/lit/ - Literature

>216k words in.
I'm getting fearful of finishing and doing more than a cursory edit now lads.

Write about shitting in your best prose

>>20027501
The porcelain greeted her discharge pure as the driven snow, but was soon stained. The liquid spray hit the back of the bowl first and ran down into the water in a snail-trail, her position was not ideal.
All this was unknow to her at the time, as all her attention was focused on the threat of a prolapse. She'd never had one, but last month she'd felt an odd blossoming around her rectum. This soon revealed itself as a case of external hemorrhoids, those two purple grapes that guarded her exit as the Pillars of Hercules guard the Straits of Gibraltar. In fear of renewing this trouble she paid extra attention to the movement of her bowels now.
To help with a more natural position, she'd brought books into the bathroom to rest her feet on. These books were thick ones, ones she'd never bothered to read. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, that is to say under her left foot rested Anna Karenina and War and Peace, while under her right foot were The Demons and The Brothers Karamazov.
It's not that she had any trouble reading long books, she'd consumed Lucinda Riley religiously. But those Russians just had nothing to say.
Another eruption of gas, and this time it was small flecks rather than liquid that escaped her.

>>20027501
Martha was an engineer, and a scientist; a folder, and a compulsive inspector. For her, the act of excretion could not be allowed to hold any secrets, any more than she could step on a crack in the pavement, or tolerate a pack of pencils with one member upside down. When her sphincter loosened around the first expelled fragments, she wiped from front to back with exaggerated care, then held the paper up for a critical inspection with eye and nose.

This morning, she could see the goopy light-brown discharge formed of beer and deep-fried battered death, with remnants of sweet yellow corn from her burrito studded like fortresses: fibrous vegetable defenders protecting her colon from a roiling civil war. Starchy cannons fired in her gut, massed ranks of meaty cavalry charged, and calories fought to break free. The smell was acrid and peaty, with a note of decayed grass and dying things. She suspected her choices in food and alcohol had not been wholly rational last night.

Her feet pushed solidly against the floor and she leaned forward into a squat, arms around her knees and panties around her feet. It was going to be a long shit.

Anyone querying?

>>20027719
Still waiting to hear from 7 places. If none of those accept me, it's ogre.

>>20027501
Sunset found her squatting in the grass

Any plans for another anthology? How to submit?

Anyone have the ones from about a decade, or more ago?

>>20027501
>The shit has dried around my ass hole, forming a shit-wafer which might then be eased tenderly off living flesh, observing carefully the delicacy of the substance clinging clinging clinging filamentous, only slowly to release its hold on a bare-again sphincter winking into Turds' End, a recursion of sorts -- O fecal fractal! I clean the dribble from my cock and hand with paper towels first, and then in the sink with an extra moment's attention paid to my finger. Paul's been paid, and Peter had nothing to do with it.
I've posted this before, but I'll repost because I still love it.

>>20027719
Just a short story while I continue work on my novel. It's looking good. I know not to trust Duotrope statistics too much, but I'm already significantly past the point at which most people get rejected.

>>20027397
mostly just writing moralist blogs (probably bad word choice, as I hate extremely sanctimonious people). my first book has been out for awhile and the only two publishers I was given rejected me outright so I'm left to self-publish (unless anyone else wants to take up the torch)

>>20028019
Post an excerpt.

Day 2 of reading Fear and Loathing of the Passive Voice. I'm beginning to understand grammar more, but all the chairs in my house are bending.

>>20028310
there is no chair

>>20028083
I guess

>One must understand that people or mankind, hereforth, is not equal in one instance, for we are many individuals with different strengths and weaknesses and fit into our own "special" sockets or holes or rooms that nature sees fit, its another thing to assume that all people should not be without basic welfare and the right to food, water, shelter and other necessities. So, going back to the "pyramid of consent" and merging it with the welfare given by the state, first to men, and then to the others as seen fit. However, due to the current conditions of society, women shall not and cannot receive welfare considering that it promotes single-motherhood, and the amount of children produced out of wedlock would increase tenfold which means more mouths to feed and a larger tax burden on working men, who by nature of their own biology, do not birth children but simply provide the seed for doing so. Considering the state has no interest in doing so with where welfare is allocated, we must try to approach all men as charity cases, considering most men do not have the ultimate say so in who decides to take care of the children, let alone who decides who is in a relationship, and I believe a reversal of these values over time would have long term benefits.

From my two part essay "On Human Welfare", btw

>>20028649
Here's another excerpt from "The Irreligious And Human Rights"

>Back to the original argument, why are atheists given so much leverage when their ideas stand for nothing? Not believing in something is no excuse to silence people, then again people are punished in Germany for not thinking Jews died by Hitler's own hand, about six million of them (it varies on whom you ask, wink wink). As far as I am concerned, the point stands: No belief - no protection. That means human rights of atheists mean little to me if their subject points to nothing in particular, no defining cultural traits (other than bad body odor and horrible fashion sense, in all seriousness, that may define a subculture in a way but is no way indicitive of an actual culture in the "bigger picture" sense) nor do they possess any linguistic differences nor food nor ethnic predispositions either. They are essentially defined by what they lack, and what they lack only, which is hardly a reason to procure human rights for them. I can understand why someone would get mad at people disrespecting Jews, or Muslims or say, the Basque people of Northern Spain/Southern France. But I have yet to examine anything that atheists HAVE rather than HAVE NOT in terms of sociological definition, so the idea that they are allowed any human rights on basis of that subject alone, is ludicrous.

>>20028310
I'm listening to the video version on youtube and I'm starting to think "muh passive voice" is just the ultimate midwit trap. His few rules for using passive voice correctly are all super obvious/natural to a native English speaker. It's actually pretty freeing.

Looking for a good writing app for Kindle Fire so I can keep writing with my computer dead. Any recommendations?

>>20028716
A strict adherence to grammar rules is the second easiest way to spot an ESL.

>>20028649
Maybe try proofreading to catch all the grammatical mistakes, unwieldy sentences, etc., before trying to get published. This is especially and particularly at-odds with that very imperious tone of the prose, which screams out YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE, I AM WRITING PHILOSOPHY, YES, THIS IS A PHILOSOPHICAL WORK in the same way everyone else does. Unless you're actually a really good writer it just becomes unpleasant to read.

I'm not satisfied with how this came out. Thoughts?

>>20028867
>forgets pic like retar

>>20028649
>>20028670
This reads like a series of 4chan posts, and not even among the best of those. They're like posts I'd skim over because there are hundreds of them in facsimile posted per hour. The quality of the writing tries and reaches but never quite grasps. What it says is posted, again, everywhere and all of the time. I was exposed to no new insight, came away with no sense of emotional impact or force, and have been entirely unaffected by it.

How do you edit/revise a short story? Once you're finished the first draft what is your process for polishing things up? Is it enough to read through again and make comments for yourself, make the changes and then do a second read through?

>>20028927
I just make sure I like it. I trust my taste and in the pervading and restless perfectionism which otherwise ruins my life. I will read what I wrote, many times over, and every time I think to myself that I hate something, I delete it or change it until I no longer hate it.

>>20028938
I don't trust my taste. Perhaps I will once I write more.

>>20028944
It's reading that develops your taste, and writing which develops your ability to enact it.

>>20028927
Sometimes I retype the entire thing. Some of the sentences I end up typing out exactly as they were before, but for many I'll find improvements as I'm forced to go over them again, more so than during a thorough reading.
I always do multiple readings to make tweaks and notes about paragraphs I don't like, regardless of whether I also go through the trouble of retyping.

>>20028947
I read a lot but I don't have the ability to enact, in that case. Which is why I need to edit.

>>20028973
When you retype do you do it from scratch/memory or do you essentially read a paragraph and then rewrite it?

>>20028993
I keep it side by side and read as I type. I think I read a paragraph in full before I reread and type, but I'm not sure I do that consistently.
With retyping from memory I think there'd be a bigger risk of regressing. It's harder to make a sentence worse when the original is in front of you.
It's basically just a trick to force myself to reconsider everything.

>>20028871
Too lazy to read the whole thing but what I skimmed over seemed alright. Might actually read more if there was a full story available

>>20029190
I posted the part before it yesterday, more later hopefully

>>20027500
you'll spend more time editing than you did drafting

>>20028716
I'm getting the same feeling but I haven't finished the paper yet. I'm getting knuckles deep in the grammar part of it because that stuff is fascinating to me. Infinitives and intransitive verbs, and all that.

>>20028924
Well that sounds a YOU problem. Figure it out.

>>20028857
Its actually kind of the point really.

>>20029346
So you wanna do like college idiots do and shit opinions on paper while also denying the holocaust - good luck with that

Can you be a conservative and still be a writer? I noticed the discord servers I’m on are filled with liberals (their need to voice support for Ukraine is a giveaway). One guy was bragging about cutting off discussions with a cover artist because he was Russian.

>>20029518
Look around you retard

What are some good examples of a father/stepfather as a low to mid-tier antagonist that aren't too petty or one-dimensional but still aren't antagonizing their sons as just a test?
Also, how would you deal with an anime-style harem set up where the MC is not a mannequin and two or three of the girls are about to make a move on him?

Yes, I'm giving the royalroad isekai meme a try.

>>20029518
>conservatist=me
>liberal=everyone I don't like
Is this right?

>>20029629
No need to be obtuse, anon.
We all know what liberal means in the context of his question, i.e., anyone who follows along with what the media and institutions are currently saying even if they got there through seemingly anti-establishment sources. I believe the accepted term is libshit since the american left has absolutely bastardized the term 'liberal' to the point it's unusable.
In contrast, a conservative would be anyone who is either against that or who wants to get away from it. Not that these are all actual conservatives but with just the word 'conservative' to work with that's what you get, though there's definitely things like strict traditionalists and actual neo-reactionaries mixed in there.

