/lit/ - Literature

shit wrong image

How can I meme my book to fame like Call of the Crocodile? Is it even possible to become the next F Gardner or has that ship set sail?

>>21543763
First, he needs to clarify his living arrangement.
This is the room where he shot all his videos.
But that house was sold on December 12.
Did mommy and daddy take him with them?
Or did they kick his worthless ass to the curb?
Is he homeless? Couch surfing? Renting a studio apartment with his disability check?
How's he gonna afford the alcohol that's slowly killing him?

Alright, let's try this again. How can I take this description and make it more interesting for the reader?

>Princess Nebati Dar Rasheba must chart her first steps as an adult while a horrific rakshasa brings more death to her already warlike world. At first, she is only her parent's conflicted pawn for a political marriage. As allies around her fall, though, Rasheba embraces a path to real power and her first real lover, Lyrabei: stubborn, sensuous, and primal. Then, given the chance to turn the tide against evil, Rasheba strikes like a storm, but it may not be enough. Unseen enemies want the fires of slaughter to keep burning.

>>21543775
I thought G*rdner's soul was devoured by Ambrose?

>>21543787
you actually believe in that crap? sadcringe

>>21543792
>G*rdner gets into Buddhism
>Gets possessed by an anti-Buddha
>Anti-Buddha forces him to make a fool of himself in a bunch of YouTube Videos
>Radio silene after puppet body withers and dies
>Parents sell house because of dead son
It's more likely than you think.

>>21543802
I wish. He's still alive, and shill-spamming up a storm.

It's happening.

How do I start?

I was in an MFA program, even though they're a meme, a few years ago. Then I got sick and decided to stop writing until I finished my degree. Degree's finished and I can't bring myself to write.

I've had people say positive things about my writing. I have a lot of ideas that excite me. I suspect I'm afraid of the ideas coming out terribly on the page.

Has anyone else been through this? How'd you make it through to the other side?

>>21543744
>thread theme
OP is a faggot

>>21543782
bro this cover is ASS
Load up canva, get back in the drawing room, make a full size cover, get the template from amazon's kindle direct publishing platform. But never launch with this god awful cover nigga I will laugh at you.

>>21543819
I'M GONNA....I'M GONNA PROMPT!!!!!

>>21543976
My brother in Christ...

>>21543996
You can still fix the cover after publishing. Frankly, the blurb is significantly less important than the cover. That's the first thing your audience sees and if it's viscerally off putting they won't even get to the blurb.

>>21544019
Fuck man, what makes an appealing cover?

>>21543763
Write 13 memeable novels.
Have a memeable youtube channel.
Be a memeable schizo.

>>21544025
Two things. Consider a website like Goonwrite for the absolute bare minimum acceptable cover for your book. There are other sites like it if you want to look around. Second thing is if you think you can muscle your way around formatting a professional looking cover, use a royalty-free image site like Shutterstock,I particularly like Tithi Luagthong for fantasy/scifi digital paintings. This can be used in tandem with a site like Goonwrite that formats covers for a fee

Your cover has to be rebuilt from the ground up, consider that even the h:w ratio of the image is glaringly off mode. The text is terrible, is that papyrus? The image is completely indistinct, and it conveys nothing about the contents other than war, and the arrows are almost inscrutable.

>>21543782
Bro your cover needs work. Don't use papyrus font. Immediately jumps out as amateur

As for your description, take out all of the proper nouns and made up words. MAYBE leave your main character's name. But honestly all of those names could use work. And then just try to write in like five sentences, focusing on only the most important/hook-like part of your book. What's different about it that no book has done before?

>>21544027
Saved.

>>21543744
>>21543744
Is this a Lyran? Some of the other boards can't stop talking about them.

>>21543782

A cover should depict a key scene and/or invite someone in. If you can't get a cover made by an expensive artist or formulaic approach. Go minimalist.

Black book, white coloring. Now with this you have multiple options. You could add more color and make it a kind of wallpaper color of flowers and arrows. That is distinctive and it suggests things. Such as growing up a female in WAR. Layer the title in its own separate labelesque box.

Or.

You do quiverfull of arrows surronded by flower petals. Leaving the title above or below it to be describe what is seen.

Or you could collage spell out PETALS with little flower petals then HAIL with arrows lined up like they were sticks. I don't recommend this.

I go for a stark and simple cover if you don't have the budget. Now if you're writing porn. Don't follow this advice here. I don't know if you're writing porn. This isn't an attack. But an American Kistune needed its cover with anime art, guns, and a chudjack looking man. Because that's what sells.

Also font. Font is fucking hard. I ain't going to like. Look into Sanskrit fonts. Consult a font expert. Dare I say ask random people on the street.

---

As for the description.

Rakshasa is a type of D&D creature taken from Indian Myth/Folklore. It is not something your average reader knows and its not a commonly used enemy in D&D esque fantasy. If you were South Asian (I hate that word) and/or selling it to South Asians. You got an angle of adapting your culture which get you through the door. But the description is all long and odd.

Let me do it as I have issues with my first paragraph to stew on.

>Princess Nebati's coming of age may be the end of her life. Stalked by a twisted tigerman, periled by the shadows of war, and a pawn in her a political marriage. She was trapped and on the run until she found Lyrabei. A primal and sensual hunter who treated her as if she had her own destiny. With him at her side, she may just have enough of a chance to triumph over assassins, monsters, and an invading army...

Are you writing a romance story here mostly, or is it adventure. The word sensous says "SEX". Which is fine. That's something to sell with.

>>21544025
For modern books it's a pastel of colors trying to emulate Picasso and other surreal artists while having a white font taking up 90% of the space.

>>21544230
For fantasy, it's a giant cover with a "symbol" that takes front and center of the book. This is the most popular book, but you can't do this because everyone will know you stole this from her.

You cover can be decent, but ther'es a bit too much going on.

Just a single arrow through a single flower would be enough. So make that flower in the middle upright and shove that arrow right through it.

Then find a better font for your title and name.

>>21544025
I'm not sure but it's not Papyrus font

Submit to the next anthology! (after the horror one, submissions have closed for that.))

>relatively grounded political/war drama with some fantasy elements tied to esoteric metaphysical lore
>all conflict is purely human throughout the whole story with no one knowing how real the lore actually is
>at the very end a metaphysical entity that could be construed as a devil appears and is revealed to have been the driving force of the plot
Good or bad idea? I feel like I should rewrite it so that it's just a human story throughout with no higher beings or forces, right now the demon is more of a concept metaphor though in-story it's treated as a religious thing.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7wRZ4CJzIHT4bHO54sXrjB

Which of you made this?

>>21544294
Ideas are cheap. Go write it out. Look in the previous thread where we shat on the one anons fantasy book. His blurb was decent, but the actual story had tons of issues.

>>21544373
They gonna do all of them? Kek. Wait till they get to Call of the Arcade. That’s even weirder due to the school shooting chapters. Most batshit insane plot of all time. Yet I couldn’t stop reading it.

>>21544376
I have dozens of pages of notes and story layout and even more pages of the story itself that would be the same regardless of what decision I make about the demon, I'm just wondering if it works on a conceptual level, for an outside metaphysical threat to be the puppeteer orchestrating the grounded human conflict or should the conflict resolution be purely human as well.

>>21544397
So you haven't even written the story yet?

>>21544397
We can't answer that because that's all on you the author to make it make sense. You can have a polar bear with machine guns in a story if you're able to write it out. FFS a dude wrote an entire book about a dinosaur without a single word of dialogue

>>21544373
>>21544379
Gonna watch this. F Gardner’s whole popularity is hilarious. His books are littered with typos and read like edgy teenage fanfics. His narratives become so absurd toward the endings that it’s hard to not constantly think “I can’t believe this exists,” while reading them.
Gardner’s like a retard who inexplicably became popular. It gets even funnier when you see his YouTube videos and it dawns on you that the guy is genuinely insane.

>>21544422
Better than the other books written on here.

>>21544422
He’s like a cartoon character. He’s rich and really productive. His entire life makes no fucking sense. Schizos aren’t normally that functional. It’s like no matter what he does he somehow stumbles onto success. Despite being a total fucking retard.

>>21544403
I have around 100 pages of the story and ~50 pages of the framework and notes on how the whole thing goes

>>21544413
Yeah but those are edge cases, I'm talking more stuff like reception, about the audience potentially feeling disappointed or even betrayed by inserting a metaphysical resolution to a grounded human conflict that's only subtly been hinted at for the duration of the story

>>21544432
This. F Gardner’s books are filled with soul. I’ve seen enough of his youtube channel to see that he truly does think of himself as an artist. So, the man is clearly putting all his heart and soul into his books. That alone explains why Gardner became so famous on 4chan.

>John said
>Said John
Which one?

>>21543763
>aspiring towards hackhood
So sad

>>21544497
Like him or not, F Gardner’s the most famous writer to ever come from this website. That’s where the bar is set.

>>21544505
That’s been made painstakingly clear. It’s mostly just Call of the Crocodile though. There are still regular CotC threads even though that book came out years ago. Gardner’s other dozen books have never become as popular as Call of the Crocodile. He has his fanbase, sure. But CotC is leagues more popular than the rest of his books and probably always will be.

