an a ancient time of strange tyranny
https://pastebin.com/gFjhpHee

>>19261951

How do I write a pure/innocent character without making them so passive they're boring? If that makes sense

>>19270457
The girl in front of the book shop in Disco Elysium is a good example of a pure character, or the old lady paraplegic in that game too.

>>19270457
alyosha in brothers karamazov is a more literary example (lol gamers...)

>>19270472
Disco Elysium was already a novel and the writer was acclaimed in literary journals in Estonia. But it was turned into a game when the writer found out that no kids read anymore.

New chapter done and not dusted. Work, unfortunately, is a thing.

>>19270109
Writing is just manipulation, isn't it

>>19270573
become NEET

>>19270582
Communication is manipulation

>>19270457
why would an innocent character be passive?

>>19270346
the city was a whore, it meant she did no kissing
i said to her that's fine, i need a mouth to piss in
the thing you get back is whatever you throw in
night after night the gutter's overflowing

>>19270588
I'm hoarding resources for a few more months then just drop out of society for years. Just wanna be self-sufficient and write.

>>19270457
Focus on righteous indignation, e.g. "buy WHY does it all suck?"
This motivates the innocent character to destroy the guilty and despoiled, in order to defend the cause of innocence.

>>19270346
The city whored herself out, estranging those inside her. So God told me to marry a prostitute and raise the bastards. Gomer and I had a son to call our own. I named him Jezreel. My son broke the nation into shivers as a chill wind shatters a glass table. After that, the whore on the table never walked the same.

>>19269149
shit.
>>19269413
actually well written, and interesting. unfortunately it's too solopsistic (other anon is incorrect and a retard)
>>19270346
no one in 1,000,000 years would publish a book starting with that
>>19270419
terrible. read advice at bottom of post
>>19261951
This is advice for everyone in general: STOP USING SO MANY FUCKING COMMAS. IF YOUR SENTENCES HAVE MORE THAN 1 COMMA IN THEM ON AVERAGE, YOUR WRITING IS SHIT

>>19270914
FUCK YOU EVEN GOT ME DOING IT

>>19270914
>IF YOUR SENTENCES HAVE MORE THAN 1 COMMA IN THEM ON AVERAGE, YOUR WRITING IS SHIT
nice, another dumb arbitrary rule forced on me, thanks.

>>19270914
Awful post.

>>19270914
>DONT BE CREATIVE WITH YOUR
>DONT USE BIG WORDS
>DONT USE COMMAS

MANIPULATION OF LANGUAGE
You fucking nigger, commas allow me to mimic blips existing in actual speech and thought, that’s partially what they are for. If if was up to idiots like you no one would have ever wrote anything interesting.

>>19270923
>uses two commas
Apply yourself!

>>19270914
>STOP USING SO MANY FUCKING COMMAS. IF YOUR SENTENCES HAVE MORE THAN 1 COMMA IN THEM ON AVERAGE, YOUR WRITING IS SHIT
smiling, i looked at anon's face, but he couldn't handle the pressure, his eyes turning, darting, desperate for something to focus on, something he could pretend had demanded his attention, but we both knew the truth, we both knew he was looking away out of shame, we both knew that he was a faggot

I want to publish multiple novels but under different pseudonyms, like around three or four. How feasible is this?

>>19270346
There's a contest for bad openings like this.
https://www.bulwer-lytton.com

Why do I waste my breath. I know that some of you are psueds who are just "writing" for the sake of regurgitating your ill-formed opinions about contemporary life using 19th century conventions and overly obfuscating language, but to the anons who generally want people to read what they write: write as simply as possible. No one here will be recognized for the merit of their style while they lack everything in substance.

>>19271005
This pretty much. Read The Sun Also Rises and The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe to get your healthy balance of verbose

>>19271005
just let people fucking write you bore. everyone should write to their own taste whatever it may be because if they start writing for some imaginary audience of attention-deficient normies that they don't even like or respect they'll just be miserable on top of unsuccessful.

>>19271030
Write as shittily and retarded as you like anon. When you post your detritus here though, don't be surprised when people who actually want to read good writing shit all over it. In fact all of you should form a Discord server to share your writing together. Call it "/lit/'s Intelligentsia." I hope hope hope I get an invite!

>>19271005
Oh yeah? Well … uh … fuck you! Is that simple enough for your nigger brain?

>>19271059
people who want to read good writing should not be looking at first attempts by teenage amateurs, dummy. when you post autistic screeds about how everyone should comb their writing over and remove all your pet peeves before posting don't be surprised that it has no effect.

>>19271059
Maybe we will! It’d still be better than the current /lit/ discord where all those faggots suck that one shitlicker author’s dick all the time.

Come Friday, my older brother would rush home from school and we'd take the bus to the train station, board a train and spend the next hour chugging along the rails down south.
My brother would spend the time doing his homework and reading his car magazines. I'd play with my toys.
It was always nighttime when we departed the train. I don't think I ever saw that particular station in daylight, even in the summer. There was an old steam engine on display. Our father would be waiting for us with his car.
"Dad, have you met Jake?" I'd ask, referring to mother's new boyfriend. He was very tall, laughed a lot, smelled like beer and had a bike. He welded for a living, but I didn't know what welding was.
"Uh-huh", dad would say, and we'd be off to spend the weekend with him.
"I took a bath with Nina", I'd tell dad, referring to the daughter of mom's new boyfriend. She was older than me by a few years. We'd shared the tub, we'd splashed about and we'd wondered about the differences between boys and girls. Jake took a picture, but I didn't have it with me so I couldn't show it to dad.
"That's nice", he said, then talked to my brother in quiet tones about skipping school. My brother wanted to be a carpenter, said he didn't need school for it.
"I like to work with my hands", he said.
"I spent my whole life trying to give you kids the kind of life where you wouldn't need to", dad replied. I liked to work with my hands too, Jake had given me finger paints and I'd painted all over Nina with them, and she'd painted all over me. Jake had bought mom a new nightgown. It felt really smooth. Nina said it was silk. I wore it one night to make her laugh.
"I can't keep looking after him, you know", my brother was saying.
"And you know I can't get custody", dad was saying.
"I have my own life", brother said.
"And where does that leave him?"