>>20029576
David Copperfield has this, but Murdstone is kind of one-dimensional inasmuch as Dickens never really went anywhere with his character (by the end, he's back to his old tricks).

Also, if you're writing anime harems, you should be aware of the audience it will attract and write accordingly (assuming you are writing to share your work and not for yourself).

>>20029686
>you should be aware of the audience it will attract and write accordingly
Do you mean I should not try as hard as I'd want to or to follow the tropes more closely to appeal to them?

>>20029576
>father/step father as low to mid-tier antagonist
easier for a woman mc I'd imagine with an arranged marriage. maybe the father owns a decently sized business in town and has a lot of sway. maybe he's the mayor and the mc needs to keep up appearances.
>harem isekai
your biggest concern shouldn't be antogonists or whatever. make that up as you go. you should be devoting brainpower into figuring out how your simple, fun, easy to understand magic system can scale up in complexity and depth

Alright, I think I'm done
>files.catbox.moe/zevqyn.pdf

This is meant to be a sample of my writing to show off somewhere. I did fail to wrap it all up within 1500 words, so I dunno.

>>20029576
>What are some good examples of a father/stepfather as a low to mid-tier antagonist that aren't too petty or one-dimensional but still aren't antagonizing their sons as just a test?
There are countless ways to go about it.
He could be overbearing with high expectations that his son can never live up to and dismissive of any actual achievements.
He could have been an abusive alcoholic who's now gotten sober and wants to reconcile with his adult children, bringing them into conflict as one chooses to accept it while they other can't see him as having changed.
He could be a stubborn and neglectful workaholic refusing to accept that he was a bad father because his work was to support his family financially.
He could be an irresponsible lush whose debts fall on his children.
He could just be a hard man raised by an even harder father who doesn't know another way to be a dad.

lowkey I wanna send my book to a trad publisher just to see if they'll take it. I don't intend on actually following through.

>>20029815
Why not? What do you have to lose?

>>20029518
You fucking faggots need EVERYTHING to be about politics. Can you just fuck off from ONE single place? Literally every single other corner of the internet is absolutely devoted to your obsession with politics and ideology with respect to identity. To answer your question, YES, it's possible to write and be literally fucking anything you want, as long as you just fucking write. Once you start talking about politics, no, then you're talking about politics and the same ingroups and outgroups your withered, dopamine-dependent CNS craves. But, that's no longer writing, is it?

Fuck off.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/49395/the-undying-emperor
Well that's chapter 31

Average views per chapter is increasing, but somewhat glacially. I'm going to have to start work on Act 2 soon

>>20029325
At what point should I call it quits though?
Nearly every single time i see people post their shit here there is a lot of criticism on nearly everything from basic formatting to prose.
The purpose of writing is to convey an idea and be understood. So if I can get the reader to understand and feel what I'm trying to convey, is the work not finished?

>>20029518
Yes, just DON'T bring up politics or anything remotely contraversial in these servers, they are NOT your friends and you are NOT JK Rowling

>>20030025
People here are looking for reasons to dislike anything posted. This is not a support group, it's a hatebox.

>>20030047
>it's a hatebox.
And that's a good thing. Sometimes the critique is just bait themed around what you posted, but the rest is stuff that non-anons and people that actually care about you won't articulate

>>20030047
It's nowhere near a hatebox imo. That implies people here hate for no reason. Everyone has a reason for critiques they give and some of it is just a difference in cultivated taste.

>>20030053
Hateboxes have uses, yes.

Wouldn't be here if I just wanted smoke up my skirt.

Doesn't mean I haven't gotten some asinine responses purely because people have a disdain for posting to Royalroad, for instance.

>>20029707
Both, really. You can play around with the tropes (especially because anime is practically codified in terms of its tropes) but you should understand what your reader wants in order to properly allocate your efforts. They are reading partly for wish fulfillment, partly for entertainment, partly for arousal (both emotional and sexual). Consequently, you should save the tragic backstories and depth of character for the girls, not the protagonist. Treat the protagonist like a literary device, a prop by which the reader can enter into the lives of the girls.

The exception is if the harem aspect is secondary and merely ornamental, as in most fantasy isekai and litrpgs. In that case, the girls are the plot device (basically no different from the power-ups and upgrades and loot the protagonist picks up in the course of his journey) and the focus is actually on the world/setting.

>>20030053
That is a major reason I wont share my work with people I know until its published, maybe even never. Their interests and hobbies are not mine so I cant expect realistic opinions or judgements on my creation save for ''wow you put alot of work into this anon.''
The flip side is that I also have to take strangers critiques as dubious salt at worst and a potential misinterpretation at best.

>>20030200
>''wow you put alot of work into this anon.''
Abso-fucking lutely. Granny may be published but she won't call me an illiterate nigger or call my sample shit

>>20030025
Bad formatting is distracting. It also causes me to make a snap judgment about quality, which is perhaps unfair but hard to suppress. Luckily it's easy to do it right once you're familiar with it, so improving it gets you a lot of bang for your buck.
Bad prose is also annoying, and it means the reader has to spend more effort to understand the ideas. There are writers who I read despite bad prose, but their ideas have to be really interesting to make it worthwhile. Good prose can communicate subtle ideas that you mightn't have room for otherwise.
I don't like that form matters, but it does. There's no avoiding it. You have to call it quits some time, your prose can always be better, but it wouldn't be wise to ignore it.
(I'm only speaking as a reader and occasional writer. I don't post or receive criticism and I haven't been here long.)

how short should a short story be?

>>20030481
Is there no question stupid enough not to ask?

>First time in weeks--the stratus nebulosus clouds broke up. You could see the top of the mountain, so much clarity and the river bending around it. This mighty shit-coloured stream, a great cleanser of human belongings; there were bits of rubbish in it like: a trolley bed frames cars bikes, and the sort. This city is mostly empty aside for the wealth belt "busted cctv's and 7×5ft tele's" some say staring into the reflection of soaked plywood why this city seems to have a nimiety of nothing God only knows. you the mountain was so huge you never really needed time for a clock the just sheer size and shape of the mountain casting a shadow so inauspicious sluggishly skating over the city.

>>20030534
when does a story no longer become short?

>>20030729
When it's no longer short.
Memes aside, most people cap short stories at 8,000 words. I believe the following is right.
>drabble: <500
>flash fiction: 500-1k
>short story: 1k-8k
>novelette: 8k-20k
>novella: 20k-40k
>"light" novel: 40k-60k
>novel: 60k+

>>20030798
thank you handsome

All things considered, this place gives more punctual critiques than r*ddit

>>20030659
explain nimiety
post more

>>20027201
Thank you editor-kun. You are a god amongst men.

There’s people here RIGHT NOW who think they’ll write a book, get trad pubbed, and all their problems will melt away.

>>20031350
You will have hope.
You will believe in yourself.
You will strive every day to make the best of what you do.
You will not be content with mediocrity.
You will improve.
You will make it.

>>20031350
I too, often lay my insecurities at the feet of strangers to make myself feel superior.

>>20031350
well this girl ive been talking to is an editor with connections in the industry
so yeah i do think all my problems are solved

>>20031350
Deluded fools. I think I'm going to write several books, self publish them, and settle into a modest living somewhere a bit above minimum wage while my alcoholism slowly worsens.

>>20029385
I'm sure my writing with improve with more practice I was just being a cock

Poetry Thread is dead. Enjoy

In Europa's ancient tomes lies the secret of man
One must only look through the lines, and then he'll understand.
All that binds and holds together what is big and small
The laws which tell the fate of things, past, present, and all
But then again, were those spaces not filled by your soul
And the words held on some rotting pages from a wasted scroll
Time and time, again and again, have the dumb and smart
Found that well-known wisdom by searching mind and heart.

>>20031576
I hate rhyming poems because when I was a teenager /lit/ made fun of me. So now I do the same, to appear as intellectually big as those guys in 2011. But please continue posting.

>>20031350
Just gonna write litrpg

>>20031603
Nothing wrong with rhyming or consistent rhythm. Music and poetry is a tool meant for helping people remember things, and it becomes degenerate when separated from its purpose. I think, at least. A lot of the poetry that used to be in the poetry thread was a little too out there for me. Here's a poem thingy that isn't rhyming that I posted a while back.


Among the wildflowers, at the shore of the calm river Lethe, sat the shade of Achilles. Upon the approaching of the hero Odysseus, the ghost said:

“Here, in the Elysian Fields,
I sit with you, Odysseus.
You come offering blood, the juice of life, and I must refuse it.
Now, hear me son of Pelops. Long have I sat in Elysium, and eaten of it’s fruits, long enough to extinguish the life in even the lifeless. Too long, methinks.

I have continued my game of kottabos far after the end of the
party, and in doing so, I have shorted myself. Past that black wall of annihilation lies more than can be grasped. Another triumph, another friend, another
Achilles, Odysseus. No more will the blood of the living I take. Instead, let my new blood be as grease for the wheel of history.

And now, I must leave you, my friend, for I have a hunch that the Lethe may lead to the Oceanus.”

Thus he dove in to the still waters, fracturing it’s surface for a few seconds of eternity, and vanished.

And here's another rhyming one

The Draw of the Raised Sword


A sword weald aloft, aloft pierced the sky,
set the firmament true.
Four paths become one, one path to follow,
gold afront cerulean blue.