>>21543895
there's no trick. you sit down and write. you sit down and you make the words come out, you squeeze them out and you beat them onto the page. sometimes everything flows and your scenes just splash onto the page and carry you on and on. sometimes there's nothing, not even resin, not even ashes, but you're still there scratching out what you can. you just have to do it, anon. that's all there is to it.

have you ever tried to write a story for a different medium (tv show, game, movie) only to realize your story might work best as a book?

>>21544592
Should I try to write one of the ideas I'm very taken with first or should I try to improve my writing before trying those golden ideas?

Hello
Ive started writing just for fun. What i have found is that my creativity isbfar better writing on paper than a computer. I was just curious if anyone has noticed this.

>>21543782
>ask for opinions
>get opinions
>don't like them
>change nothing and ask again
faggot

>>21544497
>Talking shit about Fuhrer Gardner

Sad!

>>21544454

"Said john" ordering always sounds to me like there's a bit of an attitude, so I wouldn't say it suits a neutral 3rd person narrative. But if the story is a playful sort, or has 1st person narration, both are fine.

>>21544592
how do you muster the will to write even under chronic fatigue brought upon by sleep apnea? even wifh my mask, i cannot ever remember the feeling of being well rested, and my mind is often muddied and confused, with a headache as if I had only slept for 4 hours or less.

>>21544752
I held back my golden ideas until I was good and by the time I was good I had too many ideas and still haven't got around to the golden ideas. Just do what's going to hold your interest for a long time

>>21545094
Meant for >>21544698

>have a smorgasbord of ideas, setting, characters, scenes, themes, gimmicks, etc
>collated everything into a notebook
>unable to tie it all together into a cohesive, intelligible plot

I'm sure epiphany will come eventually...

>>21544514
>Call of the Crocodile
apparently you can read the books in any order!

>>21544245
What is it for Science Fiction and also Weird Fiction.

>>21544287
Did you really repost my image of... the book? You didn't have your own image of the book to post?

How do I write a story about a teenage girl if I'm a middle aged man?

>>21545569
With your hand on your dick presumably.

>>21544698
Your first attempt will likely be your worst one. However, the more you practice having ideas the more ideas you'll have. You'll never run out of them. I say start with whatever makes you write the most, drive it like you stole it, crash, reread and try again.

>>21545580
I tried that but my calluses don't reflect the soft tender palms of a teenage girl. Guess I'll watch more Riverdale and other teen dramas

If I'm just a hobby writer, is it okay to churn out mediocre books?

>>21545609
Lotion and fake pumice stones will fix that

>>21545675
As long as you're happy with them, yes.

>>21545675
Churning out mediocre books is the winning strategy for professional writers too

>>21545569
Reading hentai doujins

>>21544454
Start with 'said' if the name is complex or if the speaker is performing an action
>said john, who was fiddling with his keys
or
>said king john of england, the last mortal man on earth.
You can start with the name in most other circumstances
>john said, while anon's mother twerked in front of him

How do I know if my writing sucks? I aim to be as clear as possible and add some flourish here and there, but it seems like it lacks something.

Dream sequence. Want the reader to be able to follow the sequence of events while also being aware that they are basically incoherent. Idk, I like writing dreams. I wonder if this would stick in your craw if it came in the middle of a grounded piece of crime fiction

>>21544422
>>21544435
F. Gardner has no legitimate popularity or success. He's been busted for buying subs/ratings multiple times, and is strongly suspected of purchasing views for his youtube channel. Anyone who has interacted with Gardner can tell you that he is not a secret genius or whimsical schizo, he is a cold, serious, and stupid man. He does not aim to write well. He does not aim to entertain his readers. His only goal is to convince you that he is a meme.

He is an object of mockery or curiosity for 4chan, but has no success or even the slightest mention anywhere else. His books do not have soul, they are written purely so that he will have something to shill in order to maintain his notoriety, and judging buy the repetitive nature of his prose, it is an obvious strain for him to even fill the word count necessary to publish through KDP. His ideas have soul, but since he is not prepared to put the slightest bit of effort in order to bring them to life, it all dies the moment it hits the page.

F. Gardner is pretending to be famous. And he's not even doing a good job of that.

>>21546064
>and is strongly suspected of purchasing views for his youtube channel.
There is nothing to suggest that he is purchasing views. His interactions/subscriber/view ratio all line up. I've seen some very sketchy YouTube numbers from some of you people. Gardner's channel looks legit.

>>21545946
All good writing has a bit of autism in it. Stop editing yours out

I wanted to write but found out I'm more of a audiovisual person, what do I do? I don't really express myself with words a lot

>>21546169
start playing guitar. you can get a headphone adapter for your amp to keep your playing from being loud.

>>21546184
I was thinking on learning just enough writing for visual media but I'm kinda lost.

Hey everyone, "Hell-Anon" here. Hope you're all doing well with your projects.

>>21546199
No... My project just got shat on so hard I had to rewrite my entire opening

>>21546211
>shat on
By whom?

>>21546217
Various anons

>>21546211
It's important to remember that writing is an iterative process. Not every draft will be good. Not all of your ideas will be good.

>>21546195
>learning enough writing for visual media
if you've graduated high school you probably have enough writing ability for visual media, but if you're referring to creating a self contained work with plot beats maybe try and bang out a short story, 3-4k words. ultimately you just have to sit down and do it.
a few days ago I re-picked up this project I just barely started a couple years back - because I got inspired by someone elses project, an SRPG game I'm writing in lua. the issue I was having was creating a movement grid - my code for that was some spaghetti nonsense - but picking it back up and looking at it I realized what I'd been missing. I basically rewrote that section in like and hour and a half, made it much simpler, and what I have now creates an infinitely expandable grid that accounts for obstacles and reduces movement spaces accordingly.
but here's the key to it. if I didn't sit down to do it, it wouldn't have gotten done. and all the time I spent before that banging my head against it wasn't wasted, I used what I'd done to implement the solution.

Truth is I only want to publish something so I can be pretentious in peace. People call me a poser cause I larp as a depressive writer. I guess if I have a book published they'll stop and I can be myself without judgment.

>>21546211
>my project got shat on so hard I had to rewrite my entire opening
that's a good thing and you should be grateful you got feedback. openings are extremely important

>>21546211
Started a project five years ago, first 2 chapters were heavily edited and, in my mind, pristine and perfect (at the time I had not subscribed to the philosophy of finishing an entire rough draft before editing)
Went back to finish the book years later, and everyone said my first two chapters were boring and extremely hard to get through. I was all "but what about that one metaphor and that part with the thing?" and they are all, "Nope, literally had to force myself to get through it. Trash."
Tried to fix it, couldn't make it much better, and finally decided to start from scratch and come at it with a different mindset, not trying to be so deep and profound because doing so was just boring.

Anyway, the lesson is never try.

>>21545918
I usually also go with "said x" if the characters name ends with s or sh because
>Josh said
>Joss said
sound gross aloud

>>21545103
Be willing to let some of them go. You don't have to use every Lego in the box.

>>21545569
Think back to when you were a teenage boy. Now imagine that but horny middle aged men are always staring at you.

>>21546199
Not good. Put the first 100k words of my story on various sites asking for feedback and didn't get a single read except for bots. Didn't even reach 50 page reads in total.

>>21545103
Why get stuck into one story only? Make a bunch of stories with different characters and themes

>>21546619
>first 100k words
I admire you guys. My novel has 40k in total

>>21546619
link to it, if you would

>>21546652
Can't now. I deleted it after almost 6 months of updates and no readers. Was thinking I need to republish with some AI generated girl on the cover and learn how to advertise.

>>21546641
lol. nice pamphlet. is your audience meant to be mentally stunted kindergardeners?

>>21546660
Don't be a dickhead, that anon was being nice. He shouldn't be considering 40k words a novel, however.

>>21546729
Was meant for >>21546677, my bad.

I have no ideas and don't care enough about prompts to write them well. I'm feeling discouraged because people in my writing class are better than I am. I enjoy writing and want to get better, but it sucks being shit.

>>21546764
Chin up, keep at it.

>>21546768
Thanks anon. I know it's just a slump.

>>21546677
Most novels I like are 50 - 80k.
>whatever/atomized
>Gatsby
>epitaph of a small winner
>portrait of the artist
>krautzer sonata
>Lovecraft's stuff
>the sun also rises
>the map and the territory
And so on...
My first draft was 60k and then I was told to be more concise until it got to 40k. I just find it amazing how people can be so prolific
I don't think more = better. Unless you're writing fantasy shit - in that case you need big piles for bugmen to consume

>>21546802
Older novels were shorter. A typical novel size these days is around 100k especially those on KU

>>21546938
>Older novels were shorter
and according to that anon, they were also for kindergartners

an entire /wg/ without a single cringe ABAB poem?
wow, I guess the vaccine really did work. I'll never doubt Science again.

