/lit/ - Literature

No one writes in /wg/

Ok so how can I become the next F Gardner? I’ve asked this before and didn’t get any non shitpost answers. I honestly want my book to be perceived as the next Call of the Crocodile. How can I pull this off?

Reposting this:
https://pastebin.com/zDEfriWG

>>20441688
As explained before, F Gardner alone has written numerous books and used to post in /wg/

>>20441694
Gather 10 high functioning autists. Gather 500$ and spend on 4chan adverts. Get your pathetic clique to constantly make posts ("favorite books for relaxing? mine is (insert garbage book here)") and mention your book nonstop in the exact same writing style every single post, but also deny that they're autistic shills when the only replies are people telling them to shut the fuck up. Now you're a "meme".

No one is asking if they can become the next gardner.
They’re asking if they can become the next BAP.

>>20441694
No clue. But I unironically really want to become the next F. Gardner too. I’ll race you to it.

>BAP self publishes
>never bought a single advertisement to my knowledge
>spread through only word of mouth because of funny posts
>sells more than 400 copies of book a month
Idgaf if you like the book or not, that is the benchmark. He is the goal of 4chan author to beat. I don’t think he ever posted on /wg/, but he definitely posted on /pol/ and /fit/

Previous thread
>>20437966
since OP is slacking

>>20441778
Shouldn't the benchmark be good literature?

>>20441778
He’s not a 4chan author. Might as well count any popular book by that logic. F. Gardner is a genuine poster and posted in these threads years ago. Call of the Crocodile is the benchmark. Like it or not that’s the bar that’s very clearly been established.

>>20441809
no it's to make money! You think I want to be a wagie in a cage!? NO FUCK THAT. THIS ISN 'T A HOBBY FOR FUN! THIS IS ME TRYING TO MAKE IT AS AN AUTHOR AND COLLECT ROYALTIES WHILE SOME CUTE SLUT SUCKS ME OFF IN THE MALDIVES EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY

>>20441819
But you're not an author.

This general just keeps getting worse and worse.

>>20441778
>Isgaf if you like the book or not.

Hypocritical. Because your dislike of Call of the Crocodile is making you dismiss that as the obvious standard.

>>20441824
I know. The same anti-gardner shitposter shows up every now and then and starts spamming how much he hates CotC.

>>20441817
>He’s not a 4chan author
Retard alert. Any anon who has read BAP knows he is from 4chan.

>>20441809
The meaning is deeper than the intentional spelling and grammar mistakes.
Gardner makes unintentionally spelling and grammar mistakes.
They’re not the same.
The humor is second to none.
I’d give the book an 8/10, genuine rating.

>>20441694
Isn’t that the question of the day?

As others have pointed out:

>Be retarded
>Become a Flat Earther
>Make yourself a character in your own books.
>Buy 4chan ads.

There are are. Now you’re a famous author like F. Gardner.

>>20441819
so based I think my head's gonna explode
>>20441821
go do your negging elsewhere, pseud

What the fuck happened to this general over the last few threads? Why are we collectively dick measuring, cock gobbling or deriding Gardener and co instead of, I don't know, writing? Literally every other post is about gardener or advertising. Did the meerkatniggers win?

>>20441859
But who reads web ads?
I've been running ad-blocking software in my browser for well over a decade.

>>20441673
>Post your goal for when you’ll finish writing.
>Post your goal for when you’ll publish.
>Post your goal for book sales.
I will publish before I finish and sell zero copies.

>>20441688
I write coomer fanfiction

Can I get a critique?

>>20441904
What did you write today anon? I would love to read your seemingly extensive work

>>20441694
Buy ads, bot Goodreads reviews, and get a discord server. Once you have to discord server, pretend to be friends with the people that come to make fun of you, be very courteous and groom them into your acolytes by generously offer them gifts.

>>20441928
not every word needs an adjective.
sentences don't have the best rhythm, i'm looking particularly at the third paragraph. feels like an uncomfortable series of short sentences.
incredibly boring, no hook. might as well write a story about a mundane trip to the dmv

>>20441928
I feel like him being so out of place he wouldn’t “hope” no one noticed him rather that he would “know” they did. Other than that I feel as if there’s too much focus on characters attire and not on setting the scene. Btw, are you the anon that posted that scene of a character in a brothel with the Asian woman? Something about the price of chickens as I recall.

Here’s something I’ve been working on. Pseudo-greentext unabashedly inspired by the disgust leaking out of /b/ and other boards on. 1/4

>>20442001
2/4

>>20442007
3/4
Sorry but pastebin says no bad no no words.

>>20442015
4/4

Anon said he'd read my novel but he didn't. How do I cope?

>>20442001
I feel like him being so out of place he wouldn’t “hope” no one noticed him rather that he would “know” they did. Other than that I feel as if there’s too much focus on characters attire and not on setting the scene. Btw, are you the anon that posted that scene of a character in a brothel with the Asian woman? Something about the price of chickens as I recall.

Yes that is me. I did set the scene earlier in the chapter. I found people don't like to read too much here. Just a paragraph here and there is enough for most.

So I stopped posting a huge wall of text taking multiple posts.

As for the green text posting, It doesn't work if we don't have any context of 4chan.

Third green text can get rid of "As we got older". I just find the short choppy fragments of green text to be much better. There's too much proper grammar.

>>20442037
What novel is it?

>>20441932
One general rule in this thread...the seethers have never written a word of prose in their lives.
One wonders why they even bother to come here.
Maybe they were middle-school bullies in their youth, and long to push around nerds again?

>>20442076
>t. one of the fifty people last thread who spammed their RR flash fiction

>>20442089
Sou ka, seether? Which one was yours?
And why are you so unsupportive of other unknown writers?

>>20441928
The gigantic paragraph describing all the details of people's clothing is way too much. The point is to contrast Hutch with the rich folk. He's dressed like a scrub. But then at the end, instead of letting the reader figure that out for themselves, you just state the thesis. 'Hutch felt out of place.'

> A portly man ... took center stage.
A long gap between subject and verb is usually annoying.
>His eyes shifted downward toward his feet
>loud booming voice... easily heard
Redundant.
>thick, blue, baggy, linen overalls
Any time you see two adjectives next to each other, you should stop and reconsider. This is madness.

I don't know what happened... I just opened up my old draft from a discarded story and just started writing it again.

What compels someone to restart a shitty story from long ago?

>>20442151
thanks.

>>20442076
Lmao one person can dislike someone else’s work and write their own. You’re delusional.

>>20442068
Thought that might be you. Anywhere I can read the whole project? Kinda enjoy your style, anon.

As for my greentext, it will be posted in a place where green texts are known of and if someone doesn’t get the little >
then it doesn’t really matter.
As for the proper grammar, you’re right. Although further on in the text I want the character to become more enveloped in the telling of his story, diving into deeper detail and description of the events, savoring them as he writes. I suppose it doesn’t come through that clear. Will definitely be revising the first half or so to be more stream of conscious. <3

>>20442163
There's a reason why it's shit. Delete this story and never write again until you actually understand proper story telling and proper writing. This is worse than Gardner

>>20442190
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C1EXYB9V5d6Tvq03bst9X4y9V3m5jV6If2htaiMr744/edit?usp=sharing

Here's my google link. I need a better title.

>>20442163
There's some weirdness with word choice
>encircled trees
An army can encircle a castle, but one person can't encircle a tree.
>flanked paths
blocked paths
>his voice gruffed
gruffed?
>shined yellow
shone

>>20442188
Prove it by posting some of your work.