>>20031638
very good. i enjoyed both.

do you ever feel like you are plagiarizing when you use common figures like achilles? it always seems off to me

>>20031655
>do you ever feel like you are plagiarizing when you use common figures like achilles?
Not at all. They all belong to common myth, and represent concepts and archetypes as old as time. They never really belonged to the individual. I'm using them as they were intended to be used, and helping them be remembered.

what are the rules for writing a haiku? does this count?

I thought I had lost you
but then you came back.
I came back, but not for you.

>>20027501
Paul's deepest meditations came at the commode. The act was the highest form of the visceral. The one tangible divide between himself and the good Lord in heaven, yet the only thing that crossed the barrier between creation and creator. In these ignoble motions lay the first metaphor conceived by man. Far before the Bible, Gita, or Quran came the daily release. It forced life to wait. Meditation for soul and body at once: the entirety of one's being sat cleansed, languorous, enlightened. Paul desperately desired this cleansing after dinner with his family: the twins were fighting over pudding again. His wife asked him to help mediate.

Paul quietly backed away from the breakfast table and into the washroom. With his wife and children in full view, he closed and locked the door with utmost care. Screams made it through; no ritual was complete without an altar sacrifice. He dropped his pants and - somewhat stimulated by his excitement - hopped towards the bowl with a bouncing semi.

He took a deep breath as he wiggled his buttocks to position the commode's hole under his own. The sacred transference always began with an unknowable force. It came from nowhere, with no counterpart, to press the contents of his stomach into his solar plexus. This force always travelled straight down: in his teens, Paul had conjectured that sinuous intestines existed to mystify the tsaheylu of man and porcelain throne. The solar plexus, not the stomach, turned wine to water.

A 'poot' emanated from his cleared passage. A vacuum akin to space had formed in his landlocked body. He released his breath; a baked bean incense signaled the coming of the divine. The smell enticed his mind, drowning out the sound of the fetters outside.

His buttocks spread as he sharted into the bowl. The ensuing backwash measured their separation in a process akin to sonar. He had also conjectured that technology often found its basis in shitting. A brown head peaked out of the widened hole. Divinity had been achieved; he was both man and mother. By way of water-birth, his head was cleared of all earthly thoughts, filling his mind with ecstasy and thoughts of kumbaya. Endorphins ran up his spine, down his arms; they whirlpooled in his skull as a rock hard penis pressed against the edge of the seat. Eyes closed, Paul projected to the end of time and humanity. It was nothing, it was everything; here, his spirit was reborn.

He emerged, renewed like the river that washed away his excrete. Past Paul had problems, present Paul had the moment. No woes or regrets for him. He tuned out his screaming family and left for work.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I spent too much time on this and now I unironically want feedback. Not my best work, but I took a new approach with my writing that I think makes it more palatable.

>>20027501
>>20031687
Picture version here.

Okay I'm going to preface this with saying that this is a draft of mine of the climax of my book. I'll admit that right now I'm still pretty inexperienced at writing, but I might as well send it to the wolves.
https://pastebin.com/wBM4cyvr

>>20031708
I should also mention it's a generic medieval fantasy setting, although with little to no magic.

>>20031364
based

>>20031708
if this is the climax remove all the name references. the reader should already know who's the son of who.

also, no seasoned warrior, in the middle of a siege, forgets their armor.

when the unknown army approaches, the besieged army begins cheering happily. only to later learn its not allies. why? if its too far away to tell who the new army is, they should wait until they know for certain. any army would wait until they were certain. also you use "in this moment" twice in the span of four sentences.

I'm not a big fantasy guy but I liked it.

>write
>make OP character
How does he job?

>>20031768
Thanks anon. I've been skipping around and writing the chapters I like best, so I've been trying to stay safe on what people know. The helmet forgetting was in part so I could have something tension-breaking that gives him time for the twist to be more dramatic.

>>20031796
>literary character
>muh OP
He jobs when you start sending query letters.

>>20031800
:(

>>20031845
Jokes aside, that's too little information for me to help you. Also stop thinking of characters in terms of power levels. It'll hurt your writing.

>>20031798
The biggest issue is this part though: When he wakes up, his men are shouting in excitement and relief. Why? They don't know if the new army is friend or foe.

Imagine it's you. Your city is surrounded. Outnumbered. You're running low on food. You're a conscript. Just some fucking farmer. You've been up all night, shivering in the cold, peering into the dark. Maybe half asleep on your feet, maybe too afraid to be drowsy. Thinking about food and a warm bed. Dawn breaks and you see blurry banners and horsemen in the distance. Oh fuck get the sergeant (or whatever term you choose). Fear, dread, excitement. Your stomach is in knots and you really need to shit because oh fuck ANOTHER ARMY is here and where is the rest of your unit? Maybe these guys are friends, but maybe theyre foe. But you shut the fuck up and wait for someone else to determine who this new army is.

Also I hate tension breaking-comic relief. You worked on building this scene up. It's your climax.

>>20031856
I see what you mean. That part made more sense to me, but clearly it needs re-tailored since it doesn't come across the same way I thought it would. Thanks.

>>20031687
>>20031704
Buming for critique.

I wasn't shitting you guys when I asked for one.

>>20031892
I liked the Paul Poo story. Tell me more about him. What does he do for work? Does he poo in public men's rooms?

>>20031898
Sanitation department and only when the wife denies him sex for too long. He has snuck into women's bathrooms on several occasions just to take a shit though.

Any places where I could improve my writing?

>>20031907
I think sanitation department is too on the nose." Paul's deepest meditations came at the commode. .... It forced life to wait." I would remove the stuff in the middle of those lines. Because I dislike metaphors and similes and analogies.

>>20031679
Haikus follow the 575 and must capture a distinctive moment in time. They almost always work better in Japanese or Chinese.

>>20031704
>>20031892
made me lol
i'm splitting hairs, original is good

>>20031941
True, but sanitation department works for someone who thinks potty is a religious experience.

Did you actually like it as a piece of writing or were you just scatposting?

>>20031966
I appreciate the comments a lot, anon. You may be splitting hairs but this might be the first time I agree with all of a /wg/ anon's criticisms. I legitimately have nothing to add (apart from a confession that the time jump was an oversight on my part.)

Also glad I could make you lol, this is my first time trying to write comedy since middle school.

>>20027556
I hate how much I relate to this one

>>20031968
My feedback was serious. I dislike humor and jokes in general, particularly body humor. But your writing was good. "It forced life to wait" is an excellent line.

>>20031959
757 is no good? Sadly I only speak/write in english but I agree; reading Basho in jap is better than the eng translation

>>20031993
Thanks anon, I'm glad my shitty piece could get to someone with your tastes.

>>20027501
Through a one-way window we see a small blank room with a table in the center, a man sitting on the other end humping his leg, and the backs of two police officers standing on our side, parted so that all three men are in view. The impatient man in the middle gestures wearily as he says,
>Officers, please. Can we make this quick? I've already been through a lot today and-
>We understand, sir, we don't want much of your time, we just want to know your side of the story. Let's start from the beginning.
One officer takes out a notepad, the other gives a sidelong glance to the other, and the middleman goes,
>Thank you. Now. Let's get all the facts straight. Here I was, here's this giant red and black gravelly log of shit just about EXPLODING, out of my asshole anxiously like, a ring on a bride's finger I mean, I mean I promise you the last thing I ever wanted to do was make eye contact with anybody. So here I was this shit just, and the sounds I'm making... have you ever seen a sword swallowing accident? Well anyway, I've been up for 24 hours at this point, how many pizzas, how many energy drinks, I mean my face was beet red. Sitting in this fucking, I don't know what it is. I just wanted to take a shit, man. I'm not going to read INSTRUCTIONS to take a SHIT! So you know, I'm at the park in those stalls with the special glass, was walking home from, that corner store, down at, the corner of College and, whatever, got my jerky and Monster and I start getting the bubble guts. So-
>Sir, can we just cut to the... ?
>Yeah, yeah, but I thought you'd want to know where my head was at, whatever, so here's this shit, turns out, didn't lock the door. I live alone, it's a habit, sue me. But I mean that shouldn't be an issue, I mean you could hear me yelling a mile away I mean I'm not here for a noise complaint, am I? A man's got a right to yell while he's taking a shit. And one like this, an inevitability, a medical situation. Next time I'll bring a stick to bite down on, how about that. So I forget to lock the door, so what, and this is one of those new, if you don't lock the door then the glass doesn't cloud, it's stays see-through! How was I supposed to know?
>Well if it's see through, you can see through it...
The man points between the cops, in our direction as he shouts,
>I THOUGHT IT WAS ONE-WAY! SUE ME!
>But all witness reports claim you were staring the kid straight in the eyes with your mouth wide-
>AS I SAID! As I said, okay? As I said, gravelly log of shit barrelling out of my asshole. I was feeling a lot of things. Pain, pleasure,
>But you had a boner-
>OH MY-, that's WHAT I'm SAYING! GOD it's like none of you've never taken a SHIT before! Look. Guilt, joy, pain, pleasure, I'm not seeing what's right in front of me. My mind is deep in my ass, it's voyaging... I can feel every... serrated... Mary Magdalene could've been there I wouldn't've-
>But you were, cumming...
>Look, I'm not gonna argue with you any longer about this.
wordlimit

New story

Check it out

What a shitty thread

>>20032203
Carlos!

>>20032203
that's what /wg/ is all about

>>20030063
I've had critique where some anon said he stopped two sentences in, called it amateurish, greentexted parts of what I wrote with no explanation. When I asked for elaboration the reply was "no".

>>20032227
gimme some critique sligga check it out the story is right up there sligga check it just posted it sligga

>>20030025
>The purpose of writing is to convey an idea and be understood. So if I can get the reader to understand and feel what I'm trying to convey, is the work not finished?
Perhaps you should communicate that when asking for critique.