>>21546981
I like cute flat chest girls
There's nothing so sweet as they
Big large udders make me hurl
I can assure you, I'm not gay

>>21547023
Tonight I my shirt packed in a furl
A cup shaken with whey
Ready to gift her a white pearl
Oh, this coming sweet May

>>21547038
On her bed my toes did curl
A feeling of a soft brey
How my asshole screamed for Meryl
As her cock entered so I could brey

>>21545986
>The horseman brought from his heart a rod of sugar cane, a great straw-colored staff that covered the endless stretch of space between George and he, and from it hung three straw dolls, tied in a bushel.
Fucking nice on brother.

>>21545986
>This horseman brought from his heart a rod of sugar cane, a great straw-colored staff that covered the endless stretch of space between George and he, and from it hung three straw dolls, tied in a bushel

>>21547023
Forgot to add, I like them young.

>>21547254
hilarious dude! this is the kind of edgy humour that we brings me back to 4chan night after night

>>21545986
One of the very few pieces posted on here that make me actually want to read more from the writer. Nice one, lad.

I've had this idea for a adventure novel about 80s culture, and a advanced atlantean society in key west florida. heavily inspired by the aesthetic of miami vice and drawing from a lot of my autistic fascination with guerilla warfare and its relation to organized crime, mystical stuff, and miami vice.
I started writing it in 2021, and came back to it after a long hiatus and I really don't like how it's been written. I've only got 10 pages thus far. should I just scrap everything and start anew?
pic is an example of some rewriting I did of the idea in a /k/ writefag thread

>Write over 100k words
>Still have no idea how to answer for when someone asks "What is your book about?"
Fuck me

I limp about the city all day, stopping when my leg gets tired, beginning again after a rest, and then I go home and sleep until I wake to limp again. As I limp, I think about my life. I cannot help it. All my life, and the various moments of it, keep coming back to me though I do not want them to. Memories, they are a lingering infection of time. I imagine pleasant memories would be nice. But I must reexperience my unpleasant past. The only good thing about my life is that the constant limping through the city prevents the accrual of any memories but the banal cityscape. Because nothing ever happens, I just remember the same streets I have been through since I first began my present use of time. The memories before this though, the time I tried to struggle with life, still remain. I can only hope that one day, I will forget them and remember nothing but the wide streets of plain buildings that make a maze of the world. Then it will be a more bearable banal. Moving on then, I will begin with how I got my limp. But first I need to put on my shoes.

>>21548364
Dude I published a book and I still don't know how to describe it without sounding like a schizo retard

>Your fantasy setting is shit! It's so generic
>introduce a rolodex
>a giant cell phone
>use something similar to the dewey decimal system
>have my characters flip to the back of a book to look at the index
>letters and stamps
>spiral notebooks
>hole punchers
>WOW YOU FAGGOT WHY ARE YOU HAVING OLD ASS STATIONARY NOW? THAT IS FUCKING STUPID. WHY THE FUCK WOULD ELVES HAVE A ROLODEX TO LOOK TO CALL EACH OTHER

What do people want? I'm so confused

>James wanted to take a trip. He found this piling up of blue Sundays hard to endure. Lisa’s long silence had made him quite miserable. He thought he might take a trip alone to Ohio. This very lyrical sadness, the frustrating sadness of having his writings interrupted by Lisa’s silence, this groan over things unfinished, as it must be called, was something James had completely forgotten since his days of literary apprenticeship over forty years earlier. This groan was a harking back to the most awkward part of youth, the most unpleasant, least valuable part. That was a fatalistic incompleteness going far beyond the usual interruption, a ridiculous incompleteness filled with humiliation. Every time one reached out one’s hand, all the branches and fruit would be carried high in the wind; no fruit ever reached the mouth of Tantalus. In this incompleteness his thirst was never assuaged. In that period, one day—that was now over thirty years in the past— the artist in James was born. The disease of incompleteness left him. In its place, perfection came to threaten. Perfectionism became his chronic complaint. It was an illness that showed no wound. It was an illness with no affected part. It was an illness without bacteria, fever, accelerating pulse, headache or twitches. It was an illness like death, above all.

>>21548638
>get complaints of "generic" fantasy setting
>adds all sorts of doodads
sounds like you should invest in an exciting plot instead so people don't get sidetracked by stupid ass little details

>>21548732
But I like doodads embedded in the story
>Elf 1 needs to find the healer
>Borrows the cellphone of Elf 2
>Nobody knows the number
>Find rolodex to look up the number
>Agree to meet over the phone
>Not some long ass trek through a forest
>Take the bus instead
Same thing, but it uses modern technology to do the same thing

Is there anything you can do to get into your character's head more effectively? I feel like I know them on a clinical level but not enough to really get their voice in paper

>>21548942
Imagine them talking in any number of conversations to any number of people. Imagine how they would respond and react to various situations, conversations, and events. Once you have their actions and dialogue down then you worry about transposing that into the voice you are using when writing their sections.
Least that's what i do, but I am stuck on my books cover so what do I know.

>>21548942
Sometimes you just have to discover it by having an interesting response by them. Then, you fill in the blanks in the headcanon and can have that referenced later in the book. Wa la, interesting character traits.
Often times, the way they respond will be reasonable for the character traits you've decided they have. Clinically knowing may be enough -- understanding that they are easily angered, that's enough, they won't be able to handle inconveniences as easily as others.
One way that helps is by having them in a situation with multiple people who will all have their own unique way of dealing with things, and the character's differing responses will draw out the uniqueness in each person.
Often, who a person is can be demonstrated by action, not just words and the thoughts that form their heads. People are 80% emotion. A frown or a suppressed grin at the right moment will say a hell of a lot very quickly.

>>21546802
Bro atomised is 96k...
You're writing a novella if it's sub 50k. Nothing wrong with that, but you're misusing the word novel.

I want to write an essay (and maybe a short book thereafter) about how concern regarding mental health has overtaken that of physical health. My basic contention is that whilst most people consider intelligence and language to be humanity's defining trait, our capacity and *need* for physical activity/exercise is unlike that of any other animal. An over-emphasis on feelings, happiness and therapy has neglected the other half of our most basic instincts: to be strong, agile and enduring.

I've held this theory for a long time and working as a physical therapist - both in the community and in hospitals - has given me plenty of evidence. I would really appreciate any papers or especially books that talk about this topic - just plz don't recommend "Body Fascism."

I enjoy writing about the grotesque and the inane and all the shit that no one wants to read about

>>21549879
That's fine. Write what you know.
>>21543744
Should I outline everything and try to stick to it, or is outlining with organic flow the best option? I think my subconscious might start up and I'll diverge slowly from my intended start.

Any good writing discord servers? Sometimes I find it easier to work if there's a bit of a conversation happening in the background, even if I'm not involved.

>>21550083
You don't want to join a 4chan related one because they just seethe over shit and try to limit your roles if you say anything they disagree with. Just google it.

>>21550083

there's a few out there, but they're rare and usually Reddit-tier

>>21550083
We don't talk about discord here

>>21550083
Im trying to find one with bunch of trannies and teenage girls

>>21544752
Yes, me. This type of post pops up here once a week. Writting in a decent notebook is much better than at a computer. For me, it's the pilot g-2 that writes the best.

Wrote this in class from a prompt. Thinking of continuing it to where the protag delivers the food parcel to a single mother, falls in love, leaves Berlin again, and then cannot cross back in because he now fears dying because he has something to lose.

Is it worth it or is this complete shit?

Publisher got my trash webfic signed with Webtoon for an adaptation! Cautiously optimistic, hoping to get paired with a good artist. My Patreon jumped up to $3k a month and I'm back in the thirty thousands range for Kindle Store ranking.

>>21550175
That's fucking dope. Good job!

>>21550133
Might only be me but I dont bother reading exerpts with 20 words per line, my eyes don't like it and they scream at me to do something else. FWIW I prefer 7 - 10 words per line, almost like a column size.

>>21550175
Aethon really is impressive.

>>21550175
Now start a youtube fren

>>21550181
Any better?

>>21550175
Care to share what your strategy was?

>>21550175
now come on our podcast, chud

>>21550175
You've made it anon!

>You now realize all this creative struggle is meaningless as even if you make above an average wage for a year off your pandering slop some ESL shitter will just use your hard work to train an AI to do it better and more frequently to more then halve your income in the following year.
We need to go back.

Do you guys have beta readers irl?

>>21550316
How's it meaningless? I enjoy it.

>>21550209
Way better thanks

>>21550316
I'm looking forward to have a lobotomized roboto as a creative partner. My only hangup is that openai seems to log everything and if anything makes a profit in the market, they'll unleash their legal army for the booty.

>Animation (especially kids animation) is made up of a bunch of artists who went to art school and they're brilliant, trained artists, not writers - which takes JUST as much training and practice. It's the old cliche - EVERYBODY thinks they're a writer because words on a page look like words on a page - unlike ART, which you can tell when someone has gone to school and is trained and learned the craft of drawing and animating.

>They all think, "I'm funny! I can write this!" without having any idea what there-act structure is, what character arcs are, how to create character driven comedy, how to structure and build a story and keep your character's voices and action unique and individual to that character. It's all just so common in Hollywood. The WGA is about to go on strike again because the studios and producers don't want to give writers the tiniest, little bit more (in fact, while Hollywood is raking in record profits, writer salaries are going down). It's the oldest story in the book (ironically, because "books" need writers).

