/lit/ - Literature

I have a tight schedule but I wrote just over 1k words in a half hour. Time for bed though.

How can I be a decent enough author if I'm unwilling to suck an old man's dick to obtain success?

>>22201866
I wrote a lot in five hours tonight and I need to hit the hay as well.

I finally added a section I never thought I'd add. The supporting character expresses all her remorse. I had to rationalize a lot to justify that event, because she is one of the most self-assured characters in the story, but I think the circumstances ought to break her will. It hurt to write it, but because she is supposed to have moral character I thought it did not make sense for her to be in a good mood when everyone else was not.

>>22201866
I wish I could write that fast. My spelling is so horrible that half my time is spent fixing it.

It’s a great feeling when you sit down to lazily look over your work or make some small edits and you end up cranking out some solid writing, almost by accident.

>>22202048
It’s good you’re so attached to your characters though. How long is your work so far? How many characters?

>>22201649
I doubt there's that many doing it successfully. Writing in general is hard to make money from, even if you go down the slop route. Easier than 'next to impossible' is still 'extremely hard'.

>>22202048
It's good I am a sadist but have some common sense.

I can torment my characters all I like and viewers will call it good writing. I cut give some of these characters a break too and they'll call it "great ending" too.

>started 4 different projects
GOD FUCK I NEED TO JUST FOCUS ON ONE OF THEM!!!!

>>22202170
Literally me.

>>22202074
This draft is 90k words, 14 out of 16 chapters down. I am overwriting the draft so I will cut it down to under 80k most likely. It may take a few more weeks.

There are four major characters, but the main conflict revolves around just two: a husband and wife. There are like four or so minor characters and of course random people.
I do really care about these characters now. It's bad because three of the major characters I was unsympathetic for in my first draft, but as I gave them more POV I realized how much better polyphony can be for a deeper narrative. For example, I first presented the wife simply as selfish, but this fourth draft I made a massive effort to portray her as sincere yet ensnared in tragedy, eroding her confidence that she was ever sincere.

If I just read every popular book on how to write and if I watch every popular video series/lecture on how to write then I will become a writing genius and will make millions. Once I make my millions I will fly you all out to my beautiful Oregon mansion and we can have a /wg/ party.

>>22202093
The only anons I know of making career money in this thread is Trailer Trash Anon and that new RR litrpg anon. Are there more? Even writing genre fiction making money with writing is absurdly hard

I don't expect to make ANY MONEY of my works!

I'm not going to get paid. Sorry not sorry. I just want people to enjoy my stories is all. Negative income is what I'm about.

Starving improves your writing ability.

>>22202093
>>22202354
Is it really that hard to just make a couple of bucks out of it? You know, like a side hustle/passive income deal? I don't intend to make a living out of it, I just want to get some extra cash every now and then.

>>22202438
>I don't intend to make a living out of it, I just want to get some extra cash every now and then.
That's a fine attitude to have but expect your extra cash hovering in ballpark of $120 a year, if you're lucky.

>>22202441
Sweet, I can buy an extra sausage and egg McMuffin every once in a while. Not the anon you're replying to by the way.

The author pastebin has been restored. I wonder if some asshole just reported it for no reason

>>22202434
>starving improves your writing ability
extreme cope

>>22202619
Yes, and?

Is there any chance of getting your work published if you don't hamfist in modern political shit? Modern sci fi is a fucking disaster zone.

I have a serious writer's block because the only story I find myself telling is a story about how White people become racially self-aware and make their own country, but I'm obviously afraid of getting fired from my job/not able to ever get work again. I guess I should just write a story for my comic about developing effective habits and systems to tackle long-term goals and inspiring people by showing characters overcome their limitations?

>>22202827
>Is there any chance of getting your work published
Yes.
Good luck though.

You either punch fictional nazis in a heckin' wholesome setting with demi-disabled queer transwoman-ran globohomo UN or you own the space libs.

There's also some publishers that might fish you out of the trash but good fucking luck buddy.