>Hey, I want to do the absolute bare minimum to improve and I'm happy to write at or below the skill level of a RoyalRoad ESL, but can I get critiqued for anything that's unclear or ambiguous?

>>20032222
noice

>>20032265
Yet as soon as you preface your request for critique with that shite, the trolls will descend and reduce any meaning you could potentially gain from the answers to near unintelligible levels.

Tips for writing noir lit?

>>20032393
Don't use colored pencils or text.

I was looking at some reviews for some books that have a similar setting to a historical fiction I want to write and one of them made fun of a historical quip I was planning on using for being hackneyed.
Now I want to drop the whole Idea.

Adah fag here. I think I bit off more than I could chew. It feels like the world plot and characters get more and more complex.

any tips on organizing worlds? do I just put any idea i have on some note card and see if i use it later? Work backwards? Feels like this story is going to be way to big for me to handle.

Is it better to use too many commas or too little?
>why not use the optimal amount ESL-kun?
I know but if you had to pick an extreme, which one?

>>20032473
too few

>>20029711
Is Brandon Sanderson a meme or a legit good source to learn how to create a good magic system?

>>20029766
Thanks for these anon, but I was being too vague and didn't mention that as of now, the MC is the talented son of the mistress of a nobleman and I'm struggling to make most of these fit. Sorry about that.

>>20030173
I'm afraid I can't have the harem as ornamental in this case, I've been working on these girls for too long to want to discard them in their current forms, and I already see myself struggling with the worldbuilding and magic system so I'd rather focus on the characters.

The thing that I believe will pose a serious problem for me, though, is having to balance the wish fulfillment with keeping the harem as a functioning adventuring party, especially when some of the girls have pretty strong personalities.
As of now, I'm making the MC in a way that he will always have something profound to connect with any of the girls and hopefully the audience; he's an outcast so he can understand the girl who is an outcast, he was in a situation where he was the underdog so he admires the girl who made her life all about helping the little people, he thinks some things should change so he can understand both the rich girl that fled to the woods and his schizo childhood friend, and so on.

A criticism that I see a lot, and with which I agree for the most part, is that a lot of harem anime MCs are too passive or dense but I do acknowledge that it happens a lot because it's the easiest way to not seal the deal with any of the girls and in turn shaft that girl's fanbase.
However, I think this also gets in the way of the wish fulfillment because people watching/reading this genre want to see the date or the kiss with their favorite girl happen so I want to avoid it and make them happen if possible without destroying the group in the process but I honestly have no idea how to right now.

>>20032647
I almost forgot, and just to be safe, my setting is as of now something like an alternate world fantasy early to mid 20th century America.

>>20032647
>Is Brandon Sanderson a meme or a legit good source to learn how to create a good magic system?
His magic systems have more effort and thought put into them than his prose or characters. His characters exist only to use the magic, his plots are elaborate set pieces to explore the magic systems in anime battle scenarios. It's the one thing that makes him unique in western fantasy fiction.

>>20030025
>The purpose of writing is to convey an idea and be understood
That's like saying the purpose of painting is to depict an object and that the object is visible. It reduces art to its most trivial components and elevates ideas beyond what's warranted. It's the literary equivalent of the ideas guy, who's got all these thoughts and ideas but no ability or ultimately desire to actually focus on the work that goes into creating something good. Ideas are the most common resource in the world. It's ridiculous to think yours are sufficient such that you can ignore the quality of the way you transmit them. Writing isn't shitposting on 4chan. For the most part, due to where we are, most of us are happy to overlook the quality of the written word to focus on what's being said. This is not because of some kind of philosophical statement about ideas vs. execution in literature—it's literally just because of where we are.

When it comes time to stop shitposting on the internet, you have to have some polish if you want anyone to engage. Your ideas aren't important enough to spew out some nominally comprehensible words and call it literature.

>>20032647
>A criticism that I see a lot, and with which I agree for the most part, is that a lot of harem anime MCs are too passive or dense but I do acknowledge that it happens a lot because it's the easiest way to not seal the deal with any of the girls and in turn shaft that girl's fanbase.
>>>/trash/

>>20032723
All of this kvetching doesn't change the fact that the quality of writing is the single least important aspect to garnering an audience.
There's a reason the guy writing shitty monster girl femdom is making $20k per month and your 3800 word description of your Che Guevara wallet is ignored entirely.

>>20032756
>There's a reason the guy writing shitty monster girl femdom is making $20k per month
Where can I find this guy? I'd like to appreciate the art this genius creates.

>>20032756
>money!
>material!
>status!
>my ingroup is better than yours!
I don't understand why people like you even try to write. You don't care about writing at all, and you don't even pretend to.

>>20032756
What's this I hear about monster girl femdom?

>>20032756
>shitty monster girl femdom
based, I'm only here to hone my shitty erotica, fuck che wallets

>>20032756
I want to cash in on these genres, but doing it solely for the money would probably make my writing shit and leave it devoid of any creativity.
or is it that easy to write fantasy/whatever is popular?

>>20032821
it is absolutely that easy to write smut

>>20032799
The only thing that really matters in writing is who reads your story. How you tell this story is tertiary at best.
You're not some unseen genius. You're a posturing failure.

>>20032943
>who reads your story
But this isn't actually mean, is it? What you actually mean is "how many" people read your story, isn't it? Of course, that has no bearing on anything, in and of itself, because huge amounts of people have seen picrel (or its millions of nominally differentiated similars) and that doesn't make it any good. In fact, if the only thing that "really matters" is how many people are made aware of something, you're looking at the most successful artistic movement in history. By your myopic metric, it's the movement which "matters" the most, having been viewed by the most people, having generated the most currency, and so on. It's a work where objects are depicted, emotions are conveyed, and most importantly, you can visually identify it. It exists, it transmits ideas, you can see it. It seems to fit all the "purposes" of art.

What does it make you feel, again?

You can say that you're only interested in making money. It's not some great secret that most people these days care about things insofar as they are able to financially benefit from it. It's not entirely your fault. Our society is explicitly organized to create people exactly like you, who see things only in terms of dollar value, opportunity costs, personal gain. None of this is to say I'm going to stop shitting on you for buying into it completely. It's a choice you make to be Self-Promoting Profiteer #746251594, and the choice you make is shallow, unimportant, and trite.

How shitty would it be to have a fantasy universal translator in the form of a simple magic spell any magician can cast? Is that lame as fuck?

>>20033046
Think of it this way, what is the point of having different languages if they don't matter?

>>20033055
Having a different language is necessary because the main characters are emissaries visiting a far off colony. I do know what you mean though, I am including a segment where the characters have no magician present to perform the spell so they're stuck for quite a while with no way to communicate with their guide who speaks a different language.

>>20032997
I will give you credit for the Alegria comparison, but I'm not sure it serves your point.
As someone who has actually overseen the creation of Alegria art before I can tell you that it serves a real purpose. It isn't used out of some retardation or lack of passion. It uses high contrast colors and ridiculous forms to highlight motion, motion that is generally used to draw attention to the subject. It is absurdly cheap, requires a low skill floor to produce and delivery is quick. It is very corporate friendly due to the abstraction allowing you to hide race and body type. It is utilitarian.
knowing this, how should I respond to a man who petitions me to purchase his landscapes for 100x the price and gives me a delivery time of 45 days instead of 45 minutes? Should I tell him to fuck off even after he gives me a tirade on late stage capitalism ruining art? Of course I should, and of course I did.
To this day that man is still posting his landscapes to Instagram, all of which have zero engagement. He has a public LinkedIn that is showing a 6 year work gap that ends in a service industry job. Is he more of an artist than the woman who threw together an Alegria piece from clipart in his place? Maybe, but if he died today who would remember him as an artist?
Before you throw around words like "Shallow" "Unimportant" or "Trite" try to remember that there is nothing more shallow, unimportant or trite than an unappreciated artist.

>>20033092
>the characters have no magician present to perform the spell so blah blah blah blah
Oh nooooooooo!!!! How will the characters Slay the Evil Dragon without a magician to cast the spell?!?!?!??! Nooooooooo!!!!!!

>>20033123
It's just a hobby for fun anon I'm not in this for a career. Also this is the first fantasy I've done and there are no dragons >:(

>>20033122
>Maybe, but if he died today who would remember him as an artist?
You would, wouldn't you? You do, after all, remember him. Why is that? Despite the lengthy defense of capitalistic, market-friendly "art," and despite the idea that nobody would remember him, here you are, remembering him.

I'm not asking you to mount a defense of the art market of late capitalism. It is, as we both know, completely indefensible. I'm asking you to recognize the dynamics and, if you can't manage the courage to be unappreciated (read: unrewarded by the economy), at least dial back the fucking full-throated endorsements of the economic pollution of art. "Purposes" of art end precisely where the beancounters close their pocketbooks and Excel spreadsheets. Endorsing a market-friendly, quantitative approach to writing where the idea and its comprehension are the only "meaningful" elements is a prostration before economic forces that, despite how hackneyed and overexposed this idea might be, very much continue to kill art regardless. In a world where literally everything and everyone is attached to their dollar amounts, I just want art to be able to breathe a bit... even if that means being unappreciated by a machine that doesn't deserve your obeisance in the first place.

I want this general to be a place where people can reach for more than just a paycheck for writing smut or some passing, tangential internet fame. There are no places left untouched by the restlessness of economic pursuit. Please fuck off to Reddit if you want to preach the guidelines to economic success in the art market.

>>20033175
>You would, wouldn't you?
I remember him as less of an artist and more as a screeching bag of onions. Probably not the impression he was going for when he dumped 700 hours into his portfolio.