Shit I'm an artist trying to get into comedy writing so I can make a comedy series but I have no clue where to start learning about it, any good books on how to write funny?

>>21550399
I'm just a dude that wants to write a story so I can check out the cashier working at Starbucks

>>21543782
I will try to read the book if it makes you fuck off, Tony.

I thought my book was 600 pages. After scaling the size of the pages down so they’re not printer paper size it turns out it’s nearly 800. I am hoping there’s a freak out there willing to swallow the challenge of reading all of it because I’m committed to my autistic vision.

>>21550543
Split it into 3 parts

>>21550548
I’ve thought about it. Already divided it into six “books” within it so I feel it retains interest, keeps the story fresh. But when I think about if I were to make it into a series? I don’t feel like there’s quite strong enough end points worthy of ending the first potential book midway.

>>21548801
You've got to think logically when worldbuilding. If this technology exsists, then why doesn't modern medicine? Why are there healers and not doctors? Alternatively, if the magic of your world is so stupendous that it heal wounds or disease, why aren't they using magic for communication or transport? What you're suggesting is simply out of place and inconsistent. I'm not even a worldbuildingfag, I just like things to make sense.

>>21549888
>organic flow
Undoubtedly the best option. Your outline should serve as something to fall back on if you lose your way.

>>21550573
I wonder about world building fags, do people need to know how something works to it's core. Let's say I have MC start a car with magic, do people need to know how that works ?

>>21548692

Just finished my first attempt a short story. It's absolute dogshit I am certainly not posting here, but I'm just happy I finally forced myself to finish it so I could prove to myself I COULD finish something.
Now the hard part is actually getting good.

>>21550663
Some people absolutely love that sort of autism shit and sperg out over it. Most people fucking hate it though.

>>21550684
I wonder how useful it is to go back and edit shit stories when you just start, or if you should just start something new and come back to the shit stories in a year.

>>21550663
How something works, specifically, isn't often important, especially to the reader. Why one thing is used over another thing should be easily assumed and not explained.
My issue here lies with modern technology exsisting in a generic fantasy setting. I'd have no problem with a magic user starting a car with magic if the car wasn't out of place. It just seems lazy to take an invention from our reality and throw it into your own without any thought as to how it would've come about in that world. It's fine to describe a car but have it called something else, with slight design alterations which more fit your setting. Same with the rolodex, that was invented in the 1950s by some Danish guy, there are no Danes in your fantasy setting, so who invented it? Why does it share the same name as its real-life counterpart? I'm not saying that someone in your setting couldn't have come up with the same idea, only that if they had they would have implemented it differently. Out of place shit like that bothers me. Like when someone uses a french in a fantasy work
>"I just had déjà vu" said Cornaith
for instance. Nonsensical place garbage.

>>21545497
it's thorough!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAvWFbAiCzg

>>21550725
Dunno, I'm just taking shots in the dark right now and hoping I get decent enough by the end.

>>21550752
Well why bother making up an entirely new word when a Rolodex works? Do you really need it to be called "information card flippy roller"? Or "notebook" vs lined page recorder

How do I come up with an interesting journey for my mc?
I have the main outline ready, but I don't know what to do between the important parts.
He could arrive at a new city, fight a monster, meet a new character, ect... There's no right answer, but a LOT of wrong ones. Whenever I think about something it feels boring / forced / unrelated to the main plot (mainly boring).
This freedom is a curse.

>>21550851
It depends on the setting anon. If it's set in the modern world with fantasy elements, then the use of modern technology and terminology is fine. If it's a D&D style fantasy world and you're throwing in out of place technology and phrases it shows you lack originality, it sticks out and is quite frankly off-putting.
>why bother making up an entirely new word
Because that's where you've chosen to set your story.
>setting
>characters
>plot
>prose
The four things to nail. You're failing on the first. Everything is derived from setting, put some thought into it.

>>21550853
Maybe he has a goal before your inciting incident which gets brushed aside when he's called to action. Then in his down time he attempts to accomplish it. Maybe he goes to pay respects to a fallen loved one. Perhaps he runs into someone he knew from long ago and gets dragged into their troubles. If all else fails, ignore the unimportant parts for now and focus on the main stuff. Second draft, add the filler and adjust your important sections to suit.

https://paste.toolforge.org/view/0d38dcab

Here's the (overly detailed) outline for a slightly evil erotica novella that I've had sitting on my hard drive. It's unfinished.

I posted this a while back, but deleted it because I posted it as five massive text-filled posts, and someone got justifiably mad at me for spamming the thread.

I'm stuck on how to escalate it towards an ending. I think the climax should involve some kind of revenge by Gladys. Or maybe the unnamed protagonist's murder of the previous gardener should be revealed, or at least the authorities should start snooping around and stressing him out. Or maybe Polly grows jealous of Gladys now usurping her nightly place in the shed. Or maybe some combination of these three.

>>21550853
There's two options. Both have had productive results for me, in the past.

1. You skip the journey. Just write 'the important parts'. Most bad writing comes from people writing things that they feel are obligatory without having any personal aesthetic investment in them.

2. You just sit down and start writing the seemingly boring in-between scene and just see where it goes. See if the side characters and locations feel fun to riff on and generate further episodes and complications. Come up with a detail that feels funny or intriguing in the moment and commit to it. Soon the curse of infinite freedom soon becomes whittled down into a series of small-scale decisions and spur-of-the-moment impulses. ('Does he board the carriage of the mysterious stranger? Yes! Because I want to describe a ride through a storm, and because, let's say, the stranger wears the same fox-skin scarf as the strange woman from the tavern.' Get the wheels of the carriage spinning before you have time to second-guess your impulses.)

>>21550888
>>21550994
Thank you, this is excellent advice.
I think I've been forcing myself to write uninteresting / irrelevant parts (and even whole chapters) just because I didn't want my story to feel rushed.

>>21550876
What if the setting is some crazy ass place like final fantasy where swords, airships, cars trains, dinosaurs, dragons, God's, nuclear reactors, ostriches all meet?

>>21551092
Then it's a shitty ass fantasy setting. Most JRPGS are.

>>21551092
You can do whatever you want with your setting as long as you're consistant and your leaps in logic aren't blatantly large. Are you seriously trying to imply that the Final Fantasy universe hasn't undergone rigorous world building? I'm not saying you can't do something, just that when you do it have it make sense.
I think I'm over this conversation, you're not making any arguments and your unsatisfactory replies are making it hard for me to justify engaging you any further.

Anyone know of any good writing prompt competitions?

>>21551142
I'm not making any arguments. I'm genuinely asking. Sorry for frustrating you sheesh.

>>21547957
This is the best concept I've ever seen in one of these threads. (I can't rate the prose in your screenshot because I'm tired and I can't bring myself to read a whole sentence right now. Yet I read 'autistic fascination with guerilla warfare and its relation to organized crime, mystical stuff, and miami vice' with rapt attention. What does mean?)

You might have read Inherent Vice already, but there's some good stuff on Atlantis (or maybe Lemuria) in there.

>>21551176
>I'm genuinely asking.
In which case, I take back my last sentence. I misjudged you, sorry.
My best advice would be to think about cause and effect when developing a setting. There's a reason as to why everything is as it is, especially your characters, they are products of their environment and the plot is a product of their actions. And you don't need to develop your setting with great detail before you start writing, this is a trap many aspiring authors fall into, develop it just enough so that you understand how your characters have been shaped by the setting, as well as their place in it. The details come later, you'll think them up as you write and the more you've written, the easier it'll be to recgonise if something suits your setting or not. If you notice down the line that something from the start of your story no longer fits, don't be afraid to take it out and replace it with something more in tune with your now fleshed out theme.

>>21550316
speak for yourself, loser

Stephen king is jealous of her...

>>21545103
I just make an anthology of short stories. From there you only need a single thread connecting all of them.

haha fuck i need to write my sci fi shorts

>>21549094
>Wa la

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17QC9p1BTvemVsVdRl2z9FvItMuYhm24jje6MR7NdAgc/edit

A bit of historical crime/noir fiction. Any feedback is much appreciated, I feel like George is too passive a character and also that midway through he changes a bit.

>>21552101
I just read the first paragraph, but it already feels like this isn't the beginning. Clarissa dies, but we have yet to know who the main character is except for "he". This is another chapter since clearly Clarissa is important to the MC, but isn't the MC, it's a flashback.

The next two paragraphs are all over hte place. I'm guessing Geroge is the MC but it's unclear.

>>21552101
Disclosure: I couldn't get through it, I tried to skip and skim but a lot of it I found to be a little incoherent and choppy.

Certainly echo >>21552109 with everything leading up to the diner room dialogue. Not sure if this is indeed an excerpt from something larger, but whether it is or isn't you dropped us into next to nothing. The driving action, from what I surmise, doesn't even begin until the third page.

What was lucid I did enjoy (Narrated sumation of Brother Abe's dejection) But this needs a very serious edit before you can get any reasonable feedback, I think, other than fix the whole thing.

>>21552101
Way too dense. Too many names and characters. Too many events.

Pick a specific time and place and start your story there.

>>21546938
Older novels were also better. There's probably some connection.