Their voices sounded angry, so I stared out the window and thought of how nice Nina's hair smelled. Maybe I'd marry her when I grew up. But if Jake married mom, then Nina and I would be brother and sister.
"Can brothers and sisters get married?" I asked.
"See what I mean?" dad asked.
Brother just shook his head.
"Can I smoke?" he asked.
"Just crack a window open."
Brother lit up and stared out the open window, smoke billowing behind us. When I grew up, I'd smoke like that too, just a dot in the dark night, like a red star. Like Mars.
"I want a Mars bar", I said.
"Maybe tomorrow", dad replied.
"We could stop there", brother said, pointing at a gas station.
"For one candy bar? Forget it."
"What, you think he's too spoiled now?"
"Fine."
Dad pulled over and went to buy my candy.
"You doing okay, kid?" brother asked.
"Sure."
"You know it was never supposed to turn out like this."
"We took a wrong turn?"
"Yeah."
He didn't say anything until dad got back.

>>19270914
could you at least say why it's shit tho

>>19271152
If you need to have it explained to you then you’ll never understand.

>>19270923
>>19270914
WHO GIVES A FUCKING SHIT?
GRAMMAR ONLY IS A BRIDGE TO WHICH THINGS CAN BE UNDERSTOOD NOT ABSOLUTE RULES.
YOU WANT ABSOLUTE RULES, GO TEACH A GRAMMAR CLASS.
JESUS CHRIST WHY IS EVERYONE IN THIS THREAD SUCH AN ASSHOLE

>>19271168
IM NOT AN ASSHOLE I JUST SPEAK THE AHRD TRUTHS AND SOMETIMES KIKE PUPPIES

>>19271165
oh yeah sure anon, because anyone competent is all knowing and never made a mistake in their life, sure sounds like a truth to me, guess I'll just go hop off the nearest bridge now

>>19271173
LOOK I CAN ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU ARE A BASED MAN, BUT WHY DO YOU HYPERFIXATE ON COMMAS SO MUCH

>>19271185
A comma kill, my, mother.

>>19271128
Good stuff. Don't like "chugging" or "departed". Commas should be "Inside quotation marks," like this. More description of the place in which they're driving would be nice. Good start, just needs some layering to add depth unless this is just an excerpt of something else. In that case shove on.

>>19271196
commas just make shit spicy and or funny I still don't get it

>>19271203
> Commas should be "Inside quotation marks," like this
I keep forgetting English follows different rules.

>>19271165
do you think we just pop out the pussy with balanced prose writing skills?

>>19271218
Well I, did. So yes,.

Despite the window viewing the world outside, rain had covered it in a murky, blurry sheen. What light fell inside here only moved to soften the muted colors.
Fluffing an unused carpet.
Painting a shut-tight door.
Blanketing the child in a comfort that no grown-up, or anyone his age especially, had ever experienced.
The comfort of nothing. He held a gaze devoid into the misted, dancing air. He held his breath, he breathed slowly, he held his breath. He held it longer.
He closed his eyes. A comfort, to feel nothing when the world’s woes build upon that solid rock. A comfort, to care for nothing when the desires you could hold might simply wash you away. A comfort. A blanket. A never ending cycle of sleeping and waking.
Yes. This was him and his life.
This was the boy without a soul.

>>19270990
you can do it pretty easily with amazon self-publishing. you could have a different pseudonym for every book if you wanted

>>19271317
Despite the door leading to the universe beyond, the restaurant was empty. What people were inside had to be there.
Manning an unused register
Watching a cold fryer.
Suffusing the manager in an infantile reverie that no taxpayer, or anyone from his ZIP code, ever held conversation.
The reverie of paid overtime. He ate a snack from the other joint, even though he could sneak food for free. He ate, he ate slowly, he ate. He ate some more.
He wiggled his toes. A reverie, to not think about the bills build upon that crystalline edifice. A reverie, to forget when the indigestion you hold might simply carry you away. A reverie. A Tony Soprano robe. An eternal circuit of eating and working.
This was the manager without a GED.

https://archived.moe/lit/thread/17870490/#17880000
>mfw I'm the guy who got the blackula retard to admit his shit was retarded and that he didn't really understand identity politics
>mfw he kept writing it for at least 5 months after saying he would quickly finish it up and move on to "normal stories about white people"
>mfw he still calls niggerspeak (ebonics) "AAVE"
>mfw you can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think
if you're reading this, just fucking stop bro. get tested for autism and fucking stop.

fresh bread?
800 words, going to write more later.

>>19271906
Obsessed

>>19272520
>>19272520
>>19272520
New thread

>>19262388
Harry potter was written by a lesbian writing collective that choose Rowling as it's face, don't give people false hope. 20 is too old to start doing anything and he should just give up. Life is basically over as soon as you turn 17, nothing you do after that matters.

>>19272705
take your meds