As for your main point, I think you're missing the forest for the trees here. Art has always been about being seen and heard. It's about expressing oneself and sharing that expression with others. How do you go about measuring quality in such a thing? Do you take out a ruler and see how it lines up to the textbooks? Is every t crossed and every i dotted? No, it is subjective, and with all subjective things it is measured through a collective appreciation. That collective appreciation just happens to take the form of payment in todays "late stage capitalism".
I could understand your gripes if you were a master of your craft with a real following and a man who just happened to reject the financial boons associated it, but that's not what you are. You are lashing out at the people who are appreciated while being unappreciated and unrewarded. The success of smut might make you upset, but far more people are enjoying Wolfgirl Femdom 4 than are listening to you be upset. No matter how noble your posturing is, it is still posturing.
But don't see all of this as some condemnation of your outlook on art. If you can comfortably live as some real life Ingo Cutbirth then go for it, just cut back the crazed condemnation of those who can't. You probably don't want the posthumous documentary made on you to have a large section dedicated to you lashing out at more successful artists.

>>20033302
>I remember him as less of an artist and more as a screeching bag of onions
Thanks for making me snort green tea out of my nose dickhead!

>>20033302
>I could understand your gripes if you were a master of your craft with a real following
This is because you're incapable of thinking for yourself. It's because your entire worldview collapses if you can't appeal to the consensus. Your outlook encapsulates perfectly the postmodern idea that since nothing can be definitively defined, you might as well just go with the consensus opinion. It's lazy, culturally nepotistic, and thoughtlessly conformist.

You're not capable of interacting with what's said. Let me state outright that I don't give the slightest fuck if I die completely unknown. Am I a master? I would never call myself that. But I am committed to mastery. I'm committed to the process by which art becomes more than just an appeal to fame and personal gain. I am categorically not "posturing". I am speaking about the philosophy by which I am actually living my life. That is, by definition, the antithesis of posturing. Do I hate certain things? Absolutely. I hate the acceptance of mediocrity more than anything, and nothing screams mediocrity louder than shifting focus away from the mastery of the form towards factors extrinsic to writing, i.e., towards things like popularity, commercial success, appreciation.

I reject the idea that anything that cannot be measured by its dotted-i's and crossed-t's can be measured at all. Subjectivity can't be measured. Only economic success can be measured, and there are rules and guidelines and Algerias and On Writing books that'll shepherd you towards it. It is this exact conflation of quality with commercial success I have been trying to address this entire time. Commercial success has a simple formula, and to see it preached here, on fucking 4chan of all fucking places, is completely at-odds with the values we originally represented. You're spouting conformity to the standards and appeal to the status quo for support. No matter how many ways you try to dress up the pig, that's always going to be a pig, and you're always going to be smooth soulless, bugman pig farmer raising them in cages stacked floor to ceiling.

Reddit might be a better place for you.

>>20033380
Once again you've lost the forest for the trees in an attempt to posture.
You're unsuccessful financially because you are unappreciated, not unappreciated because you are financially unsuccessful. If you created anything worth appreciating then you would have all the clout you need to back up your arrogance. You wouldn't need to turn to such appeals to the consensus as
>on fucking 4chan of all fucking places, is completely at-odds with the values we originally represented.
You'd may as well have posted yourself in a Guy Fawkes mask and a GamerGate t-shirt. Assume a Mr. Oinkers position and insert a sharpie for bonus points. Maybe something about returning to reddit? Hmm that could work..
It's all well and good if you want to live as a Henry Darger impersonator. It's a little embarrassing that you introduce yourself as such, but I'm not here to judge. All I'm asking is that you don't autistically shriek at anyone who doesn't feel the same way about subsisting off of shoe leather soup.

>>20033380
This guy's right. Making money off something doesn't mean it's art. You make art to express something. Even if no one likes it.

>>20033483
I see now that you're a gigantic retard and regret interacting with you. Hopefully someone else will get something out of what I've written here.

>Heh. Unfortunately, you seem to have missed the forest for the trees.

>>20032802
I'm very happy to see someone else likes to whale money to make their characters come to life

>>20033519
Any artist who accepts the money isn't worth acknowledging. Hacks who've thrown away the pursuit of mastery to play the game of late stage capitalism.

>>20033506
Oh god a wojakpost made me laugh. Do I have to commit sudoku now

>>20033527
But I want to watch my mechanic daughterus giggle as they tinker with their rocket engines in deep space

>>20033495
That may be true, but is it wrong to seek out those who may appreciate it? While the ideal may be creating art to express yourself, regardless of who, if anyone, might appreciate it, to only express oneself in a vacuum, seen by no one, feels hollow. I believe there is a balance that can be found between the extremes of creating solely for the pursuit of mastery, and creating solely to be appreciated by as many people as possible.

Personally, I hope my writing can find an audience and make some amount of money, but I would be satisfied if it made enough to cover the costs of producing my next work.

>>20033572
Man I need an idea that's easy to write and sellable. Robot sex stories?

>>20033572
Dude. Do whatever you want. But if you feel the need to justify it to random crackheads on a Brazilian melon squeezing forum you probably know you're not living up to your own ideals.

>>20033593
The true redpill is understanding that no matter how deep the fetish you center on is, there is a market for it. A market that only grows more ravenous the more obscure and taboo that fetish is. This is why Epstien and the diaperfur artists have amassed so much money.

I have tons of ideas but a weak writer. How much should I pay an editor?

>>20033567
No, you're only allowed to have FOSS cunny.
>Insert your own picture of Henry Darger art here because I'm not being put on a watchlist by googling that

>>20033572
That's all I was advocating for. I'm not going to shit on some outsider artist for his autistic conviction, I just wanted him to understand that being an outsider artist is a privilege that not everyone can afford. No amount of grandstanding over his autistic conviction is going to change that.

>>20033620
Ideas aren't gonna get you anywhere alone. I'd say maybe 5% of the writing process is getting an idea, if even that. Gotta read, gotta write, gotta practice. That's the way to go.

>>20033527
>late stage capitalism
remove the first two words here and your post makes sense

>>20033618
>>20033708
Depends on the genre. Ideas and basic ESL grammar can carry you through an erotica.

>>20033620
>>20033708
Depends on the genre. Ideas and basic ESL grammar can carry you through an erotica.

>>20033773
But then you have to write the shit 50 year old moms will read. I dunno if he wants to do that.

>>20033663
I don't want FOSS cunny. I want mechanic girls in space with a team of interesting characters having comfy adventures

im writing a western that has toads and frogs in it

>>20033867
will buy on release

>>20033663
>not everyone can afford
There you go again, couching your desires in the base economics. It's not that you can't afford artistic integrity, it's that you are unwilling to attempt it because your preference is for commercial success. You want to be able to say shit like this:
>The purpose of writing is to convey an idea and be understood
And have the "clout" (>>20033483) to say, "Well, I make money! I'm right!" All of this is just squirming away from admitting you don't actually care about writing. You care about writing insofar as it serves as a vehicle for a purpose: to make money. Do you see why you're even getting shit on in the first place? You made a dumb statement on the purpose of writing. This statement wilfully excluded all the elements that distinguish Joyce from a pamphlet describing Dublin. You proceeded to fall back on consumer consensus (which has, incidentally, chosen masterworks like 50 Shades and generational auteurs like Stephen King) to back up the idea that writing is about depicting visible objects, entering the depiction into the lottery of public opinion, and hopefully extracting currency from the pockets of the millions upon millions of indiscriminate retards who turn their noses up at an adverb because they've been told to by authors who preach their retarded, puerile stabbings in the dark at the general direction of writing in the hopes that you follow them into the market they've already cornered, backed by the economic weight of an industry that wants nothing more than to take your money.

It's a racket, and you're just a small time racketeer trying to edge your way into the game just so You Can Done Gots Yores in lieu of working a job whose soul-sucking, inhuman mundanity is the direct result of the machine you are simultaneously attempting to leverage to your advantage and escape.

Fuck you, nigger.

>>20033892
Feeling a strong 6200 mSv from this post.

>>20033906
I can't kill myself. I hate everything too much to let it kill me.

>>20033892
What is this autistic shitfit? People are allowed to make money of their work retard.

>>20033892
It's so sad the greatest author of our time will be swept into the dustbin of history. At least he never sold out.

>>20033915
Fuck you!

>>20033931
Whoever he is, I hope we never see a word of his work. We don't deserve to.

A pox on any of you who make money.

>>20033937
Wasn't there an argument in here a few weeks ago about how modern society doesn't deserve good art anymore? Are we seeing a trend toward an "underground art scene" with the avenues of the internet? I for example just found out about the Passage Prize this morning. I had no idea it even existed.

So, I'm starting a novel. There's a scene I really wanna get down right now, but it's at the midpoint of the story. Should I just write it now and figure out a way to get to it, or start from the beginning?

>>20034060
Write it down and save it in a new file for when you get to that point in the story. I've done this plenty of times with the scene in my head that prompted writing the story in the first place, and sometimes the story develops in a way that the scene never comes into play at all. But if I hadn't written that scene with the aim to get to it someday, I'd probably have never gotten very far into the story. I'd have been writing 30k words just to get to something I wanted to write immediately and that's just no fun unless you like delayed satisfaction.

>>20034037
>$20,000 in prizes

I'm getting into writing erotica and I need a place to exhibit my work and ideally get paid. Where do I start?

>>20034037
>huh Passage Prize, I'll check it out
>have to scroll over a uniformed nazi just to read their intro paragraph
Can't we be just a LITTLE bit approachable so that I could in theory share it with someone outside of my edgelord podcast community?

>>20034105
Good advice, I do the same. I've also started just keeping each chapter in its own word doc based on an anon's advice which makes these "future use" drafting items really convenient.