>>21550543
Release it as a premium two volume slipcase.

>>21544435
Certified Timothy Dexter moment

Any reason I should go back to school and get a degree in writing?

I have the basic plot points of my story all planed out, but how do I fill it with other stuff that make the world feel lived in and real without feeling like inconsequential fluff or padding?

Or, is that just the golden question?

>>21552613
None of the literary greats had a degree in writing.

I’ve found that, owing to my rampant consumption of novels from the 19th and early 20th centuries, my style of writing has become very similar to the authors from that period. However, I do not entirely enjoy this style of writing, as it feels stilted to me, and I wish to at least learn another manner of writing.

How should I go about doing this other than to read?

>>21552642
Untrue. Even before the establishment of modern academia many of the greats were formally trained specifically in poetry or writing. You may of course posit that formal training under a master does not equal a degree in writing, and I’ll counter that autodidactism is a rung lower

>>21552660
The solution should be obvious, anon. Read fiction whose style you think would work better for you.

>Only wrote 300 words
>Need a fucking break
At least it was a good 300 words (I think)

>write a book trilogy started in 7th grade
>finish it senior year of high school
>now have a complete work sitting in my pc

I am considering just self publishing, but nobody has read it and I never got an editor. any advice?

>>21552962
get an editor

>>21552962
Write a second draft.

>>21552882
Normal.

>>21552660
You've got to read, no other way around it.

>>21552616
Things should always contribute to the reader's experience. If your book involves ancient guilds, talk a little about their lore, drop in small world building facts as you go.

>>21543744
Kiss my rang
Miss my taint
This ass stinky
Make you faint
Praying for you hoes
Yeah I’m a saint
And I got my sticky blicky
Lick my gooch at the cricky
Gonna fuck you up
Two girls one cup
Yeah I’m sipping on some lean
Smoking blunts super green
I’m a kingpin bitch
Sell another bricky
Kill a snitch
And chuck another sickie
Go to the strip club
Fuck an Asian named Ling Ling
Til she speak in dub
Nut on her Peng ting face
Fake ass yeah she Nicki
Traitor to her race
She looking good in some lace
Sucky fucky lucky dip licky licky
Rick James with the clip
And the lean’s almost gone
Have another sip til I’m high like a blimp
I’m a motherfucking pimp

>>21553464
This is nice. Keep at it.

>https://paste.toolforge.org/view/91afb184
Can I get a set of eyes on this poem? It's long and incomplete, so however far you get would be great. I'll return any critiques if your work is linked.

>>21553474
I could go line by line but it will take too long. Here's what stuck out to me on initial glance of the first 20 lines, but I will try give a thorough read of the whole thing for general impressions.
Even if some of it is pretty competent, I will outline some criticisms which appeared for me personally. The subject matter seems a bit scattered, almost feeling a bit "generated" rather than having a particular poetic purpose. The variance in meter appears from lines 3 to 6. Unsure what the intention behind this was. Line 9 particularly sticks out as varied in rhythm compared to what preceded it with the "silvered" construction. Line 13 ends rather softly as "with" "er" and "ing" are all usually unstressed sounds (although not always in the word itself), but it felt maybe you were dissipating the stress here. Line 15 shifts again as I think "metal shavings" becomes trochaic depending on the rest of the line. There's no need not to vary it but I'm struggling to see the purpose or pattern; maybe you can illuminate me. "Back at" in line 16 also feels a bit awkward at the start of the line, but that is probably due to the grammatical construction forcing you to use it. "al dente" followed by "and" is a bit odd, since I'd put in "rending small" instead of "and rend small". The mentions of potentially Athena or Metis being related to Zeus was a nice touch.
Some of it reminds me more of Rossetti and maybe Shelley with the seemingly freer, more energetic form of iambic pentameter (as opposed to some more rigid iambic pentameter), which is not a bad thing, but to know why you chose certain pressure points and moments of waning from pressure would be good. Try to think of poetic rhythm as resistance in a circuit.

>>21543782
Try making it not shitty then ask again

>>21553506
I'm not sure if it will help the reading, but I'm using very, very heavy use of elision if that wasn't obvious. My impression is that the scansion is very, very counter-intuitive from what you've said. My guideline is not metre as much as it is a syllabic structure (the Milton part is subterfuge, for the most part, but explicitly intended to reference the syllabic construction of the poem). I know this is probably pretty highly unconventional, but I wanted to free myself to create unconventional rhythms that are guided more by intuition of elision than anything else. Maybe I'm being too naive, but I'm wondering if this changes your reading at all to know that.

As far as the subject matter goes... I plead the fifth. It is a weird cross between a narrative epic and a confessional. Probably of note, it is also a frame narrative — this poem comes ~40k words into a novel and is written by my narrator. I don't like labels, but it's probably a surrealist novel, and my narrator is most likely completely insane. Some of the content calls back to prior events in the work, some of it... doesn't. I appreciate you, fren. Thank you.

>>21553474
I just the read the first few lines, and it seems like you're having fun, but it's a very private fun, with no sense of invitation for the reader, and no sense of charm beyond the little tics and references that amuse you personally. It doesn't seem to try to build up any energy that will carry you (the reader) along and bring you into its world. Cf. the first stanza of Wallace Stevens's long poem 'The Comedian as the Letter C'.

>>21550399
>act structure is, what character arcs are
Garbage that makes your story formulaic and technical?

>>21553515
It probably makes more sense in the rest of the work, so don't worry about it going over my head. If it's even partly a confessional, it would be good to have more of a feel for 'address', who the speaker is speaking to (whether that is a court, his victim, or even himself, who may also be a victim of his own folly), as well as a stronger emotional timbre. As of now, it seems a bit hard to gauge what the speaker's guilt, or lack thereof, would be; even their mental state is hard to understand, but maybe that's because I lack context or do not see it because I was focusing on more extraneous issues like flow and rhythm with regards to iambic pentameter.
>surrealism
>insane
Very brave of you to try those. I attempted a novel like that long ago and it was generally hated on by /lit/. The work itself put me in a rut mentally and creatively. So I'm glad you pulled off such a large poem with such hard themes and style.
Here's something I wrote last year which isn't great (the language and theme are cliched), but I thought I'd post something now.u
https://pastebin.com/mmbEXpqs

>>21553538
Nah, structure eases in and immerses the audience, unless you're a prodigy it makes far more sense to stick to the proven formula (and twisting or subverting it) because otherwise you risk them not being able to get into a groove and dropping the story altogether.

Here a short story about a guy getting turned into a knife.

Since the other kind anon suggested my original short story lacked a climactic scene i decided to write a prelogue that builds up to the transformation to make that its high point.

Any criticism is welcome

>>21553566
>first sentence
I'd break that into two if I were you; it seems a bit like there are two clauses there without a connective, but that might be me.
>decimals
What's the point of that? Never really seen that in prose before. It's almost even normal to spell out a word instead of using numerals.
>hyphen instead of em dash
This looks ugly to me. Use an em dash if you can.
>Question mark?
Doesn't seem natural in the context to me. You can keep it but it feels off.
>green eyes like green thing
That feels a bit of a tautology. Maybe just describe the green eyes in a way that is less repetitive, e.g., "emerald eyes the hue of a hairstreak butterfly."
>.",
What? Get that comma out of there.
>0.2 seconds
Oddly specific. I don't think it adds to the narrative. Just say "quickly" or "within a moment" or something.
Overall, this whole piece suffers partly from a beginner trying to seem quirky or humorous despite not knowing the effect of his flow and pace, or even diction. The silliness just feels forced rather than surprising. Even nonsense poetry by Lewis Carroll can make you laugh because of the way it knows to subvert normality or logic.

>>21553543
I like to do line edits because I don't see it being my place to judge what an author chooses to depict.
>All things remain perfidious down here.
The usage of "perfidious" jars me here with the otherwise contemporary phrasing. The word wears old clothes and has that flavor, so I'd go balls deep and spice it up even more: "Down here, all remains perfidious," or even something outlandish like: "In depth rests endless perfidy," which I think expresses something similar and possibly flows better.
>And something called out in the obsidian night, which I could only hark back at. But this was my folly.
This also reads a bit obtuse to me in terms of flow. Since I didn't write it myself and I don't know what you'd be willing to let go, I don't know how I'd change it except to say that "hark back at" is probably the biggest offender. Read it out loud and you'll see for yourself.
>saline death
Something more concrete would fit better here, I think. Brackish water, or something. Good opportunity to breathe more poetry into it, conversely.


Yeah, like you say, there are a bunch of opportunities for little optimizations here of phrasing, terminology, sentence structure. I don't want to go too deep into it because you say it's a year old (and a lot of development happens in a year), but my broadest impression here is that there are quite a few two to three-word strings of words that are really good and evocative, but that these specificities and turns of phrase become somewhat lost when viewed from a wider lens, if that makes sense. I think that these little nodules of great concepts and phrasing can easily grow into larger sequences that eventually hold up to the same scrutiny. Where there is a small bit of great phrasing, there can become great swathes thereof. The vision is there, the mood is there... all that remains is to keep on writing. Good shit, anon.