The reason why there’s like 10 4chan authors maximum is because the thousands of other people who were authors from 4chan were smart enough to not associate themselves with 4chan.

>>20442291
this
lots of authors post here, not many willingly associate themselves with this place

>>20442291
I want to be involved with my bros and participate, I really do, but I don't think it's wise. Most I do is the flash fiction stuff.

>>20442324
I associate myself with reddit

>>20442250
>thinking I’m going to post my work here and later be called a 4chan author
Anon, I’m not retarded. Why don’t YOU post your author name and book title?

>>20442332
I do regularly.
Also, I'm not the one seething.

>>20442324
>>20442329
I felt this way too and then I realized most of this stuff doesn't matter anyway. If I can write something I actually enjoyed writing, post it here, and get a few (you)s that's enough. That's more than enough. Trying to make a living off of it, or even just lunch money, unless you're already inclined to write what the general market wants, just sounds like a living hell.

>There's nothing serious in mortality, all is but toys

>>20441694
Lmao F Gardner is so based XD

>>20442332
post something from the scrap heap of otherwise good work that all authors inevitably accumulate. it's really chickenshit to hide behind this flimsy ass excuse. nobody buys it when you try to imply that every single decent (to your standard) sequence of words you've ever written is used in something attached to your not-a-4chan-author persona.

>>20442338
>seethe seethe seethe
No one is seething. Disliking work is not seething.
If I’m disgusted by a fat woman, I’m not seething. Your writing is most likely the fat woman of literature.
Also, post author name, book name, and writing now.

>>20442332
>>20442338
>>20442391
this exchange is what's wrong with /wg/. both of you know you're too afraid of getting your egos pummeled to attach your writing to your opinions. if you're going to talk shit this intensely, have the courage to post your writing. i know what's going on, same as both of you know what's going on. you both have this nebulous sense that you're a "better writer" than the other, but neither of you have the courage to put some skin in the game. weak egos. post writing.

bucksneed here.

>>20442215
Jesus fuck anon. It's an actual book more than three pages?

>>20442413
30k words isn't a book yet.

>>20442413
it's not even a novella yet. It's looking like it'll be about 70k words total give or take. I'm still on arc 2 of 4.

>>20442404
Here is the seething that started it... >>20441904
No solutions, no attempt at a solution, just complaining.
Meanwhile...I'm going back to my writing.
I'm attempting to convert an old RPG scenario into a LitRPG, since the latter is so popular these days.

What are your thoughts on using AI to help you write?

>>20442625
DeepAI never fails to make me laugh.
>"Put down the pen and tell me about this bicycle," said the tough policeman.
>The bike could even make a good-natured argument against the government's attempt to impose a tax on diesel-powered cars.
>The government's ban on diesel cars is a slap in the face to diesel-powered cars. But those cars are not quite as fuel-efficient as the diesel-powered cars. He has considerably less range.
>But the government will be trying more aggressively on its own.
>Image copyright Image caption German Chancellor Angela Merkel
>According to a letter signed by seven Germans, EU officials, automakers, energy companies, public entities, utilities and others, and three foreign economists from a Brussels think tank, there is a growing "distaste for the diesel-powered car in Germany" and "the ban should be diesel immediately".
>The letter is sent by the German Tax Office that is charged with monitoring such measures, including the legal requirements for it to be carried on with a commercial licence.
>One of those it says is a retired official.

>>20442625
I remember seeing a thread claiming F Gardner does that. Which after having read Call of the Crocodile and Call of the Arcade, is clearly not correct. Those books have a ton of foreshadowing that lead to twists. So that wouldn’t be possible for an AI to do. Not to mention all the Divine Comedy stuff in Call of the Crocodile and Faust stuff in Call of the Arcade. I doubt an AI could actually write a book. At least not with something that relies so heavily on foreshadowing and twists like those.

>>20442625
Dunno about writing, but it seems to do a decent job of drawing...at least, better than me:
https://nightcafe.studio/
This URL was posted in an older thread, but I've already used it to generate two book covers.

>>20442685
oh my god fuck off Gardner

>>20442736
Speak for yourself.
>>20442685
Mr. Gardner, if that is you...are there any secrets to your success that you're willing to share with us?
At least, any that don't involve massive amounts of sheer luck, or writing that's "so bad it's good", or advertising on 4chan?
Simply because I don't think I can replicate either of those. I believe all sane people run ad-blocking software in their browser.

>>20442759
I’m not Gardner. But if anyone knows him I’d be curious about those questions too.

>>20442759
>>20442775
this fucking samefagging.

>>20442706
Wow that's awesome. Thanks for the tool to make book covers.

>>20442775
There have been Call of the Crocodile ads here every day for like two years. Every anon here knows what Call of the Crocodile is. Even if they haven’t read it. Probably as straightforward as that.

when is the word "gardner" or "call of the crocodile" getting banned from /lit/
its been so fucking long

>>20442816
Fascist.
"Waah! I need authority to shelter me from what triggers me! Growing up and growing a spine are NOT options!"

>>20442816
Impossible. CotC is here forever at this point.

>>20442781
Guess again, schizo.

>>20442816
I genuinely never thought I'd see the day that /lit/ stooped to trolling like this. Lauding bad shit and pretending to be retarded has been common trolling tactics on other boards for years but it's never been on /lit/ in this capacity before. My guess is it's newfags looking for their (You) fix when /tv/, /v/, and all those fast boards are one click away.

>>20442824
74 posts of /wg/ writing general are filled with gardner self posting and people insulting gardner self posting
there comes a point where it goes too far

>>20442837
see: mlp ban

>>20442788
Glad I could help!
Fortunately, I mostly write "weird fiction", so the overly-abstract images it generates are perfect for me.
Helpful hint: it generates 400x400 images by default. One of the options that costs points is "enlarge", which you will undoubtedly want to do with an image you want to use. Took me a while to find that.

>>20442843
What MLP ban? >>>/mlp/

>>20442857
dunno, try posting one right now and let's see what happens :)

It's actually quite easy to get to the trending page. What's difficult is to keep writing consistently after you hit it, without getting sidetracked by thinking about advertising your novel.

I’m cool with Gardner/Call of the Crocodile memes. They’re endearing.

>>20442843
More importantly, you have a very low threshold for fascist leanings.
Can you, for ONCE, try thinking of a solution that doesn't involve abusing authority to stamp out dissent?

>>20442908
You're confusing fascism with authoritarianism.

>>20442919
Pardon ME, exalted hair-splitter.

In the old days fantastical powers would dwell within ancient forests, tall mountains, and the dark corners of hollow hills. The people of those times found themselves at odds with this. Having to contend with a life entwined with the most odd and uncontrollable; thus were made myths of monsters and fables of fairies. As time marched on, the human folk built about themselves a world to their own liking. They built cities, they made dams, they lit the earth from sea to sea such that the stars in the sky were made shy and invisible at all the time of the moon. And so as forest was cut, mountain was either summited or left to its own, and all the hollow homes of the earth were left to abandon, the weirdness within them was somewhat diminished. Leaving these ancestral holdings, it followed mankind to its new world.

It is with this change of things that humanity was, once again, in unwilling matrimony with such things as ghosts, sorcery and other-worldy wills! But now, so crowded and noisy were people and their dwellings, that the fantastical was smothered into quietness. Indeed, like the night stars to the street lamps....