>>20034121
Depends on the type of Erotica and the format. I think Royal Road is the best for Patreon baiting so you may want to play around that.

>>20034105
>that's just no fun unless you like delayed satisfaction.
I like edging. Does that count?

>>20034135
I am jobless in a few weeks and ready to write whatever makes the $$$. I have some familiarity with anime/manga and various 'specialty' interests, so willing to get down and dirty.

>>20034153
Take a look at the rules on Royal Road. I think every single post is vetted by an actual janny before it's uploaded so you do have to follow them
Other than that here are some proven go-to's.
>set your story up as a generic anime fantasy.
>femdom seems to sell more than maledom for some reason
>2500-3000 words per chapter.
>one chapter per week
>keep upload times consistent
>stay 5-6 chapters ahead at all times just incase you get sick
>dump 3-4 chapters over the first couple days just so new readers have a hook to keep them coming back
>first chapter is the most important as 70% of readers will drop it there
Follow those and you can get by on ESL English if your scenarios are interesting enough.

>>20034149
Yes, but for me, if I'm writing a historic fantasy and the scene that prompted me writing it is a romance scene that moved me so deeply it could spawn a multibook series, you bet your ass I'm writing that scene first.

>>20034194
Thanks anon, this is a very good starting point.

>>20034233
Another couple important things.
>Get a cover before you upload. Coverless series are almost always passed over
>don't be discouraged by low engagement at the start. Many of the readers there are autists who will only touch a story if they can binge 40 parts in one sitting
Don't think I'm forgetting anything else. Good luck anon.

>>20028732

What's the first?

>>20032737
Do I really have to check /trash/?
Apparently some of their generals are actually good.

>>20034135
>>20034194
>royal jew road
shilling for that shit site is all these thread ever are

>>20032178
Too much namedropping for my liking at the start, but I get you're going for a realistic thing. I don't know what you're trying to do with the "r/askreddit" and incel bit, but you do you - I'd swap it for "stage guys" or something else in that part... if nothing else to make MC look less like an insecure incel himself.

I like the trivia bit, sounds like what (you)'d use to make small talk.

...

I think you can combine those two chapters into one, even a chapter 3 if you have it. I feel they're a bit too short.

Out of that sample, the weakest part was page 2. The mental timeline of making sure everything's ready for his date works... to set MC as a dork like previously mentioned, so when meeting his influencer crush goes well at the start I felt like reading the begining of a celeb fanfic. You brought my attention back with the lucky cig trivia, and you left a nice tease at the end with the secret plan.

I think you share a problem with me - using these characters. For the most part I think you used them well, but I know that I *try* to find places to fit them in, and in later editing I realize a dot or comma would be better

I don't know where you're going with this and the small talk + real life references are effective in its banality. Keep going.

>captcha: JAJAS
I think Hiro's laughing at it in spanish though

>>20034399
in fairness people are actually posting their work to retard road where it can be read and commented upon

>>20032463
I'll give you advice that was given to me here, but I learned the hard way with my middle school story:
You're writing a book. You're not worldbuilding for a tabletop campaign.

It's fine if you have a corkboard with the character's backstories and planned arcs along a timeline, but don't get lost in the setup and focus on making.

You'll choke if you swallow a piece of steak whole. Section your story and planned work similarly. If you don't think you're capable of writing a 40K wordcount novella, try writing short adventures instead.
>Adahfag 1: Adah stops the bandits of villagetown and discovers her brother is hot
>Adahfag 2: Adah discovers the wonders of cunnilingus while investigating the mysterious ghost coven
>etc.

And if the series is continuous, just blend adahfag 1 & 2 to make a bigger book

>>20032473
Too few. it's easier to read lots. of. short sentences.

>>20034257
>What the first is?

>>20034133
Being exclusive is what keeps it underground

You don't insert your fetishes into your writing, right anon? Right?

>>20034650
everyone thinks i have a thing for feet but really it's just important that you know my characters don't wear shoes

>>20034650
It would seem really obvious that I had inserted one of fetishes in my story, so no, I try to avoid that. I can't help but write women in the style of women I find most attractive though.

>>20034650
Of course I do. I mean, it would be impossible for me to write a submissive female anyway because I have zero interest in them. All of my female characters are at least tangentially aggressive or assertive, even if they are paired with a dominant partner.

>>20034650
Sometimes...

Anxieties catalyst into a wave, but the people wash away and the concrete still stands. Leaving only a nostalgic watermark. Time slips through into mildew leading humid desires and heavy minds. The waves crash and rip apart, the concrete still stands. White foam impregnates hearts to satiate the new wave. The concrete still stands. Sapient wildebeests shrieking at clouds, renouncing nothing. Skies pass to ash and memory rides on debris. Rust phosphorous sieges skin girders on rye fields. Waves dry, rubble prescience.

>>20034650
>not inserting your fetishes
why even write at that point?

>>20034650
The fear of impermanence is both a recurring theme in my writing and the root of my fetishes
Otherwise no

>>20027501
i am unsure about this

>>20034650
>it says here you don't insert yourself, as the author, into your novel as a character. care to explain?

>>20034775
Explain what fetish of yours involves impermanence

>>20034718
Someone help me, im in so mcuh debt its insane

>>20035014
Just don't pay it. It's that simple.

>>20034931
Vore, various kinds of transformation, sometimes plain snuff. The destruction and (permanent) alteration of people fascinates me.

>>20034797
"Dr. Pepper belt buckle" and "gravestone for Mr XXL" brought tears to my eyes, funny stuff mayn.

>>20035033
Worked for my last boss. He was delinquent on so many bills it was insane. We'd regularly lose internet at work and get calls and services from legal bodies and credit collectors. His credit score was below 300.

>>20035291
credit score isn't real. "sell" all your stuff. declare bankruptcy. problem solved. problem staying solved.

Why isn't webnovel.com included in the self publishing pastebin?

>>20028721
pen and paper

When did you grow out of your literary fiction phase?

>>20034194
>every single post is vetted by an actual janny
What in the absolute fuck

>>20035530
Right now. Let's write some fun pulp fantasy!

>>20035530
I'm kinda growing into it after starting Moby "Big" Dick.

>>20035291
>>20035033
>>20034718
please help me. i need my writing sample to be good so i can help pay for my life

>>20035535
Only the first chapter, takes maybe 24 hrs, not each subsequent one.

>>20035535
That's right. For some people it's the only way they can get someone to read their stuff.

>>20035590
>first chapter is totally innocuous
>book contains explicit liveleak-level violence, fantasy racism, woman beating, mass slaughter of innocents (including children), torture, etc.
I wonder how far I'll get before they take it town.

>>20034399
Cope. Isekai is the future

>>20035624
Not him but wait why don't they let more edgy stuff on the platform? You gotta keep it pg-13? Out of what you listed I only have fantasy racism and mass murder.

Post your novel ideas. It's not like they're going anywhere.
>A lonely author discovers he can make any girl from any finished novel he writes come to life (maybe for a limited time, idk yet)

>>20031687
>>20031704
Bumping. Yeah, I know, I'm a piece of shit.

>>20035419
Because it's chink and no one should ever post their work there ever. I wouldn't even wish webnovel.com on my worst enemies.

>>20035822
A redditor man child gets a robot from his work and he finally learns to grow up.

>>20035807
I dunno, allegedly they only filter politics and porn but I don't buy it. Plus, in my case it's the protagonist doing basically all of that shit. Considering they have shit like "The Vespidian" on RR you certainly don't have to keep it PG-13, but I'm wondering what exactly would piss off the mods enough to delete a story.

how do you write an interesting antagonist race? ive been working on a scifi project ive had kicking around for years, i finally managed to make the humans very interesting but now the evil aliens feel rather dull; theyre little more than vehicles for the plot to move forward, mindless, violent savages with not much deeper to them. the humans comparatively have alot more going on culturally, socially and psychologically. im trying to think of things to make the aliens more interesting but its harder to think of how an alien culture would diverge in thousands of years, im trying to write an entire background and lore for them and sometimes i feel its pointless and i might as well just use them as le ebul ayylmaos

how do you write an interesting antagonist race? ive been working on a scifi project ive had kicking around for years, i finally managed to make the humans very interesting but now the evil aliens feel rather dull; theyre little more than vehicles for the plot to move forward, mindless, violent savages with not much deeper to them. the humans comparatively have alot more going on culturally, socially and psychologically. im trying to think of things to make the aliens more interesting but its harder to think of how an alien culture would diverge in thousands of years, im trying to write an entire background and lore for them and sometimes i feel its pointless and i might as well just use them as le ebul ayylmaos

im trying to keep the basic idea of warlike aliens at the very least but im willing to make some changes considering how many ive made to the humans

How many words have you written today? I’ve written 800.

>>20036179
i write on pen and paper so i dont know. about 3-4 pages but i spent the morning playing vidya

>>20036182
What vidya did you play today? I played Earthbound and Kotor 2. Both gave me inspiration in different ways.

>>20036179
0

>>20036184
dark alliance for ps2. havent played it in almost 20 years so mostly for nostalgia. been playing kotor 2 lately, it did kinda inspire some of the human factions in my scifi but im trying to avoid too much star wars inspiration

>>20036163
Give the aliens a more "human" motive.

I suppose a uniform group of barbaric sadists is already plausible though.

>>20036179
I've written nothing today, but on the flip side I'll finish turning my writing samples into actual samples by bedtime

Here's the poem sample

>>20036301
its plausible, but not particularly interesting. they arent entirely uniform either, their fleets are made up of different tribal legions that compete with each other for rank and power, only working together when theres a sufficient threat
so far tho their motive is "fuck humans" i need to think that part over a bit more

>>20036163
From the warlike idea... You could make them a race of impulsive creatures who didn't evolve self-control as they got smarter, and instead their brains gained a dependence for feeling threatened. This resulted in most of their homeworld getting nuked into inhospitability which nourished their space race, and eventually the winning country became the space empire.