>>22202846
>but I'm obviously afraid of getting fired from my job/not able to ever get work again.
Buddy, first of all, if anyone hears of your book, you don't need your job.

Second, if you get fired, that's more sales for you.

The definition of terrorism is to make people comply using fear and violence to attain a political goal. Are you going to let terrorists win?

>>22202738
ESL, so i am too lazy to put my first chapter through google translate and get back at here. I might at one point but i don't think anybody would care to read 3k-6k worths of words

Wow, this /wg/ is real slow, huh?

>>22203153
so what do you write anon?

>>22203191
I'm currently working on a short story about a guy that wears a suicide vest under his work clothes in case he ever wants to blow the place up, he also has severe crippling depression and having death so close to him is the only thing that makes him even slightly feel alive. After I finish writing this I'm either going to try and finish my other short story about a guy that murders a whole family and then stays inside the house with their bodies and throughout the short story he's going to get more paranoid and more scared each day but I'm not sure how I'm gonna end that one, the chapters are gonna be days and it's gonna be a week-long so seven chapters or I'm gonna try and write a short story about a crocodile that owns a bayou motel that turns into a murder mystery. What about you, anon?

>>22203201
I know that looks retarded and I know I didn't use proper grammar or punctuation in it but I don't care about those things when on 4chan, don't hold it against me or make assumptions about my writing because of it, I promise I'm not that retarded.

>>22203201
>>22203204
hope the story's name is not the call of suicide vest...

>>22203201
sounds really edgy and I don't know if you can make anything actually good with those, but maybe you can use those sotries to explore some new ideas?

>>22203201
These sound shit, although I sort of like the 'Pat Bateman's 7 day sleepover' idea. How can he stay at the house for 7 days seemingly uninterrupted, though? No way a whole family goes missing and no one comes to check.

what do you think guys:
>I was laying in my bed, looking at the pale face of the moon. I just woke up and cool air was stroking my hair, flowing around my body and causing slight shivers in all my limbs. Then I realized that I was naked. My clothes were nowhere to be seen and my blanket was on the floor, stars embroidered on it, reminding me of the night sky.
I stood up and came close to the window. The moon seemed to be closer and bigger than should be natural, its crater-pocked visage filling my field of view. I was virtually unable to take my eyes off the silver shield which seemed to fill the whole sky by now. Stars and clouds were nowhere to be seen as I managed to surmise after finally peeling my sight off the gargantuan curiosity which shone so brightly that the night started to look like an exaggerated and eerie parody of the day.
As I looked around, marveling at the silverish tint which covered the world and made it seem as if someone spilled quicksilver all over the world..
Suddenly I realized I was crawling out of my window and putting my feet on the wall of the building. I was trying to regain control of my body, on the edge of panic when the world flipped to the side and instead of standing on the side of the wall, it seemed like I was standing on solid ground, what once was a window, now seemed like a hatch into an unknown darkness. I started walking down the wall, in the direction of the lawn. When I touched the silvery leaves, my perspective changed again, and with it gravity, now back to normal. Whole experience seemed like a bizarre hallucination, and yet I felt there was much more that I had to experience before it was over.
I entered nearby woods. The moonlight was radiating throughout the woods, bathing everything in a metallic, deathly tint. Shadows were shifting around every object reshaping and shifting position with every movement of my head and every step I took. The feeling of unease was amplified by deafening silence. All the nighttime animals and plants were either still , dead or gone.T there was no other explanation to that horrible muteness of the woods. Even my footsteps made almost no noticeable sound.
Finally I was met with a monumental sight of an elderly oak tree, which stood lonely and silent at the top of a small mound. I gingerly stepped on the soft grass while approaching it. As I observed its branches while approaching, I noticed a strange shift of perspective. Just like the Moon before it, now the oak seemed to fill more and more of the night sky. Because of this effect it seemed like the tree became a pillar, holding up the night sky. I touched its cold, brown bark, and started climbing it in the same strange manner I managed to get out of my window and onto my backyard. The coarse texture of the tree felt good under my feet and it almost felt like walking on a fallen tree, across the river.