In our times the world seems quite mundane, but the mysticism of ancient times lives on in its quieter fashion, and unlike before, it draws its breath from the people whose homes it seeped into. You see, with the lack of ancient roots and legendary sites of ritual the Magic of the City is made and nurtured by that which the city has the most: people and their activity. The oldest of constructions are haunted and become themselves living things as lives are made and worn out within their walls; wizards are made from dwelling in the forgotten corners of the city streets but are nonetheless made powerfull by the charity of the common man.

Within the bustling cities of modern making reside those very same fairies and monsters that wandered before, hidden away and taking whatever is left alone for too long. Indeed like stars and lamps we might be made unaware of the old things in the new world, but the old dwellers remain practically unchallenged. It would take nothing more than a moment of quiet in our rumbling lives; and the old powers would rule again in the night.

>>20442247
i see.. thanks.

>>20441673
>>20417300 (OP)
Writing fiction is the greatest form of intellectual activity you can engage in.
The other arts (drawing, music) have no technical barriers to entry and don't require a certain amount of practice and skill. Even in philosophy, you don't need to familiarize yourself with existing philosophical debates and say something logically coherent about them.
But not just anyone can write a story. It needs to conform to standards outside of being grammatically coherent. For that reason, I’ve always respected writers and whenever anyone calls themselves a writer I get hard.

>>20443166
Preach. Also witnessed.

I just learned Stallone wrote a ton of great screenplays.

Do you think the writing screen plays and writing novels requires a similar skill set?

>>20443218
In both cases, you need to understand story structure. Not everyone does. (glaring at Michael Bay)
Besides, at the rate novels get turned into TV/movie screenplays...I think it's safe to say there's a lot of crossover.

>>20443218
Yes but in screenplays you need to be aware of film devices, contemporary camera techniques and all that. Many "genre" films use the Hollywood formula or something similar which you can easily find guides to. You are able to say more with images than narrative and literary devices dont always have the same effect.

>>20443266
>glaring at Michael Bay
You mean the guy who never directed a screenplay he wrote?

>>20443279
I recall the infamous episode of South Park.
Officer: "That's not a plot point...that's a special effect."
Michael Bay: "I don't understand the difference."
Officer: "We know you don't. Get him out of here!"

>>20443293
Anon, Bay doesn't write movies. The bad scripts are not his fault.

>>20443297
I don't think you're granting his cringe enough agency.

>>20443385
Or I just read the credits of the movies. I bet you think Snyder is a bad "writer" too.

Assuming writers should read the classics, should they drop books if they don't engage them immediately or should they power through to the end?

Also is it better to read many books concurrently or one at a time?

>>20443435
You should honestly be reading "best sellers" of the past 3 years if you want to "make it" in today's publishing world. The classics use words and prose that often do not connect with readers today.

We need short choppy sentences that get to the point and in a simple workman's prose.

Is it okay to use real world comparisons in a fantasy world without an isekai factor? For example, should I describe a gigantic colosseum having the space of multiple football stadiums, or stick to measurements?

>>20443822
you should avoid it completely

>>20443822
You should describe it as being the size of three medium-sized gahanamokubaizanichis.
If they don't know what that is, you can scoff at their ignorance.

>>20443822
Only if your story is comedic or a parody. Then you can do so by making the omniscient narrator a character in themselves.

>>20443932
Oh, that's just awful.

In an attempt to write something that sells, I've been idly toying with the idea of teen-lit isekai.
It'd star a blank-slate girl being fawned over by two hot guys that are totally out of her league.
Then a portal opens up to a mystical realm where people have anime powers.
The omniscient narrator that becomes a character is just gold.
What other absolutely awful ideas can I cram into this?

>>20443822
No. However 'stadia' was a real measurement among the ancient Greeks, so that's not really that out of place.

>>20444008
So was the width of two horses' asses.
Seriously, that's where our railroad gauge came from.
Look it up.

>>20443435
I'm a fan of reading what you want to write like. If you don't like a book/author, don't feel the need to power through it just because someone says you should. I dropped For Whom The Bell Tolls because it was boring, but I loved The Sun Also Rises.

>>20443987
a third hot guy from the isekai world appears.
a mascot character that's a cute turtle

>>20443822
The real question is whether or not a fantasy world measures with feet and yards or meters and kilometers?

>>20443843
Then how do I describe the immense size? Are you seriously telling me to use precise measurements?

>>20444082
explicit real world references will take the reader out of the story. look at other fantasy books to see how they describe sizes
>Are you seriously telling me to use precise measurements?
no, that's just as bad

In the last 24 hours I have written over 16,000 words (almost 17k), they're all good, and I have established my characters, conflict, and setting and have a clear plot with a clear direction and ending planned out. And only 385 words of those 17k was a sex scene! Feeling pretty proud of myself.

>>20444089
That's not an answer, because I read fantasy novels and they use comparisons and measurements all the time.

>>20444127
what fantasy books are you reading where the author refers to the size of football stadiums and speed of a dodge charger

>>20444082
>The king's greatest archer could not loose an arrow that would reach one side from the other.
>It was as long as two hundred men lying head to foot.
>The colosseum could hold the entirety of my village.

>>20444082
just use animals.
>The castle could house over nine-thousand elephants or one of Lord Faggot's mom

>>20441673
>when you'll finish writing
When I die
>when you'll publish
I do not publish, I am not a publishing house.
>goal for book sales
I do not sell books, I am not a bookstore.

>>20444076
Leagues, rods, and paces.

>>20444076
Of course they do.
Feet = The kings foot
Yard = Three of the king's foot
Inch = 1/12 of the King's foot

That's how we got imperial measurements

>>20443822
>should I describe a gigantic colosseum having the space of multiple football stadiums, or stick to measurements?
Neither. It matters to none but the author precisely how big something is, how far two things are away from each other, etc. While these autistic details may seem satisfying to the guy writing that the length of a negro compliance engine's business-end is precisely two and a half horse asses, it's pretty immaterial. Consider the possibility that there are ways to evoke a sense of size and scope without ever resorting to boring old measurements.

>wants to write good prose
>told to read more
>hates nearly every book on Goodreads
Why

>>20443103
I am phoneposting so I won't go into any detail at all but I think this is good, anon, and I would certainly like to read the rest. I feel that a story set in this world you described, if written correctly, would be a great read. Congratulations.

>>20444398
Disregard Goodreads. Read only books written 100+ years ago.

>>20441673
>Post your goal for when you’ll finish writing.
Soon
>Post your goal for when you’ll publish.
To be read by a person
>Post your goal for book sales.
0

>Post your goal for when you’ll finish writing.
My job is calming down for the summer, and my duties are going to be dramatically reduced soon. My goal is to finish my draft before winter.
>Post your goal for when you’ll publish.
I don't have one. I'm going to edit and rewrite for as long as it takes, and release when finished.
>Post your goal for book sales.
I don't really care about making money or sales. I've got a comfy night shift job and a good amount of savings. I really don't need to make more money, which frees me up to explore and experiment and to follow my own tastes wherever they lead. This is the same position from which aristocrats created literature that changed the landscape of the medium. Sure, I don't have unlimited wealth or serving wenches to impregnate or anything like that, but I don't think any of that actually contributed to greatness. It must have been a function mostly of the ability to create art without caring about the results. It's about having the mental and emotional energy to spend on what you care about.

>I will never be as good as Wolfe
what a feel... what a life

>>20444614
maybe not, but it's worth trying

Apparently Gene Wolfe practiced writing by rewriting books he had read by memory
What do you think about that?