Depending on how empty your universe is, you can say that different colonies regularly host mock-skirmishes where they kill each other to gain prestige (their murder-hoboness can be balanced with high birthrates), or simply that physical sports are super popular.

Discovering an alien race is, for them, a challenge they havent faced in eons. They're equally amazed, curious, and terrified of the discovery that they're not alone in the universe...but most of all they can't wait to take a bite at their new neighbors.

They live and breathe war, but they have reasons for it. You also have some biology lodged into there, and if it's your alley you can make a sideplot of an autistic alien that lacks the murderfrenzy becomes a perfect ambassator between humans and his people

>>20036354
good ideas, i already figured they have high birth rates since they lay egg clumps like frogs.
im trying to imitate the feeling of movies like alien, i want the galaxy to be a desolate and lonely place, these aliens are some of the few space-faring sapients besides humans, but there are lots of primitive races at varying levels of advancement. its empty at first but gradually fills in over time; im planning on it being a 20,000 year long saga. not sure how to even structure that yet, obviously some long stretches of it will have to just be lore blurbs but i wanted it to be a multigenerational saga like the metabarons or the niflung cycles . so theres lots of opporunities to explore how human/alien contact would change cultures over time. i figure the evil aliens have taken a liking to cigarettes, drugs and alcohol, fuck it why wouldnt they? natives scrambled over each other to get alcohol, and europeans did the same for tobacco. its all pretty rough still when it comes to the aliens desu the humans are much more fleshed out and i dont really want to give away the ideas for them in case i actually manage to publish this.

>>20036394
Fuck, now that you mention it... The aliens would totally be down for drugs.
Imagine they see humans as weak cowards when a scan reveals that they intoxicate themselves with flammable ethanol and inhale toxic fumes recreationally.... You could go super cheesy and put space commando man and his alien counterpart being wounded next to each other, then commando man offers him a cig as a joke and blows his mind

>>20036411
i already have one scene in my head where the aliens first find cigarettes, and one of them, hearing that cigs are some kinda stimulant, just eats one

>>20036419
Well, there you have a character arc
>eats cigs --> character development --> smokes cigs

>>20036426
thanks for the ideas im gonna get back to it , this should help

>alien insectoid race that wipes out all other life on their planet.
>this race used to subsist on the feces of those other races
>invades our planet
>conquers earth and turns us all into shitting slaves
I’m gonna make it bros. This is writing itself.

>>20036451
Can they not shit themselves?

Do anons know a place where I can find prompts like >>20027501? I only know about the subreddit, which is filled with fantasy trash.

>>20036473
I tried adding a "prompt of the thread" to the OP, but no one did it. Alternatively it could be turned into a "Prompt of the day" as a normal post based on something generated randomly

>>20036394
>im planning on it being a 20,000 year long saga
The big problem I see with that is readers empathize with and relate to characters. Individual characters. 20k years is doable but I'd break it down into only a few large chunks so that the reader can get a feel for how things are in each era and develop an attachment to individual characters.

>>20036456
They can, but very little is produced and it’s considered a delicacy on their home world. Every lesser bug is expected to hand over their meager shits at designed facilities where it can be given to those of higher status.
There was a time when even the lowliest of cockroach had their own pool of dung. Now the average bug can lose their forelimbs if they’re caught snacking on their own refuse.

>>20036488
>>20036394
Also, unless humanity hits a dark age that'd make the medieval times blush, people will be unrecognizable 20k years after the start of your book. They may become alien themselves

>>20036503
Do they have scheduled daily shit-milkings?

>>20036510
The bugs do not but the human slaves do. I’ve incorporated real world gut massages that are used on quadriplegics to force dung through the system faster.

>>20036523
Wait, they quadruple-amputee people to make them shit slaves???

>>20035822
pige

>>20036473
get a book called The 3am Epiphany. It's a book of writing exercises.

>>20036451
that sounds incredible anon do it
>>20036503
trash economy. we trade and sell using cubes of poop. its gonna happen man
>>20036488
yeah thats kinda the plan, long stretches of thousands of years will be skipped and just explained in lore or whatever, but certain parts in the timeline i feel like you need to experience through a character otherwise it will either be too weird or unbelievable. ive already completed 8000 years of history with a filled in timeline of events and everything, but im still struggling deciding how to break it down into anything remotely manageable or relatable. maybe a core series following a single family line or something and then hundreds of short stories covering other elements going on, idk
>>20036507
things get extremely fucked for humans by 10,000, not endangered or going extinct but things become extremely desperate by that time, i dont wanna give away too much again because its honestly a pretty good idea and trust me ive had alot of shit ones so i know a good one. humanity will become unrecognizable but in a way thats good, trust me itll work, and certain factions try to hold onto old human culture more than others so those will become the protagonist factions i guess

>>20036531
No, I’m just referring to the real world application of the gut massages. Quadriplegics don’t just lose control of their limbs but their bowels well. The feces needs to be massaged down and scooped out with a spoon. Care workers have it rough.

>>20036549
You should make the shit-slaves amputees

>>20036555
trips confirm amputee shit slaves

>>20036561
In time, my sins will crush me

>>20035900
Is there an actual reason besides it being chinese?

>>20036566
one off from getting a quad 6666....youre playing with fire anon

>>20036578
Good.

What’s stopping you becoming another cog in the machine once you make it?

>>20036322
>orange fruit sun
This is a little clunky but the image is alright. Maybe you could say “ripe orange sun” to give off the same feel.

>>20035530
Probably this year. I realised there’s no industry nor readers left for it. Most professors I met over undergrad and postgrad didn’t even care about literature that much, it’s just a cash grab for them to teach classes on it.

>>20036917
I certainly need to read some more poetry

>>20036905
Even if I'm not a cog in the machine, I'm still a grain in the hourglass.

>>20036905
What the fuck is Popsi?

>>20037044
It's like pipis, but as a drink

how do I get my adhd ass back into writing? I used to be fucking obsessed with it and couldn't go a minute without thinking about story ideas. Now i can't think about it for 5 minutes without getting bored

>>20037095
turn off youtube and go somewhere thats quiet but you cant masturbate

>>20037095
nicotine

>>20034797
The feeling of pain before a massive shit needs to be included in there.

Any author tubers here?

>>20037193
author what?

May I have critique on my Murakami rip-off about a schoolgirl who shoots a policeman?

https://pastebin.com/vEre7Jpr

>>20037207
Youtube influencers that give writing advice, majored in creative writing, and sell their books through self publishing.

They're usually experts in the field since all of them have a college degree.

>>20037286
Lol, I know people like this and they're so annoying irl. I went to a writing group at uni and this asinine bitch started shilling her self-published trash.

>>20037229
I'd add ... at the end of the second sentence instead of comma.

I pretended not to read the end of line 19.

I get that I'm reading Yuki's monologue, but it's missing.... something. I dunno if it's that I don't see a middle schooler talking like her, if it's how the sentences are structured....

By line 44 I haven't seen anything to make me picture Yuki as a yandere-tier psycho who uses ninja skills to disarm a policeman and threaten him.

There's some fun in it, but I don't think I would've gone past the pathetique joke if I wasn't trying to critique an anon's writing. You wrote a whacky character from the supporting cast of an anime; was it your goal?

An ancient evil awakens. Can the protagonist of your story become the chosen one or is the world doomed?

>>20037380
Thank you for reading it. She's a high schooler, if that changes anything. I was just trying to write about a character who does something crazy from pent-up frustration living in bumfuck nowhere. Set in Japan just for the heck of it, plus I had been living there at the time.

>>20037229
>Call me Piano Sonata No. 8, because that is Pathetique.
I hope you die. I wish death upon you.

>>20037423
XD! It seems like a lot of people either hate that line or love-hate it.

Put Nipcat on RoyalRoad! Tell the mods to stop being censorfags

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/allow-danny-diezs-the-nipcat-saga-to-be

>>20037988
Did they give a reason for denying it? What fucked up content did you add?

>>20036541
Here's the first exercise from that book. The exercises are divided into sections on various topics, the first topic is POV. I'll repost this in the next thread as this one is almost dead now and hopefully some of you try it because it could be fun. The exercise:

THE RELUCTANT I. Write a first-person story in which you use the first-person pronoun (I or me or my) only two times—but keep the I somehow important to the narrative you’re constructing. The point of this exercise is to imagine a narrator who is less interested in himself than in what he is observing. You can make your narrator someone who sees an interesting event in which he is not necessarily a participant. Or you can make him self-effacing, yet a major participant in the events related. It is very important in this exercise to make sure your reader is not surprised, forty or fifty words into the piece, to realize that this is a first-person narration. Show us quickly who is observing the scene. 600 words

THE PEOPLE WE TEND TO LIKE most are those who are much more interested in other people than themselves, selfless and caring, whose conversation is not a stream of self-involved remarks (like the guy who, after speaking about himself to a woman at a party for half an hour, says, “Enough about me, what do you think of me?”). I’m not trying to legislate only likeable characters or narrators. I use the example of successful social selves above to give an idea of what is needed in successful fiction. Another lesson you might learn from this exercise is how important it is to let things and events speak for themselves beyond the ego of the narration.

>>20038001
Nothing super fucked up, just disses on feminists and a kid who unwittingly eats a laxative bagel for lunch.

>>20038031
It might be the word "Nip" in the title. The only two rules they have listed has one of them being about racial slurs.