>>22203208
It is not.

>>22203246
>I just woke up
stopped reading after that.

>>22203233
>How can he stay at the house for 7 days seemingly uninterrupted, though?
I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

>>22203266
:(

>>22203217
>sounds really edgy
Even my crocodile motel idea?

>I don't know if you can make anything actually good with those
Neither do I but I'm new to writing so I don't expect anything I write to be good yet.

>but maybe you can use those sotries to explore some new ideas?
That's a good way of looking at it.

>>22203279
>Even my crocodile motel idea?
I don't know if sentient animals and murder mysteries fit very well. But I never considered story like that so it may actually be a good combination.

>>22203287
I don't assume that it would be any different to a murder mystery with humans other than the fact that they're animals.

>>22203304
Why the talking animals then? Maybe you could write it like the fables and use the animals to highlight various personalities. Otherwise I don't think it will add any value to the story.

>>22203287
>I don't know if sentient animals and murder mysteries fit very well
Someone didn't watch Beastars.
>>22203313
>Maybe you could write it like the fables and use the animals to highlight various personalities
This. Either do something with the animal element or don't bother with it.

tear me to pieces boys:
>Wally lit another of Phil's cigarettes and laughing blew big puffs of acrid blue smoke into his companion's eyes, Phil who had already been crying even in this premature hour of summer over a false-started tryst with yet another broad. Wally had decided that Phil was of course jilted, but what he really needed was to get stilted, maddeningly so, and the two were caravaning up-and-down about town in Wally's '88 trying to see who didn't know the score and if a couple of honest schleps couldn't be helped to a bit of god's good hooch, stopping at all of the usual haunts and greasing all of the usual wheels, even deigning so low as to knock three times upon the peeling door of Old Joe's, and running wide-eyed back to the truck, turning her over in a hurry, nearly tripping in the gravel trying to slam the door shut, then roaring, skirting around the corner in a plume of glassy dust all alight at some clattering sound from inside the boarded up dive, perhaps the wicked ghost of Old Joe himself, and Wally knew for certain Phil was in no such state for phantasmagoria, already consulting every slightest sign as the heartbroken does the tarot. When at last at midday they finally made with the goods, courtesy of one E. E. Esteban, beloved linecook of the Bottom Shelf (the goods in this case being about 11/12ths of a brick of vintage Tijuana ditchweed delivered in a plain brown lunch sack blotted with grease, which the cadre twisted into evil staglike spliffs to be consumed in single drags, to-the-band), with Wally and Phil joined now by Esteban (who not only knew what one needed to know in order to survive in this forsaken town, but had an apartment in which to practice that knowledge, and a sister who was out of town) the three commenced howling delirious catcalls at passerby from atop the latter's roof, throwing beer cans at birds and children and spitting in the wind, arguing about who is hottest in L'Avventura or whatever else, consensus being it was the blonde but Esteban professing a soft spot for Patricia. It was Tuesday.
Wednesday morning the '88 was on fire, and Phil wrestled Esteban in the street, Wally sitting on the curb, head in hand between knees, fingers raking hair, in classic schmuck position.
"I loved that truck."
"You'll get another, you're loaded?"
"But I loved it." Wally had loved the truck. He'd seen it at an estate sale, had it painted cherry red with turquoise pinstriping, total eyesore. "It's not the money. I don't feel rich."
"But," Esteban getting the upper hand in WWE fashion "just a truck. No?"

>>22203321
>Either do something with the animal element or don't bother with it.
I haven't even started writing it yet, I'll think about all this shit when I get to it.

>>22203313
>Maybe you could write it like the fables and use the animals to highlight various personalities.
This is a good idea but since I didn't come up with it myself I'll feel like a hack if I use it.

>>22203331
Even Shakespeare used other people's idea. You can't just write in the vacuum, or your writing will be lifeless nad boring.