Here it is:
So oft as I with state of present time,
The image of the antique world compare,
When as mans age was in his freshest prime,
And the first blossome of faire vertue bare,
Such oddes I finde twixt those, and these which are,
As that, through long continuance of his course,
Me seemes the world is runne quite out of square,
From the first point of his appointed sourse,
And being once amisse growes daily wourse and wourse.
>crit
>>20444574
I like the enjambment. The blend of the high, low, and the everyday within vers libre is interesting but I’m not sure if it works that well for a longish poem. I might cut it down if I were you.

>>20441673
>Post your goal for when you’ll finish writing.
July 2022

>Post your goal for when you’ll publish.
October 2022

>Post your goal for book sales.
Recoop costs, justify a sequel.

>recently published in a journal for the first time
>incredible feeling
Why does everything I write turn to shit after 7 pages all of a sudden?

Upon hearing of Foucault, he stopped and thought of the Paul Morris guy, who candidly spoke, in a tone as casual as someone telling you about a cute dog they saw, about the days of San Francisco's gay emergence, during which he frequented bathhouses such as Folsom's one and only "Handball Express" (may the creators of such disgraceful pun know the depths of hell). And any story involving San Fran's primordial puddles of anonymous homosexuality, the expression "Handball Express", Michael Focault and a man who told what was virtually an utter and complete stranger tales of the height of his vulgarity as if they were forgotten logistics of a supermarket list, sounding so disinterested in himself, can only be a tale of degeneracy so syphilitic that the whore of Babylon herself would cover her years and yell as to not feel her last shred of humanity being stripped from her psyche. But he spoke of how he fisted Focault, probably in good sight of Focault's pendulum, probably leaving enough of a cavernous vacuum through which you could hear the Eco, and in that moment he absorbed the information of the bald frenchman's genius through some sort of transmission of ideas found in the communion of sex. There was undoubtedly something of a beauty to the concept in itself, now that Billy thought of what he could extract of his beloved by having her sit on his lap, her back on his chest and stomach, and in the feeling of her warmth and smell of her perfume in his devouring of her nape and neck and shoulders, while her flesh flower submerged his member into her being. But Morris and Michel's elbow grease shenanigans were more of a "marriage of the shared audacity of vulgarity" more so than a "lovely and flowery marriage of kindred spirits". Like getting your dick sucked by random harlots in public bathrooms of nightclubs can only be romanticized if you really neve received motherly love, and tend to run after them with pants puddled around your ankles when they become bewildered by your proclamations of love growing from the sexually delirious to the cascading tears and desperately heartfelt.

>trying to write a novel
>all I have are 56k words worth of separate scenes that usually feature 2-3 characters having long conversations or 1 character failing to accomplish anything when he tris to work with his hands

>>20445245
Connective tissue is always the part where I get bogged down, it's fucking torture
I've been slooowly teaching myself to just skim over shit but it's still hard because my mind goblins hate timeskips

i dont want to sound cliche but over the last 20 years stories have gotten so soulless. They maybe excited or engaging but they seem to lack something. I watch the land before time last night and that movie hit me like a brick. I think i figured it out and its that stories seem to lack biblical allegory

>>20445454
Certainly film and TV is horrible nowadays. Video game stories have always been bad. At least speaking for SF/F, written stories are at a low point, but there are still some good stories to be found. Speaking generally, I've certainly read good stories that didn't necessarily have biblical allegory.

Drowned are a solid choice of band btw.

>>20445245
Is having lots of timeskips bad? I.e. I have several chapters that take place days apart, sometimes a week or so and usually from different perspectives. I haven't considered a skip longer than a couple of days at most. And yeah, I've had to trash so many chapters because nothing important happens in them, it's just small talk or otherwise minute character interactions that don't really build the story up enough to warrant a whole chapter.

>>20445546
It can make your pacing feel fucky if you do it wrong but it's not inherently bad

>>20441694
Buy ads on 4chan?

>>20445496
maybe allegory wasnt the right word. to me it seems that older stories have this basis of religious purity or this religious center in them. Its genuine not artificial. I'm not saying that its necessary for a good story but that it adds this nurturing warmness to it
yea i love this album

write my book in german (my native language) or just use english? im proficient in both, just asking if there are any deciding factors when choosing a language

>>20445089
Man’s world?

>>20444076
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement
>>20445566
I believe you're saying that fiction these days lacks a moral center.
As do a lot of people out there.
It's not just fiction that's gotten worse in the last few decades.

>>20445587
english has a much wider audience

>>20445587
Write in german because english is an ugly and boring language.

>>20445664
quite so they seem to lack paternal and poetic elders. Ill use the Land before Time as an example. This old dino that Little Foot talked to about his mom fucking wrecked me but at the same time made me feel good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3Iukm5_y3M

I write an average of 250-500 words per day after my day job. It's little but it's honest work and I take 1 hour to do so. Feelsgoodman

>>20445749
I miss James Horner so much it's actually unreal.
>>20445762
Fellow full time worker, I'm about same. A really good night is 1k for me.

Why bother writing and posting on here? Nobody reads your stuff anyways

>>20445851
I don't post my writing here (not often, at least)
I post it on RR, where people actually read it

>>20444791
i can see it working.
i take paragraphs from trad published books i like and break the sentences down to simple sentences.
then i practice by taking that paragraph of simple sentences and reorganizing them back to their original forms.
i think it's helping my prose

>>20445089
maybe you thought a lot about those 7 pages and by the time you wrote them, you knew what to write.
you never did that for page 8 so now you have to think it through as you write
just guessing

>>20445834
We are all going to make it, fren!

Can we get a non shitty OP that ditches the ridicule of anime writing (which is, FYI, the most popular writing online these days) and salty criticism of traditional publishing?

>>20445851
Is there a point to your seething?
Do you just come here to spread your depression and demotivation?
Your words have no value.

>>20445245
i write space opera, so at the end of every scene is a mini climax of some kind
the next scene will have the characters resolving the climax in some way, even if it's just talking about the event.

If a character is referred to by others by a nickname more than their real name, should the 3rd person narrator refer to them by their nickname or by their full name? For example, if you have a character named Edward, but everyone calls him Ed, which one do you use?

>>20445587
yeah, it seems like a marketing decision. like looking at a ratio of how many readers your book might have compared to how many writers are in your genre
if there are a million readers for your genre in america, but there are 500 hundred thousand authors, that market might be saturated

>>20445915
It depends. Are you using third person limited, or omniscient? If it's limited, use whatever the perspective character would use, with maybe occasional variation. Omniscient... Just do whatever's most commonly used, I'd say.

>>20445915
i would stick with ed unless it's his mother. she probably calls him eddy and edward when she's angry

>>20445861
How do you get them to read it?

>>20445952
Partly RR's own existing discovery mechanisms (especially Recently Updated and the fact it kicks you to frontpage for a bit every time you post a new chapter), partly my pre-existing readerbase, and partly sporadic use of an ad campaign that I bought.

>>20445245
I have dialogue heavy chapters and event heavy chapters, and some that are in between. I find it hard to write long-winded fight scenes. I have a scene where the """protag""" and his mates are sacking a village and he's supposed to have a moral dilemma while burning and butchering but I'm having trouble balancing out the pacing and the prose. Any tips on writing tense battle scenes? I've seen some good ones by Ambercrombie and GRRM but any more suggestions are beyond welcome.

how do you write a mecha story without accompanying images?
Just describing something as a "A 20m tall hulking machine with a gigantic back unit reminiscent of a shuttle booster and armed with a gigantic battleaxe blocked the way of the incoming Earth forces" just doesn't cut it.