>>20038043
Nah the moderator named John straight up returned it and said "this is too politically provocative".
But yea the title can get some giggles in itself

I feel like writing is the one skill it's largely impossible to get good at, either you're in tune with what makes quality storytelling and resonant characters or you aren't

>started learning how to draw, how to compose music, and how to write 3-4 years ago
>made giant and obvious strides in my drawing and music skills since and actually starting to like the stuff I make
>feel like I haven't made an inch of progress when it comes to writing and still have no clue what I'm doing even though I understand the theory better

>>20038189
Think of when you were a kid and you played pretend on the playground. You can make a board and build figurines and act out a story, then write it. That's one way to improve.

>>20037397
My protagonist already dealt with the end of the world and won by sheer dumb luck

>>20038189
Lots of writers say they have no idea what they are doing and each time they sit down to write it's like they have to learn it all over again and remember what it is to write. Lots of good writers also say you absolutely can be taught how to write. Maybe there is some inherent spark within some people that will make their writing have some special quality, but that aside, everyone can write a story that is effectively told.

>>20038209
My protagonist loses because he let his emotions get in the way of logic

>>20038198
But I don't see how, for example in drawing, there are objective ways to improve basically any subject by adding fundamentals: clear perspective, good colors, pleasing composition, believable gesture etc will work wonders regardless of what the idea is, and referencing the theory while doing the practice helps you understand how to improve.

In comparison when it comes to writing, 90% of the work is having the right ideas, knowing which emotions to hit, what kind of characters to have, what would captivate the audience etc. No one cares about a story with solid fundamentals if the premise is boring and the characters are uninspiring, and that's not really something you can train.

>>20038219
Now that I have some skill in drawing and music, I can look at people struggling with their art and music and point out what to do and what to focus on in order to improve, I can see a clear path from their lack of understanding to them being able to express themselves better.

But when it comes to writing, I'll give an example, I've had the TV on in the background lately and I realized two very similar animated shows run on two channels roughly around the same time, neither has bad fundamentals but one of them I just tune out for background noise, and the other one gets me to drop what I'm doing to see how an episode will play out. I have no idea what I would have to say to the writers of the first show to get them to make their show more interesting like the second one, I understand that the second one is more creative and unpredictable and has more endearing characters etc, but how do you get someone to write more creatively and unpredictably, and to make their characters more appealing? What is the practice method, how do you judge yourself, how do you know when you're hitting the correct "notes"?

For example I tried being more unpredictable by writing out all the obvious ways a plot would resolve and then crossing them out to do something else, but how do I know the audience will care for that new solution I came up with and won't think I'm just being random? How will I know the audience thinks the characters are endearing and not annoying?

>>20038263
>In comparison when it comes to writing, 90% of the work is having the right ideas

Ideas are cheap in writing, I think. The story is in the telling. Have you never met someone who tells a story about a night out or a day they had at work years ago that is absolutely enthralling despite the actual content being quite mundane were you to summarise it or to examine it as a bare bones plot?

>>20036329
make it so the different tribal legions are all competing in a hunt and the humans are the target for the hunt. they can all follow slightly different religious beliefs but they all compete in the hunt to please their gods. you could also have a higher ranking race of the aliens that may not be adept at combat but they oversee all the other races and tell them the objective for the hunt. you could have it to where the higher ranking race talk directly to their god and that’s why the different warrior race tribes follow them and listen.

>>20038278
That just brings us back around to captivating the audience, I was always one of those guys who can make an interesting personal story sound boring, and I have no clue what to do to improve that nor did I run into any theory or material explaining it in a way that can be taught

>>20038263
>In comparison when it comes to writing, 90% of the work is having the right ideas, knowing which emotions to hit, what kind of characters to have, what would captivate the audience etc. No one cares about a story with solid fundamentals if the premise is boring and the characters are uninspiring, and that's not really something you can train.
I like the ideas in my writing a lot more than the execution. The ideas take time but I get them for free whether I want to or not. Meanwhile my prose comes out lackluster and the pacing is rushed.
I don't know if that's accurate. I write about ideas that fascinate me, and some of my audience seems to love the ideas, but I don't know if they're putting up with the execution in exchange for the ideas or if they actually like the full package.
I have trouble judging my own work in absolute terms. I can tell that something could be better, but not whether it's already good.
It could flip around as I gain more experience, or if I wrote in my native language, or if I didn't mainly write fan fiction.
But it sure doesn't feel like 90% of the work is good ideas. It feels like I'm constipated with good ideas and have to suffer immensely to put them on the page.

>>20038325
>and I have no clue what to do to improve that nor did I run into any theory or material explaining it in a way that can be taught

What have you read on writing? The Art of Fiction by John Gardner is very useful, as is From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler. There are lots of things that go into making a piece of writing engaging and well crafted.

>>20038263
>In comparison when it comes to writing, 90% of the work is having the right ideas
Bullshit. When you look at popular novels and timeless classics, the ideas themselves are nothing special. The author just assumed a fresh perspective into something otherwise commonplace that readers could relate to.

The ideas guys write nothing but soulless fantasy nobody over 18 takes seriously

>>20038189
>either you're in tune with what makes quality storytelling and resonant characters or you aren't
If you feel like writing is impossible to get good at, it's because you're focusing on tangential shit like characters and storytelling. Neither of these things is actually writing.

>>20038492
>tangential shit like characters and storytelling. Neither of these things is actually writing.

So, what is writing then according to you?

>>20038458
>The ideas guys write nothing but soulless fantasy nobody over 18 takes seriously
You say that, but who is getting the bag at the end of the day? Who is making their mark on history?

>>20038336
>Meanwhile my prose comes out lackluster and the pacing is rushed.
So slow the fuck down. Focus on the words themselves. So many people seem to treat language as a kind of hurdle that needs to be overcome so you can get to the business of Telling The Story. It's as if you write only because you can't afford a video camera and some local theater actors or are too lazy to learn to code. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse, but so many people neglect how important the craft of language is. In the same way that a painting is not just a picture of an object, but rather the aggregate of an artist's individual brushstrokes and the aptitude by which he renders them, literature is not just a collection of ideas on a paper or screen. It's the focused, practiced acumen of the author's use of language. That is its most fundamental, basal operation: the manipulation of language which results in the depiction of an idea or two.

>>20038458
>The author just assumed a fresh perspective into something otherwise commonplace
So they had the right idea?

>>20038516
Sanderson writes non-woke fantasy adventures, I like him.

>>20038263
>What is the practice method, how do you judge yourself, how do you know when you're hitting the correct "notes"?
Writing is more like jazz than anything else. A jazz solo requires playing outside the box as much as it requires hitting the "right" notes every once in a while. How does a soloist know when to break out of a dissonant, chromatic run and hit one of the chord tones? Intuition. That's literally it. He knows when to do so because he knows when HE is getting sick of it. Writing is like playing outside the box constantly, and without any chord tones to which you can refer. It's an entirely intuitive process, and it rests solely on your own intuition of how well your writing quality corresponds with your taste.

You've got to let go of the idea that there's anything objective about writing quality.

>>20038511
Writing is depicting whatever it is that gets your dick hard while stumbling across some art along the way. Writing is fundamentally the use of language, as painting is fundamentally the application of paint to a canvas. It's the way the words are used as much as it is the way the paint is applied. Picasso is great regardless of what the subject matter was of his individual paintings because of the way he painted. It was his expertise of the medium married to his vision. Any artist is great in spite of what his subject matter is, and never because of it.

Writing is art.

>>20038593
>writing is a bunch of flowery pseud nonsense
NGMI

>>20038593
Well, that's pretty. I think it's simpler to just stick to the dictionary definition of writing though.

>>20038601
>>20038606
>A full-grown person whose interests are of a material and commonplace nature, and whose mentality is formed of the stock ideas and conventional ideals of his or her group and time. I have said “full-grown” person because the child or the adolescent who may look like a small philistine is only a small parrot mimicking the ways of confirmed vulgarians, and it is easier to be a parrot than to be a white heron.

new thread

>>20038632
>>20038632
>>20038632
>>20038632

>>20038541
I don't ignore the craft of language. I'm obsessive about sentence structure, word choice, the effects of style and tone. But the result is sterile.
I could likely get better results by permitting myself to write down whatever crap comes to mind and only clean it up and trim it down later, but that's psychologically difficult. I've never managed it.
I sometimes feel my problem is that I write the way I program. I write to get from A to B as elegantly as possible, to express my ideas clearly in as many words as I need but no more.
And then I read, say, Nabokov, and it's very clear that that's not what he's doing, and I read Greg Egan and while I like his stories just fine there's a lot that's missing.
A good piece of code is as short and boring as it can be without compromising its meaning or ease of reading. My fiction could stand to be less like that.
Maybe I'm more cut out for technical writing.

>>20038659
Maybe you just need to loosen up and chill out. Do some writing exercises. Play with this >>20038023 for 15 minutes or so and let's see what you do and how you feel about the process.

>>20038263
>neither has bad fundamentals but one of them I just tune out for background noise, and the other one gets me to drop what I'm doing to see how an episode will play out. I have no idea what I would have to say to the writers of the first show to get them to make their show more interesting like the second one, I understand that the second one is more creative and unpredictable and has more endearing characters etc, but how do you get someone to write more creatively and unpredictably, and to make their characters more appealing? What is the practice method, how do you judge yourself, how do you know when you're hitting the correct "notes"?
>For example I tried being more unpredictable by writing out all the obvious ways a plot would resolve and then crossing them out to do something else, but how do I know the audience will care for that new solution I came up with and won't think I'm just being random? How will I know the audience thinks the characters are endearing and not annoying?
I'm thinking you need the jew jannies at royal road to tell you. Otherwise, how will you know?