>>21553583

That was fast, thanks dude

>Comedic silly story

That wasn't really my intention at all, I tried to invoke an ingroup (friends) vs outgroup (protagonist) perspective and an increasing feeling of alienation, that sucks that it comes off that way.

>>21553554
That's still better than formulaic

Character has been given some psychedelics in the prior scene and he's just starting to lose it.

What do you think? I need to add some in

I'm writing a fantasy isekai and have decided to turn it into a litrpg to better appeal to the lowest common denominator. Problem is I haven't played a video game in over a decade. How do I write stats and classes in a way that feels genuine?

>>21543744
Not much excitement in the /lit/ top ten this week. James Krake retains his second place position, although Mike Ma (hon.) continues to widen the gap. The Unreal Press anthology has bumped Pseudo Bulkington from the top 5, with Zulu Alitspa's Oasis receiving praise from advance reviews. Gardner maintains his position, although CotC numbers appear to be sliding. Ogden Nesmer maintains his position at #5 with I Pray to the Hungry God, although Eggplant has slipped from the charts this week. R. C. Waldun (hon.) is a noteworthy absence, with James Krake's Faceless appearing to have shoved L'Academie off, leaving both Spencer Weedman and Zulu Alitspa struggling to maintain a presence on the charts.

In other news, although he was unable to maintain his sales ranking, the meteoric rise of Pseudo Bulkington's The Orators gained the attention of several eminent /lit/ authors, who took a moment to review the free sample on Amazon.

And finally, trouble appears to be brewing for /lit/'s most 'famous' author, as F Gardner goes silent on youtube and /lit/ alike. The 4chan publishing outlet Unreal Press has announced an audiobook adaptation of Zulu Alitspa's Oasis, although there have been some issues with casting choices. Furthermore, early plans for /lit/con are stirring excitement all across the board.

>>21554160
Big agree on Unreal Press, the server is full of gay muslim larpers and basically no writing actually gets done.

>>21548692
Nicely high-fallutin', but I recommend you cut out "He found" and "He thought" portions of a couple of sentences. It's clear that this is his viewpoint and those portions bring the sentences down.
The rest is good, there are some good similes. I worry that, not knowing who James is (fairly forgettable name for such intricate prose. Why not take a page off Pinecone's book?), the reader will be uninclined to care much about his wankery about Lisa being gone. Wankery is finez but you need to capture the reader first. Lolita, Lo-li-ta, that babyfucker dude, I am a sick man, etc. are good wanky examples of first sentences that capture the reader's attention.

>>21554160
This is yellow press journalism. I called /wg/ a toxic bucket of crabs well before the Oasis scandal.

At least I'm still beating Call of the Crocodile

>>21554160
Lol, lmao
kek even
https://www.amazon.com/Retribution-Engine-Vol-Rising-War/dp/B0BNZFV2CP/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
https://www.amazon.com/Retribution-Engine-Vol-Marching-Into/dp/B0BRZ7H5YJ/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

>both 833k

>>21550175
>fucking Primal Hunter is going to get an adaptation
Disgusting.
Good on you for getting a story that isn't lowest common denominator garbage in there to counter it though.

>>21552642
>>21552670
I'm more so wondering if you think getting a degree will help me get a career writing fiction. When I graduated high school I figured it wouldn't help but years of the self-publishing meme later I'm willing to try something different. Plus I'm in a transitional phase of my life right now so the time might be right

is it ok to make your whole novel happen in a dream, if that fact is made clear in the beginning?

>>21553840
No offense, but I think you're trying too hard. That is unless there's a reason this character's inner monologue sounds so pretentious.

>>21554160
I'm surprised how well 4chan ads work. I thought everyone is a cheap bastard that wouldn't spend a dime on things. I'll try it too when I'm done with my book

>>21553917
Same. I wrote a simple direct modern prose. No need for so many synonyms and metaphors when the audience I'm aiming for reads at a 6 grade level. Yes it is cope for me not being able to write higher than a 3rd grade level

Been thinking about taking a month off from work and just writing all of my projects down

Barricaded in my room, all of it

>>21554247
did you just add your stories to amazon?

>>21554811
The first book was start of December, second one was similarly early this month. I still have two more to go for this saga.

>>21554210
Any way to get into the Unreal Press server?

It would be nice to talk to some other /lit/ guys

>>21554811
The first book was start of December, second one was similarly early this month. I still have two more to go for this saga.

>>21554830
Ask one of the members. I left a while ago.

>>21554843
alright, ill add your amazon links to the pastebin

>>21554830
They have an invite link posted in each of their video descriptions.

Anyone else get torn between releasing stuff as-is out of fatigue, and trying to make it as good as possible? Knowing it can be better, but also knowing you might spend hours and not make any progress on it...

>>21555665
Not me. I'm a perfectionist. I'd rather spend years editing my work to perfection.

>>21555665
I just shit out as many as possible and hope to hit gold

What's /wg/'s opinion on alt-history?

>>21555908
Alt-history books are typically based

>>21550175
congratulations

>>21550175
>My Patreon jumped up to $3k a month and I'm back in the thirty thousands range for Kindle Store ranking.
Then why tf did you sing with some trannys? Next they will ask you to change story/characters to "allign" more with current political and social trends.

Would reading 4chan shitposts be considered reading?

>>21556117
There is reading and reading, my lord.

historicalfag here.

i don't fucking understand my main character. i can't change it because historical event. i'm driving myself insane trying to work this out and i just don't fucking get why the cunt did it.

i'm going to go bash my brains out.

>>21556345
What's the time period and your MCs occupation?

>>21556345
Your sources are probably wrong then

Who is your character?

I think I've made a mistake not placing more emphasis on finding a critique partner or writing circle I can get feedback from. I'm writing in a series and it was easy enough to get feedback on the first story, but this step seems like it will be far more troublesome for the sequel.

>>21556374
the sources only have 2 sentences directly on the character, the allure of the story was they're glossed over despite having done something really headscratchingly bold and i'm trying to figure the motivation out because it seems like there's something interesting there. but all i have is context on the surrounding event.

i want to write it but it's a total enigma
>>21556349
antiquity, nobility

>>21556345
> history is written by the victors
who's to say they actually did it? records of historical events don't have to be true. even witness recollections of events a few hours old can be wrong.

>>21556554
>antiquity, nobility
This tells me nothing. Antiquity when and where? Era? Country? Small Kingdom, Large Kingdom?

>>21556345
what act did he do?

>>21556345
Bro just make it up. If you're writing historical fiction it doesn't need to be historically accurate. Just go with your gut, intuition, etc.

Look at RRR, Inglorious basterds, etc. let
It be more mythological than some dry history tome

Why does everything I write sounds cringe?
I'm trying to create some serious dialogue, but it comes out as teen angst fanfiction. I'm even embarrassed to ask someone for an opinion.
How to write serious dialogue?

>>21556771
It's not about writing serious dialogue, it's about writing dialogue you actually imagine people saying if they were in a given situation. Granted you should remove a lot of the colloquialisms and slang unless you're going for something specific.

>>21556771
Ask Chat GPT. It'll tell you if your dialogue is stilted or unnatural sounding.

I could have been a great writer, but I was too slothful, too wasteful. The pain is severe. I write now, I scrape my mind during those tentative moments that the muse coaxes me to ruin the page. I look at her, dejected, ashamed. All this time, all this time I waste here, on the internet, pouring my vital energies into oblivion's pot. I brand myself with the mark of failure at increasing degrees, until the iron is white hot and my teeth crack with wrathful self-derision. I know my youth is gone, I know the breadth of my memory has abandoned me. I sit below a flickering bulb of penance.
That what once was, that what could have been, their snarled thread mocks me, as I fail to unravel, to let it lay flat, it is the bug in my bed, the weevil in my brain that won't let me sleep.
I will soon be a truly hollow man, waiting for the piercing truth to puncture me, and leave me a deflated rag in the putrid pile below my basement, where only refuse resides.

>>21556815
Just write, faggot

>>21556688
dubs check'um

>>21556828
nou

>>21556833
I do, every single day
almost 800k words deep into a long-term project in fact

Help! My writing does too much telling! I'm not doing enough showing! But when I do show, it becomes a convoluted mess that nobody gives a flying fuck about. It's just a scene of a person opening a book and reading the pages! but if I don't show it bogs down and sounds like a list of things a person is doing

>>21556836
that's good.

>>21556815
It's clear that the writer of this paragraph is feeling a bit sorry for themselves. They whine about how "slothful" and "wasteful" they've been, and how they're now suffering for it. The writer uses overly-dramatic language to describe their feelings of regret and failure, but let's be real here - we've all made choices we regret. The writer's self-pitying tone and constant mention of their own supposed "failure" comes across as whiny and entitled. They even go as far as to suggest that they will soon be a "truly hollow man", which is just ridiculous. The piece is well-written, but the writer's lack of perspective makes it hard to take them seriously. Overall, it's just another self-indulgent, overly-emotional piece that serves as a reminder that sometimes, life doesn't go the way we want it to.