>>20445923
>>20445932
Limited, and yeah, that makes sense. I was leaning toward this method as well but didn't know if it would be "improper"

>>20445971
Well, limited puts you in a character's headspace, at least in part, so the narration would refer to a character the way they would.

Hey I came here from Reddit. What’s F Gardner’s deal?

>>20445963
Sounds like you don't know how to write in general.

>>20445982
meme author

How many chapters should I have before I post on royal road?

>>20446026
Depends how often you're planning on posting. You should have enough to have a decent backlog assuming you slip on your schedule, though.

>>20442163
I liked this story. Don't know why you quit on it. I just wanted to have a line where she sucked off her brother. Is that too much to ask?.

>>20445963
The mech ducked under the power lines. From a bird's eye view, it surveyed the lands before it. The boxy buildings of the city, the little homes of the farms, and the spider web of the roads with cars the size of ants driving along them.
Seeing that Earth forces had formed a line in the woods, it readied its massive battle axe.

something like that, but better of course

How does it feel when you're 35 and see 20 year olds get published, have more talent, and make it before you do?

>>20446113
I’ll tel you when I’m 35 and have my 6th and final book in English published.

>>20446113
I'm 23, but I just habitually "Check Early Life" for cases like these, and it always turns out correct. Not in the sense of them all being jews, but there's always something that gave them an unfair advantage. Handbook for Mortals got published because the author knew a publisher personally. Shit like that. Every time.

If I want to write about a gay character do I need to get fucked by a bunch of dudes?

>>20446196
you can rely on your previous experience

If you post your stuff here, it’s almost impossible to get it published elsewhere because it has been published online. And if you self pub, why would people pay for it if there’s already passages of it online for free?

>>20445982
F Gardner the next Stephen King. He wrote a bunch of horror novels that are amazing. We all love him and his books here.

>>20446253
THIS

>>20446156
Eragon was the same I believe. Both parents were big cheeses in the publishing industry and even orchestrated an involved school library buying scheme. And of course there are all the Mormon mafia published folks since Orson Scott Card.

>>20445923
In limited the world passes through the filter of the POV character but it's still the Narrator you're hearing from unless it's direct thought or dialogue - so I don't see either answer as wrong but it will reflect your narrator's voice being informal or formal. For example this comes up with Eddard/Ned in Game of Thrones and as I recall he is always called Eddard by the narrator but "Ned" in dialogue with his loved ones.

>>20446269
Not the same anon but I grew up with Eragon and I remember being very fond of it as a kid. I mean it's pretty much just starwars with dragons but I still enjoyed it for what it was.

>>20446278
Now consider how many books of its quality or better never got published because their authors didn't get mommy and daddy to do the legwork
That's why I hate tradpub with every fiber of my being and why web serialization is, imo, the new path for independent authors

>>20446196
ask OP for his experience

>>20446240
Is this true? If I post on 4chan it's considered published online? I find it hard to believe

>>20446293
There are problems with web serials, but at least getting your work out there is way easier these days.

>>20446314
You made it available in public. It's published.

>>20446314
Here is a standard submissions guideline from a periodical:
>Reprints: We publish only originals (stories that have never previously appeared anywhere in print or online). We do NOT consider reprints (stories that have previously appeared anywhere in print or online, including on a personal website or blog, or self-published on Kindle, or as Patreon or Kickstarter rewards).
>(We buy First Serial rights–the right to be the first place to ever publish that story. If the story has already appeared in print or online, or been given to readers in exchange for a donation or patronage, the story has already been published and BCS can’t be the first place to ever publish it.)

>>20446345
wouldn't google docs be technically online and published?

>>20446319
Even if the story is unfinished? What if I need beta readers? I think this is for completed books only

>>20446362
Not if it’s private. I used Google Docs for a book review I used for a periodical, at the request of the editors. If you post a link to a public forum like here, which anyone can access, then that might be a problem.

>>20446293
You're right about the publishing stuff. I actually hadn't known that about him or his work at all, again I was young.

I want to believe I'm onto something with my story but I've hardly given a thought to the publishing process. I still need to work out the ending and resolution of the conflicts. I'm also considering doing the whole "swap to another character(s) POV for a chapter" here and there, because it feels like that would be an interesting way to flesh out the world and create some intersecting storylines.

>>20446371
You can get beta readers from Goodreads groups who will do it privately. I have no idea why you think posting it publicly is any better. Here, use this instead, there’s free beta readers and paid ones:
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/50920-beta-reader-group

>>20446383
Then /wg/ is for blog posting only then huh?

>>20445985
And neither do you, given your complete lack of advice.
>>20446240
By your logic, Patreon doesn't exist.
>>20446345
Meh. Who cares? If a tradpub became interested in my work, I'd write them something new.
You DO have more than one novel-sized story in you, don't you?

>>20446314
There's grain of truth but these people are paranoid spergs. Just don't post your work in its entirety. Post writing samples in a format that automatically deletes after a week (pastebin) or which you can make private again (googledocs) like most do here and you'll be fine.

Also I guess don't post the full details "here is my pen name, the book's final title, and blah blah blah" in a way that a search engine could detect.

>>20446337
Rate my poems translations

>>20446454
Patreon stories aren’t accepted by lots of publishers. And I fail to see your logic actually; posting on 4chan isn’t the same as the exclusivity of Patreon.

>>20446508
I was answering why people would pay for it if it's already online for free.
Patreon exists to pay creators for that sort of thing.

Obviously, getting tradpubbed pays better, as does selling the TV/film rights, but the barrier to entry is effectively insurmountable.
Only insiders, and insanely lucky people like Andy Weir, get past the barrier.

>>20444142
And now you're whining about the exact example being used? What's with this abysmal level of reading comprehension?

>>20445252
>>20445546
>>20445548
Time skips are great. Not every moment of a character's life is going to be important. Cut out the garbage. The only time it could be a problem is something like LotR with a lot of traveling and sightseeing.

>>20446561
Nearly every university has a literary journal, and every year dozens of new and previously unpublished writers are published in each issue. If you expect a novel to be accepted by agents when you haven’t even learned how to write a short story nor even a query letter properly, then you’re going to meet failure. My current acceptance rate is a bit over 5% which is standard enough. Have you even tried to get short stories, poetry, or flash fiction in magazines yet? Every novelist I have studied at University and on my own always started small.

>>20445664
>I believe you're saying that fiction these days lacks a moral center.
>As do a lot of people out there.
>It's not just fiction that's gotten worse in the last few decades.
People have been saying this since at least 300 BC, back when slavery and genocide and human sacrifice were accepted.

have any of you tips to make the in between parts of a story interesting?

>>20445915
Stick with the name they were introduced with. Also, have different people use unique nicknames. Frank, Frankie, Baldy, etc. That way it's obvious who's speaking without a dialog tag.

>>20446715
This is completely disingenuous, you can't seriously be arguing that today's stories are interested in imparting moral values in the same ways that ones from even 20-30 years ago were

>>20445959
>>20445952

I'd add that the brief time you get onto 'rising stars' is probably the most important time to get people's attention.

>>20446733
It's the most interesting part of the story. I love writing the middle. What issues are you having?

>>20441976
>might as well write a story about a mundane trip to the dmv
Not him but this could be kino if done correctly. A DMV trip is the modern equivalent of an Odyssey

>>20446752
I don't think anon is referring to the middle part in general, but rather the "connective tissue". Parts between stuff that actually matters.

>>20446026
At least fifty. Update once a day or every other day until you get on the rising stars list. Afterwards you can slow down.

How long should a single chapter be? I've seen them split into single scenes before, or having multiple scenes in a chapter, but not sure what the "industry standard" is.