>>21554554
How do I stop being a pretentious faggot? It's all I know anon! The whole book isn't like this I guess just whenever this specific person is the focus but even so if it sucks I'll trim it

Meonor the Strong, son of Peanor the Sad, had conquered the lands of the Sinûr since the Age of Silver, when the Milfinor lords sold their daughters to the Great God Akûlla and the River of Souls was full of the sacred tears of the elven princess Iluven.

How long should Royal Road chapters be? I just finished one and it was like 2500. I submitted it but it's still pending.

Here's some schizo fic. It's inspired by some conspiracy theorists I follow:
https://pastebin.com/ZjGxNHwL
>critique
>>21553840
>of the inner walls
on the inner walls?
>My body hairs...
I think you need a comma before "which" to be a bit clearer. It's a good image in this sentence though. I like the idea of anthropomorphising parts of the body. The last image of the hands is good, but it might overall need cleaning up of style to be a bit more impactful. Perhaps make the last sentence into two. I found the indirect way you go about tense a little irksome, since it feels like you're using way more words to say the same thing, e.g., "now came," "were now," "began taking". We already know he's there. It's a cool idea overall but just needs to be finessed. The style fits the content well enough.

>>21557376
They can be as long or as short as you want, they don't care. The only time anything is pending is when new creating a new story and that is probably just to ensure you aren't uploading any unwanted content.

anyone knoe how i can get smart enough to write something good? im scared that if i never make anything good even if nobody read it and it never got published that i should just kill myself tomorrow
i dont really have any books to read and i cant really read digitally. im very stupid.

>>21557430
1. Go to the local library (council, city, or uni)*
2. Get out Borges' Ficciones or Collected Fiction
3. Read it all
4. Read around, particularly sources that influenced his Borges
5. ????
6. You are now smart
7. Write
8. Repeat infinitely

*Every library lets you go there and read, you don't need a fucking card. Just learn how to use the public computer by typing in something, e.g., "Borges Fiction"

>>21557425
>that is probably just to ensure you aren't uploading any unwanted content.
What is that?

>>21557452
Plagiarism and anything else that is illegal

>>21557455
What's anything else? You mean like copyright work?

>>21557461
Why are you asking me? just look it up

>>21557414
I also noticed this problem you're right I do that a lot. I think it's when I'm typing quickly and just trying to get my thoughts down in a hurry. I agree they need to be deleted. Good shout thanks

Did 1000 words today /lit/

>test

>listen to writing advice
>Don't start with a "boring everyday life!"
>Read books
>Birthday party
>School day
>Ordering a slave around
>Playing cops and robbers
>Trying to find a job
>Eating lunch
But all these openings is literally the MC doing everyday things... I'm so confused

>>21557599
Writers here usually don’t read otherwise they wouldn’t post here.

>>21557606
It's easy to pick up a few books and read the first two pages. You don't have to read an entire book to see how to do openings

>>21556815
This is so fucking awful. This is dire. Better a thread full of world-building than this.

I remember someone describing the art of a very autistic artist -- who could draw these detailed cityscapes from memory but whose drawings lacked any kind of aesthetic sense -- as being able to see the scene in front of him but not the drawing on the page.

I get the same feeling from writing like this. It's like the writer can see the object (the mundane feeling of being sad at not having spent more time writing) but they don't actually perceive what they're putting down on the page, they don't have a sense for it as a crafted object for other people to receive and unravel.

Each sentence is just a dismal cliche that has meaning for the writer (because they're focusing very hard on their personal mundane feeling of sadness) but the sentences and images and don't work together to go beyond 'I'm sad!' They don't create a through-line for the reader, with ups-and-downs and a reason to keep reading. They don't add any twists or complications to what precedes them. They don't let the images take on a life of their own and introduce any new shades of meaning. It's a lot of words to end up exactly where it started: 'I'm trash!'

>>21557628
How do you know how to do openings if you don't know how it progresses or ends? The opening details may even seem frivolous to you if you have never read a novel the whole way through, because you'd have no frame of reference for character progression, overall plot, denouement, and so on. You simply cannot think about novels without knowing the totality of one.
If you just knew the first few pages of Moby-Dick or Heart of Darkness, you'd have no idea why the narrators are even narrating the story to begin with.

>>21557643
I get that and not advocating to not reading an entire book, but in today's literature climate, the opening needs to be able capture the readers attention in the first paragraph, or roughly 10 seconds of reading time. That is the oddity, to learn from classics, which are "slower" to an extent versus today's books which always seems to have the MC be in the middle of a heist or battlefield or doing something that would usually be reserved for the middle of the book.

>>21557684
>i get that this way is shitty, but people expect shitty!
And thus is the cycle perpetuated. If we all spontaneously decided to stop pandering to retards we would change the climate overnight. Stop giving a fuck about flighty, ephemeral trends. The trends you try so hard to pursue today may very well be gone tomorrow.

>>21557690
Sales man. Sales!

>>21557703
I'm not a salesman. I'm a writer. You might be in the wrong business.

should I be writing short stories before writing a novel?

>>21557719
The fact that you're asking this makes me think you already know all the good reasons why someone should start with short stories, but you're asking it anyway instead of actually writing a story because what you actually want to do is start on your cool novel idea.

>write 8 chapters of my book
>This isn't working
>Can't bear to delete half of it
What do?

>>21557730
read my mind

>>21557770
Keep going. Separate editing from writing if your self-criticism is overpowering.

Already wrote more than I usually do today, around 4200+, but don't even feel tired. I think the point is to just keep going. Although I need to edit properly sometime.
I'm going to post it here when RR accepts the pending submission. It's a bit of a weird story, but I don't feel the need to write normal shit.

>>21557770
What is it about?

>>21557788
A homosexual assassin going around the world killing people for his God. Very simple stuff. Here's a link.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kwjXTTfSaMnvKbn0uiDhm0aFVG3Fq9mExAS8R4KGB-c/edit?usp=drivesdk

>>21557730
You're right but haven't answered the question. Sure, there are benefits to writing short stories before attempting a novel, but there are also advantages to writing something you're interested in over forcing yourself to write practice stories. I'd say he could very well do either, as long as the anon is aware that he first few works, regardless of format, won't be publishable - at least not without rewrites.

>>21557814
I gave my girlfriend my phone breifly while I went to the bathroom, she read the start and apparently liked it. I'm not bothered in reading it, just thought you'd like to know.

>>21557814
>homosexual
thanks but I stopped reading there

>>21557828
It started off as a cute girl, but anons that read insisted the narrator has to be a boy.

>>21557787
Your Isekai litrpg that takes place in the French revolution during the reign of terror isn't a unique snowflake story

>>21557837
So you'd take feedback from insecure incels? Bruh.

>>21557851
They made a very convincing argument that the voice sounded far too masculine to be a girl. To be honest it does read better as a male than a female.

>>21557862
>Writing fiction with female main character
oh so you are also coomer

>>21557845
It is an "isekai" in a vague way but it's based on another book and setting. Try again.
>unique story
No such thing. All stories have already been told, in some shape or form.

>>21557862
okay then that sounds like you can't write female characters.

>>21557876
Fair enough.

I wish the mods would make another rule for /lit/ banning all isekai garbage alongside fanfic. It's basically the same thing, except instead of directly referring to another work as fanfic does, isekai just broadly draws from the entire body of fucking anime.

>>21557869
It intended to be a throwaway shit post short story, but the more I wrote the better it got and the cooming stuff promptly got cut out. But now I'm stuck.

>>21557883
You realise "isekai" isn't just limited to anime? Ever read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Or maybe seen Wizard of Oz? It's a major trope in fiction to have secondary worlds you go to.

>>21557141
Stop trying to cram every sentence with as many thesaurus words as possible.

>>21557896
He might have used a thesaurus but I tend to think the people who use this meme criticism lack an extensive vocabulary.

>>21557376
2.5 to 4k. People read in small bursts on their phones, so longer chapters should get split up.

>>21557890
It absolutely is. It has a chinked out gooked up name. Calling older works from different periods with different sets of influences "isekai" is just literary revanchism. Isekai relates strictly to anime because the entire "genre" (it would be preferable, in my onion, to shy away from calling it a genre and instead just say it's another arbitrary collection of only nominally-differentiable dreck) occurs in strict reaction to anime. Without anime, there is no word "isekai" to begin with. Other, older works are not isekai because they have no relationship with anime.

>>21557909
They have relationships with anime by the mere fact modern viewers associate it with isekai's history. There's not some rigid meaning of genre from the past that we can't shift. Meaning shifts all the time. Case in point (pic related). It doesn't even. matter if it's wikipedia or weebs who say this, because it's still part of interpretation.

>>21557909
Dumb af post. Transported to another world is isekai and isekai is transported to another world. You can think of another word or name that you like but it will still the same thing.

>>21557896
The only word I used a thesaurus for was Saturnial because I didn't want to use Saturnian again. But I see your point

>>21557909
A word filter, maybe? Since it's the tranime culture and not the genre itself.

>>21557899
>extensive vocabulary
Settle down, Shakespeare

>>21557927
Well, the irony there is Bill just made up words instead.

>>21557912
In that sense, cartoons are anime — western cartoons. Please don't ever post a Wikipedia article in lieu of making an argument ever again. It hurts the brains of anyone around you who has one.