Writing very long drawn out logical paragraphs, the driest part of the book, but crucial.

>>20446113
How does it make you feel when a forty year old industrial engineer from the Pringles factory gets published?

>>20446787
Exactly the same way when a 30 year old black woman gets published through spewing nonsensical bullshit about history

>>20446752
>>20446760
yeah, so i currently have the general sections mapped out/written however i feel there are lulls in which readers may (i dont but im hoping to publish one day) find the general thoughts (stream-of-consciousness) to be perhaps outdated or pointless; what do you find is the best way to minimize this?

just for further info, i kinda (not as well, obviously) write like v woolf and the settings in which this novel takes place is limited to a house/garden, a car journey, and lastly a workplace (it will be a small office); the main part of the story will be two families related through the divorced mother and father coming together for one of their children

>>20446780
Every book is different and chapter breaks can serve multiple different purposes (break point for the reader, change in POV, highlights dramatic thematic/plot point). But the most typical chapter length is in the 3-4k words range

>>20446787
Hungry like a Wolfe

>>20446780
2-6k words on average seems to be the deal, but you can absolutely go longer. You probably shouldn't go shorter. You can also just forego chapters if you want, but that's not super recommended even if some writers did it.

>>20446743
20 or 30 years ago? 1992-2002? Absolutely. They might be moral values you disagree with--tolerance, diversity, environmentalism, etc--but fiction is way more preachy and moralizing right now.

Repeat after me, I will not publish my book without first respecting the value of my own time. Therefore I will spend at least 30 minutes a day marketing and growing an audience before I publish a book that I spent 2 hours a day writing for nearly 6 months.

>>20446113
I pay it no mind because I've already succeeded in another career in my life. Not everyone's career looks the same and a lot of writers come from different backgrounds. Things like that and deterministic ngmi drivel don't demoralize me, I've got enough confidence and wherewithal to see through it. Sure life is about timing and chance but if you have to tell a story you should tell your story the best you can.

>>20446692
University was decades ago. I only half-minored in literature/writing.
>>20446715
And those civilizations fell to the consequences their own moral failings.
Remember, we didn't reattain the level of civilization of the Roman Empire until the mid 19th century.

>>20445691
yeah but if my book is a success in any way it will get translated

How do I become funny?

>>20447000
Try slipping on a banana peel.

>>20446980
>And those civilizations fell to the consequences their own moral failings.
They fell to barbarian horsemen.

>>20447038
...after having their government splintered internally due to leaders and their people not caring about anything like national unity or other moral virtues

what are some stats I should keep about my writing for future reference and examination

>>20447062
...as we watch the modern equivalent of barbarian horsemen stream across our southern border...uneducated, unskilled, and uncivilized.
Makes me glad I'm in late middle-age, and never had children.

>>20447000
Transition from a woman to a man.

>>20447000
Don't concern yourself with becoming funny if you're not already.
Just write what you know.
It'll be much less work that way.

How do I become a successful author? I define success by sales.

>>20447200
Ingratiate yourself to an industry insider and use them to get yourself tradpubbed as a generic YA novel
Also use an ethnic, female-sounding pseudonym

>>20447211
gross soulless garbage

>>20447224
...That was my point, yes. Nepotism and soullessly playing into the mainstream is the shortest path to success by sales as a metric.

can i use the word "voice" when referring to multiple unknown characters having a conversation when the POV character doesn't see them? like, is it acceptable to say "x voice said", "the other voice said", "the voice that claimed that x said"?

>>20447211
Hmm why trad pubbed?
Could you tell me how much I’d make in both scenarios?
>sell 1 million copies traditionally published at $7.99 a book
>sell 1 million copies self published at $7.99 a book

>>20447287
>Would I make more money by winning the lottery or by winning the lottery without buying a ticket?

>>20447245
Yes, though it's generally a good idea to ascribe some quality to the voice (low, gravelly, fast-talking, whiny, booming, etc.) Easier to keep track of that way.

>>20447290
Oh, so authors make the same amount of money per book sold both traditionally published and self published then?
Sorry, what is the ticket in this analogy?

>>20447314
You get like 10-20% of sales proceeds from tradpub, 70% if you selfpub on amazon
your best chance, realistically, is start up a web serial and snare a patreon following on a "pay to read ahead" scheme

>>20445546
if you use tie skips you have to explain why the conituim is in flux that's why i use nibiru to power my timeskips because discorporated annunanki spirits are desperate to keep humanity locked safely behind the icewalls

>>20447211
Why is YA so hot when there's far more of an audience beyond that age range? Is it because YA don't buy the books themselves, but parents leading to something that appeals to both child and parent?

>>20447319
10-20% for a traditionally published author?! What the hell are you even paying them the other 60-50% for?
They at least market the book for you right?
They’ll find my audience for me right?

>>20447355
>They at least market the book for you right?
>They’ll find my audience for me right?

>>20447347
YA is made for a bunch of manchildren that still cling onto Marvel superheroes and Harry Potter

>>20447355
>>20447360
Reposting this for our new trad curious anon that’s about to become a self pubber.

I like writing webnovels and recently had an idea for a general story and setting and was wondering what parts of it work and what not. I wrote a ~6k word portion and would like some feedback. Who'd be willing to take a look and add some comments?
I wouldn't know how to post it here, as a pastebin or a link to a PDF on a dropbox? Or is there even a better method where notes/comments can be added?

>>20447446
pastebin

>>20447446
Use pastebin and post it here.

Already asked this in the sff general

I like writing webnovels and recently had an idea for a general story and setting and was wondering what parts of it work and what not. I wrote a ~6k word portion and would like some feedback. Who'd be willing to take a look and add some comments?
I wouldn't know how to post it here, as a pastebin or a link to a PDF on a dropbox? Or is there even a better method where notes/comments can be added?

>>20447446
It seems the most popular choices are pastebin, Google Docs, and catbox.moe .

>>20447518
Why are you repeating the same question? That shit is obnoxious. People already told you to use pastebin.

I like writing webnovels and recently had an idea for a general story and setting and was wondering what parts of it work and what not. I wrote a ~6k word portion and would like some feedback. Who'd be willing to take a look and add some comments?
I wouldn't know how to post it here, as a pastebin or a link to a PDF on a dropbox? Or is there even a better method where notes/comments can be added?

>>20447518
>>20447446
wait....
whtat?
Did someone save the image under the same name and repost iot here or is this some moderator shennanigans?

Either way, Pastebin:
https://pastebin.com/9dLFg71K

>>20447518
>>20447537
This isn't endearing, but annoying.

>>20447538
unironically stopped reading at the first sentence

>>20447401
This always makes me laugh

>>20447446
>>20447518
>>20447537
>I like writing webnovels and recently had an idea for a general story and setting and was wondering what parts of it work and what not. I wrote a ~6k word portion and would like some feedback. Who'd be willing to take a look and add some comments?
Guess where webnovels are reviewed by random people? In the place they are fucking posted, like AO3 or Royalroad. You can always delete it and repost it later after you rewrite. Don't be a pussy, no one will even remember it if it's shit.
baka

>>20447585
Really? For me, it felt hooking since it was so strangely written.

>>20447596
That just means you have to read more.

>>20447538
Immediate critique:
>Awkward tense issues in the second line, it DOES sort of make sense if the protagonist is diegetically narrating this to somebody but it's still a little awkward to read
>Nearly every paragraph starts with 'I', which makes for a very tedious reading experience
The second point is a slight thing, admittedly, but it's something people will get annoyed by. Imagine if you were doing it third person and every paragraph started with "he".

This weekend ended up being a popular one for reading, as three people got back to me with their thoughts on my novel. My favorite part of their critique was this line:
>This reminds me of 1960's SF, maybe even the old SF pulp stories, but not in a bad way at all.
It's also interesting seeing which of my characters people gravitate towards. Several side characters are going to have to get more screentime in Book 2

>>20446476
it's simple and nice but can't really judge it since I don't know how the original one was.. maybe other polaks can

>>20447596
"this is a story about how I [insert thing]" is not a strange opening line at all. In fact, it's a totally overused one. I have seen it a million times, especially in web novels

although i also absolutely loathe first person writing so there's that

>>20447595
>Don't be a pussy
that's why I'm posting it here and not on weebshit ripoffs HQ

>>20447518
Just upload the html,pdf,rtf,txt or word file (zip it first) to any simple file host (catbox.moe). Post a link and we will read your story and post any feedback in this thread

>>20447623
Hell yeah! I think all us SF heads dream of being a Golden Age writer.
FYI, I've bought a paperback of your book, but haven't started reading it yet.
I've been too busy writing my own stuff.
I'll read when the muse finally releases her grip on me.

>>20447538
>https://pastebin.com/9dLFg71K
Couldn't get into it, the narrator seems immature, not to mention inconsistent.

Flame me all you want, but a /wg/ discord server would be nice. I would like to be able to read and critique work from you guys and see how it’s coming along after some time. I’ve read some interesting stuff from anons who have disappeared. That being said, I also feel like it would be full of autistic guys with gay ass names like Mirthopholopesteles who type text walls about how their medieval fantasy novel is a historical allegory to some obscure event.

>>20441694
Why?

>>20447722
That's pretty much what https://reddit.com/r/writing/ is.

>>20447737
Not him but the real question should be “how can my book go viral?” Call of the Crocodile went viral recently and this is why Gardnerposting has skyrocketed.

>>20447668
Lemme know what you think of the actual paperback quality as well! It's my first attempt at following Amazon's guidelines. Everything looked solid in the preview but when it comes to print copies all bets are off

The seat attached to my desk was quite comfortable. The two halves of my ass conformed to the grooves built into the seat. This can't be said for the fatass sitting in the desk next to me. Both sides of his ass cheeks hung over the wooden board. This posterior picture provided the very definition of a muffin top. If there were specks of shit, visible, I do not believe I would be able to eat a chocolate chip muffin today.

To my right was a girl. Her ass was quite a sight, unlike the fatass to my left. Her skirt covered much of her butt, but it was still much too short to avoid my lecherous gaze on her milky white thighs. She squeezed her legs together, concentrating on the task on hand, or feeling my presence ogling every inch of her body. She even wore one of my favorite fetishes. A sweater too tight for her body. Her breasts contoured with the cotton yarn stretching the thread to the point of exposure of her shirt. I wondered if she was wearing a bra that day. No matter, she looks like the type that will be accepted to the academy.

I returned my focus back to Le' Magic Academy's questionnaire. After a grueling three hours answering practical and theoretical questions, we've reached the end of the test. It was the personnel section of the exam. The first question asked a very simple question: "Why do you want to join Le' Magic Academy?" Nobody ever answered this question truthfully. It was always the same answer of trying to become a great mage, making their family proud, or to serve the nation. Hogwash. I tapped my pencil on the line where I were to write my answer. This time, I will tell them the truth of my intentions. Thus I wrote: To meet, seduce, and breed with the cutest female (not trannies) witches in the academy.

There. I was finished.

>>20447743
I never use Reddit but I’ll take your word for it.

>>20446829
and how do you grow the audience without a product?

>>20447749
Call of the Crocodile also has the single most baffling plot twist ever conceived. I am convinced this is the sole reason for that book’s infamy.

>>20447849
fuck off Frank

>>20447849
Then you've never read "Ubik" by Philip K. Dick.

>>20447865
>>20447874
Why do you reply to the spammer?

>>20447687
>immature
I actually tried writing from the perspective of a teenager so I used that language on purpose. Seems that really is a turnoff for many people. I wanted to capture the sensation of discovering and learning something entirely foreign (how he figures out the "magic" later on in the text with experimentation and consideration). The only other way I was considering to achieve this (with narration style) is to have a third person narrator that precisely narrates what the protagonist is thinking OR using first person thoughts in cursive a lot.
>inconsistent
That was not my intention, can you elaborate!

>>20447538
As the other anon said, too many "I"s. I skimmed it and only read some parts. It's weird that it's mostly about the protagonist (you)'s view. never wrote about how the blacksmith work, you wrote about how (you) viewed his work. a part about the weird magician with sleeves that (you) saw, I think writing observations like that without mentioning how it's always through protagonist's eyes would make the writing less repetitive. basically IMO first person forces self-inserting which isn't what many people would want to do while reading.

>>20447849
I tried explaining CotC’s plot to a friend and they couldn’t believe the book existed.

You know, when I described a character as "metrosexual" and as posessing "fluffy hair" in the design document I had forgotten that that might have made the artist think less "martial arts prettyboy" and more "martial arts glam rocker"

>>20447687
Not him but the exclamation in description is a turn off. Also was an extra comma 1st sentence of 2nd paragraph

>>20447687
Pretty much this. First sentence was a red flag for me, but I continued out of respect and only stop when I reached the part
>Seriously Huge!

>>20447897
Not him but the exclamation in description is a turn off. Also was an extra comma 1st sentence of 2nd paragraph

>>20448047
I've written some 750k words worth of webnovel
You stop feeling that around 200k words in

>>20448054
Is it hard setting up a patreon?

>>20448054
Are you rich? Tell me about the webnovel game.

>>20448059
Annoying, yes
Hard, not really
>>20448061
Not in the slightest, I wasted the first half a million words barely touching patreon because I was doing it only as a hobby at first

>>20441673
>attempt to write
>1/2 of a page done
>feel an inmense desire to kill myself, delete the page and then kill myself again
when will it stop? If my brain is capable of understanding that the first draft is always shit, especially if you are beginner, why does my body keep cringing at every letter I type?

>>20441673
If my story gets rejected by all the prestigious sci fi fantasy magazines, what do I do with it afterwards?

>>20447538
Alright, anon. I saw people dunking on you a little, so I sincerely went into this trying to enjoy it. By the time we got to the broom handle and the ring, I’d really had enough.
Things move incredibly fast. I read for probably not even five minutes and just from memory a guy stumbled into an alternate realm, saw a massive tree, discovered a town, met and befriended a cobbler, lived with him, got a job as an accountant, met a blacksmith, saw a magician brutally murder a peasant and worked out some ring he looted from the corpse can make the brooms bristles disappear.
>I did this. Then I did this. Then this happened. After that, I went here. I talked to him, and then I saw this.
On top of this, there was a fair amount of lore. This was all discovered through talking to other characters, but only once was the dialogue actually written. Otherwise it was like “He explained it to me, and basically how it works is…”, which is just info dumping.
You describe the blacksmith apprentice guy as the same age as the narrator, only I don’t know your age or your name, which is retarded considering all the other stuff I already know.
Your protagonist knows Shakespeare, old Anglo Saxon runes and Norse mythology. Okay, wouldn’t a character like this be open to the possibility that magic is real? You establish right at the very beginning that you learned magic, so the whole “This is clearly just sleight of hand” shit is annoying.
He reacts to this reality like a redditor doing a letsplay of an rpg, everything just feels inconsequential.