>>21557826
That's good to hear. Means the opening works well

>>21557934
I bet you wasted your time at college to come up with that "comeback."

>>21557920
Yeah, like, no cap, or whatever! Totally!

>>21543744
Interesting

>>21557826
>I gave my girlfriend my phone breifly while I went to the bathroom, she read the start and apparently liked it
You fucking what? This makes no sense.

>>21557947
Anon, if you're a cheater like the rest of us, you'd know to trick your gf by giving her a phone without any of the evidence of cheating on it available (maybe locked by a password in another app), so she thinks you're completely transparent.

>>21557937
Believe it or not, no. I dropped out at 16, since you're asking. Lacking a college education is no excuse for having gutter-tier taste. Take it from me!

>>21557952
The other option is to just be faithful and be able to keep some real privacy out of respect.

>>21557939
get with the times, gramps

>>21557952
>like the rest of us
>us
Nope, just you.

>>21557953
>taste
But you don't even know what my tastes are. I just think such common arguments about art like 'anime is bad', or 'this genre has these defining qualities' need to be examined further. I used to think that anything but 'literature' was garbage, but once you study it longer on your own, it becomes apparent lots of literature draws from seemingly low culture products, even including film or pulp fiction/penny dreadfuls.
Interpretation is complicated and seemingly infinite (until there are no more people left), at least (within some limitations of form which I'll grant you).
>gutter-tier
So what? I'm sure you've liked things in so-called bad taste, even privately. If you have read a lot of so-called literature, you'd know it draws from various areas like music, pop culture, TV, everyday things, conversations, and so on. The problem is execution.

>>21557957
I'm glad to have grown up in a time where Anferny Smiff and Shabonqua Evins were just cultural background noise as opposed to the beating, thumping bass lighting up every street corner and gas station from here to Taipei with tribal jiggaboo bebop pounding every mouth, pussy and ass within a square mile at full force.

>>21557947
I suppose a lot of what I do is rather senseless. I'd just opened his google drive link, read the first paragraph and decided I'd had enough. Then, I got up to use the bathroom and asked my girlfriend if she wanted to read some rando's story until I got back and she did. She said she enjoyed what she'd read when I returned.

>>21557952
In another life time perhaps, never with this girl.

>>21557985
You should read more of my story

>>21557988
Does it have gratuitous gay sex scenes told in 2nd person? If not, I want nothing to do with it.

>>21557988
Perhaps I'll give it a read a bit later on, I've got to nip out to the shops now. I'm always in these threads so I'll post some feedback if I get around to reading more.

Is it dumb to post instalments two web novels at once?
I have probably 20,000 words of one already written (it just needs transcribing), while the other web novel idea has the first two chapters written. I'm unsure whether I should release them at different times.

>>21557966
Anime IS bad though. It employs, by necessity and definition, a more-dilute form of what makes any good literature good. It is a composite medium whose successes in some component can only come at the cost of another. In this sense, it is epistemologically backwards to emulate in a primary medium the compromises of its derivatives. It's like trying to convince dinner guests to eat your feces on account of the fact that you earlier ate at a Wolfgang Puck joint. It's ass-backwards and completely illogical. On a more anecdotal note, it never (in caps, for emphasis: NEVER) once has resulted in any (ANY) work of independently good literary quality. Prove me wrong! As noted earlier, "isekai" is a phrase adopted from Japanese, which has explicit genesis in (and therefore relation to) gooky Chinese cartoons.

It is insufficient to retreat to subjectivity.

>>21558006
Define good literary quality first and I'll try to see if there is an example. As it stands, it's just us arguing over what taste should or shouldn't be (which is something even Hume thinks is frivolous).
>subjective
Well isn't the nature of art intersubjective in Kant's philosophy? Not that there are no objective qualities, since these are what the art object have, being put there by a Genius artist. But OBVIOUSLY subjective experiences such as emotions play a role. I obviously feel something that you do not, and vice versa, when viewing art, but this arises from objective aspects of the art.

>>21558006
99% of anything is bad. Anime is just a medium in which a story is told, a cartoon. That is all. I enjoyed more serious anime films like ninja scroll grave of the fireflies and perfect blue. I also enjoyed more shitty genre stuff like infinite stratos. Same with books, some are garbage and some are good. And a lot of in between.

>>21557970
I am a millennial but I get with the times, unlike you old man. The current times are garbage but that does not mean you have act all luddite.

>>21558003
I'd focus on and release them one at a time.

>>21558006
>it never (in caps, for emphasis: NEVER) once has resulted in any (ANY) work of independently good literary quality
Monster
Steins Gate
Madoka Magica
Perfect Blue
Princess monoke
Death Note
Sailor Moon


Now fight me

>>21557997
I can write one in there for you.

>>21558006
>It is insufficient to retreat to subjectivity.
you talk like a fag and your shit's all retarded

>>21558032
I'm of two minds on this one. The more I think about it, the more I think you're right. But until the genre becomes more prominent among western mainstream audeinces and in new bodies of work, labeling The Wizard of Oz, A Nightmare Before Christmas, Monsters Inc, The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, etc as isekai will continue to seem out of place becasuse as it stands it's still a Japanese sub-genre and its only relevance in the western world is in-regard to anime, manga and LitRPGs.

Have a character which pauses after every word. How do I make their dialogue not a pain to read? I do not wish to devolve them into retard speak, and can only do so much to make their dialogue brief.

>>21558269
Perhaps write it like it's spoken the first few times and then write it normally from then on, describing how he speaks after the written dialogue.
>"I can not" said Jasper, again pausing briefly between each word.
>"I tend to agree, for once" Jasper muttered in his usual, long-winded manner.
>"How do you mean?" Jasper asked, intermittently.

>>21558350
I've taken to doing this. Rolls much better in longer pieces of dialogue. Thanks.

I WOuld share my latest chapt but paastebin says it must be privat

>>21558421
Stop using so many curse words and sex scenes

It's time for me to throw in the towel.when it comes to writing. I gave it a good effort, writing countless stories for nearly seven years. I had a few published short stories, but nothing from a paying publication. In the past six months, I wrote five short stories and sent them out for consideration. All were rejected, some multiple times. I think it's time for me to accept my limitations. I sincerely wish the best to all of you, and want to say thanks for the laughs and discussion. Best of luck.

>>21558614
Can you at least tell us which author you are? I need to add it to the lore.

>>21558614
>I had a few published short stories, but nothing from a paying publication. In the past six months, I wrote five short stories and sent them out for consideration. All were rejected, some multiple times. I
Jesus F christ, go publish on royal road or kindle unlimited, the "traditional" are pozzed garbage.

>>21558623
No, I think that'd just complicate things.

>>21558628
I've spent seven years of my life chasing this pipe dream. I don't feel like wasting anymore trying vainly to self-promote for months on end just to sell three copies. I appreciate the suggestion, but no thanks.

>try to write a book
>get 10k words in
>get horny
>write smut for a week
>pump out 50k words
>get board of my real work and various smut pieces together
>next week the cycle continues
I have written over a hundred different stories and completed none of them.

Help.

>>21558653
You don't have to promote anything. Publish on rr, if its good people will read, open patreon account and release stories early for a few, it literally costs nothing, there are no shitty publishers to decide if you are good, just write, publish and let readers decide

>>21558676
>if its good people will read

That's my problem

>>21558614
Go write a serial RR you lazy faggot
Even if it's sub-mediocre you'll get readers as long as you have a remotely interesting premise and post regularly. You even have a real chance of blowing up and getting big with total trash, see: Primal Hunter.

Make a Patreon with around a month of chapters in advance and you'll be making a bit of extra cash as well, more than you're likely to ever make chasing tradpub even at the lower end.

>>21543744
Bros I finally got over my writing block, this has been bothering me for fucking months. I am very pleased with myself even though I could only hit 200 words today

>>21558818
RR vs self-publishing?

Speaking of RR, if any of you are publishing to RR and want to do some cross promotion, come find me in the unreal press server

>t. 266 followers

None of you will write sovl like this:
https://pvto.weebly.com/uploads/9/1/5/0/91508780/eight_o%E2%80%99clock_in_the_morning-nelson.pdf

>>21554160
Impressive that Call of the Crocodile is still consistently on the top of these lists. That came out a couple years ago now.

>>21559023
Yeah. It’s the biggest “/lit/ book” there has ever been. Things like Harassment Architecture and Infinite Jest don’t even come from here.

>>21558903
Of course not, none of us will ever have anything we write adapted by John Carpenter

>>21558903
Good concept, gripping, perhaps a bit short for my taste. I assume this is the piece which inspired They Live? It's a good read.

>>21559023
I’m actually thinking about making a YouTube and going through the entire Horror’s Call anthology. Seems like seriously untapped potential considering F Gardner’s reputation here. Then I’ll use the channel to promote my own novel if I get enough subscribers.

>>21554160
>Call of the Cardboard Box
Got a snort from me, bretty gud

What is /lit/con though?

>>21559068
F Gardner’s not living in a cardboard box. He got married to his hot tranny gf and went on a honeymoon with her. That’s why he’s been absent.

>>21559076
>Hot tranny gf

Yet another reason to be jealous of F Gardner.