>>20448102
self publish it, then buy some amazon author copies, go to a farmer's market, and sell it for $10 each. This only works if you have 5-8 unsellable books. Be sure have a banner claiming you're an indie author. Someone might bite

>>20447788
This is a hentai isn't it?

>>20447788
I like this for some reason.

>>20448054
Okay, and?

>>20447956
It's perfect as is. Don't change a thing.

>>20448178
I've already described him as a prettyboy, I can't go ahead and have him be a glam rock MAN
besides he looks way too fucking old in this, he's like 17 in the story

>>20441673
Can I be published professionally by a big publisher out of New York if I am white writing about white people?

>>20448183
Obviously you need to edit your story to match this masterpiece. Also change his name to Ziggy Stardragon.

>>20448190
No

>>20447956
Mistakes into miracles.

Do any of you like Checkov? What's you favorite short story by him?

>>20448112
What in God’s good name is wrong with you people and this grass roots bullshit?
You aint gonna make a living selling your shit book full-time, and it’ll distract you from a job.
Get a job, run ads to book, and sell books you fucking hippy.

>>20448210
Nobody wants to buy your shitty book through ads. Who the hell bought Call of the Crocodile from his ads? Nobody. People bought it because of the meme threads

>>20448102
Write another story.

>>20448102
What the fuck is a magazine?

>>20447766
I flipped through it quick. It looks sharp.
>>20448210
Everyone with a brain runs ad-blocking software in their browser.

>>20448253
Great! So no one who doesn’t want to be bothered by ads is bothered by them! THUS MAKING THEM MORE PROFITABLE because you’re not wasting ad spend!
Fucking morons can’t even think this through clearly. S A D!

>>20448286
You don't get it.
The ad still loads, and thus you still spend money.
The very adblock software I use has wasting advertiser money by fake-clicking ads as a point of appeal.

>>20448300
>You don't get it.
The ad still loads, and thus you still spend money.
Retard alert retard alert retard alert

>>20448300
Retard alert retard alert retard alert.
All other searchable information reports the same, which any moron should put 2 and 2 together.

>>20448329
Huh. Must just be my specific adblock, then - AdNauseam.

>>20448337
Nah you’re just a moron backpedaling who doesn’t realize adblock actually increases advertising profits by lowering the cpc and cpv

>>20448102
The real value in publishing came from its ability to mass produce. There's no value in mass production now that copying is free, so they are left only with their ability to market you. Between eliminating the middle man and monetizing superfans, you would need a mass audience 10 times the size of a niche following just to break even. There is just no point unless you crave legacy prestige.

>>20448210
You have to assess your own book. You're going to run an ad at $200. MINIMUM. Okay, can you sell more than 40 books in two weeks to make that $200 worth it? Maybe? Maybe not?

>>20448402
>You're going to run an ad at $200. MINIMUM.
Retard alert retard alert retard alert.
How is everything you say so wrong? I could spend as little as a dollar advertising.

>>20448402
Isn't the idea that paying for ads is faster to the end goal of having a following that talks about your work?
You spend money to get an audience faster.

>>20448418
Why would you spend a dollar and get 1 bid?
>>20448419
on your first book? I'm sure it works, but do you have that much faith in your first book?

>>20448102
Self publish on Amazon and make it available on Kindle Unlimited. You won't make much money, but I get about $200 a year for the few books I self published.

>>20448427
>Why would you spend a dollar and get 1 bid?
You really don’t get that most ads are by the view and cost less than $1 per 1,000 people. God you’re a moron. It’s all incremental.

>>20448438
Then I will start advertising.

Planning on starting a LitRPG Royalroad web serial with the intent to make some money through a Patreon. Does this prologue capture you?

And any other critiques, of course.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tzxgbG_oTGbb1PQ2cQXSpfsQgAARhJvFWuewiJ4cfOo/

>>20442199
pinch pinch, crabs in a bucket. enjoy your boring ass stories with metaphors and a bunch of shit no one will remember because no one will read it. LOL

>>20448509
Nobody read that excerpt anyways. Look only one critique. ONE.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH And I bet he samefagged it himself.

>>20448427
Well I actually wouldn't go through the effort of writing my first book without also planning on it being read by other people.
So yes, I would pay money to advertise my first book.

>>20448495
This is quite cool, anon. I think you have a nice writing style. I don’t usually read this kind of thing personally, the whole what if otherworldly beings were just boring bureaucrats thing isn’t much fun to me. Personal taste aside, you are successfully doing what you’re attempting to do.

>>20448545
Terribly inefficient. You want to advertise your third book shortly before the release of your forth. Then a percentage of the people who like it will buy your other two books and you'll be fresh in their minds when they see another has just come out.

>>20448495
its fine. not LITRPG isekai anime enough though

>>20448054
It certainly doesn't seem like it.

>>20448495
Skip the perfunctory death-by-truck and talking-to-the-goddess scenes. Anyone who reads isekai is familiar enough with the premise that you don't need to include an explanation of what's going on. Start with the real action.

>>20448573
Wow this is a high IQ post. Thanks.

>>20448495
What makes LItRPGs interesting to readers anyways? They seem like they might be fun to write.

>>20448560
Thanks! It's more of a transition chapter before I get to the meat of things, a way to explain away the isekai (which I don't normally read, but it's trendy and I'm broke, and want to make some money off writing if possible). Bureaucratic angel stuff definitely not along for the long haul. Mostly I was checking in to see if the writing was digestible enough to not bounce people off of it. The bulk of the story is going to be semi-typical (semi-not) LitRPG stuff in a semi-generic (semi-not) fantasy world.

>>20448576
Definitely getting to that in future chapters

>>20448581
It's a short 1k words that I thought helped characterize the MC before getting into the heat of things, and introduces the concept of double-isekai (the redhead mentioned). But I definitely see your point ... I'll think over it.

>>20448598
Probably the same thing that makes number-go-up video games interesting to people. It's a very primitive sort of attraction.

>>20448286
>>20448317
>>20448329
>>20448353
>>20448418
>>20448509
You're missing the point, abusive seether.
People that run ad-blocking software don't see anyone's ads.
Anyone with half a brain runs ad-blocking software.
Therefore, buying web ads is pointless.

>>20448095
It ends when you've fixed the draft. Get to editing bitchboy.

Who's baking the next loaf?

>>20448629
Be the change that you want to see in the world.

New thread

>>20448655

>>20448640
see i knew someone else will do it

>>20448598
A sense of familiarity for gamers. A Pavlovian pleasure response from repeated *dings*. A clear measure of growth and progress.

For more enlightened readers, such as myself, it's fun to analyze the system and theorycraft character builds the way you would for a real game. Some enjoy speculating on how a system with defined classes and powers would affect a fantastic society.

But most litRPGs fail to deliver on a coherent system and rely on the dopamine hit of dumping free gifts on the protagonist two or three times a chapter.

>>20448495
As has been said, spending so much time on the preamble does feel a little empty. You could honestly start the story with the last few lines and just occasionally flashback or have the protagonist refer to these events. Writing style is 'good enough to be funny' though I didn't find much funny in and of itself if that's what you were going for, but I can see jokes happening. There's not much to the premise so far because there's no concept of what the other world is like or what the LitRPG elements will be, so can't really comment there, though the implication that she might just die and get shunted off elsewhere is a fun notion.

>>20448107
>Your protagonist knows Shakespeare, old Anglo Saxon runes and Norse mythology. Okay, wouldn’t a character like this be open to the possibility that magic is real?
Not him, but why?

>>20447956
Got an update sketch. Much better.