>>22203322
Too much “this is what happened” and not enough actually showing it happen. If you’re going to write rednecks who muse about L’avventura, it needs to be developed first, otherwise it just seems like you’re forcing your interests.

>>22203322
>state for phantasmagoria, already consulting every slightest sign as the heartbroken does the tarot
I don't think that fits with the rest. I just can't imagine narrator using words like that, judging by the rest of the paragraph.
Also I had to read it two times to really understand what is happening. Maybe it's the style of the sentences. I am not sure.

What was the fastest you've ever written a story?

>>22203372
45 minutes. It was a very shitty, 3 page fan fiction.

>>22203348
thank you : ) may i ask what in particular tips you towards the group being rednecks?
>>22203357
i think you're right, will be retooling.

>>22203287
>sentient animals and murder mysteries
You mean like "Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter" written by Isaac Asimov?

I'm starting to think, that maybe writing from 1st person's perspective wasn't such a good idea...

>>22203372
I once did a 30k word marathon in a single weekend for a novel first draft. I felt possessed.

RR option is out for an ESL. I guess i'll stick to wattpad for now.

>>22203404
Never read it, but yeah it was a mistake to disregard the idea completely. I was set in a very grueseom mood by anon's other examples and it really clashed with an image of a sentient crocodile who owns a hotel. I suggested the fable aproach after giving it more thought, so I consider myself redeemed.

>>22203372
45 minutes, then 10 minutes for editing.
Some flash fiction about an image.
>>22182637

>>22203389
I think once you start using phrases like “god’s good hooch” while having your characters drive around in an old truck, catcall, throw beer cans at passerbys, and spit into the wind, the impression is that they’re rednecks, even if that isn’t your intention. I also think that, like the other anon said, it’s hard to follow. Try breaking this up into parts that are more clear. Put the audience into these moments instead of giving a sweeping rundown of their escapades right away.

>>22203389
One more thought. I think maybe adding more descriptions of places they visit and town might slow down the tempo and give more nuanced feel of the place and time of your story.

>>22203405
You know, you don't have to do it for the whole book.

>>22203405
How many chapter were you in? I've realised this mistake yesterday and started fixing everything to third person. Hope you are not well dwelled in chapters. I only have to edit 5 chapters but good luck man...

>>22203405
I went back to fix fifty pages of this a few months back. I realized that, while it was a good call, some thoughts/passages didn’t work as well in third person, so I had to rewrite or delete them.

>>22203462
It's mostly fragments and I was going for the "solitary contemplation of nature and architecture" kind of story, but when I read it, it just seems very self-indulgent and moody. Maybe it's just becasue I decided to use some of my own thoughts.

>>22203468
If that's the character, why not. Maybe it is the embarrassment that's the problem.

>>22203468
well on why i changed it, because i felt like story fell flat for a fantasy setting. i am not sure why but on 1st person fantasy really doesn't work. But 3rd person internal focalization is nearly same too but i found that it works better. I am not sure if i should switch to omniview for some chapters but i wouldn't go internal other than the mc i guess if i ever do that.

>>22203479
I think, that since the 1st person is better used for personla thought of the characters and their emotions, maybe you could use that to introduce new perspective into the story. For example protagonist may be a knight in a shining armor to one character, and a disgusting barbarian freak to another. It could help with all kinds of things, like worldbuilding, relations between characters, and so on

>>22203415
>>22203423
genuine thanks for this anon. i am myself a bit of a country bumpkin, so a few of those details i reckon i took for granted as being not too unusual/regional. the following section details a similar boys-on-the-town escapade, only two weeks prior. i think i may look at combining/condensing the two passages.

>>>22203246
Very clumsy and needs a lot of work. Too many filler words that fuck with the flow and some very awkward sentences, like
>Stars and clouds were nowhere to be seen as I managed to surmise after finally peeling my sight off the gargantuan curiosity which shone so brightly that the night started to look like an exaggerated and eerie parody of the day.
Does that read OK to you? The misuse of surmise here is very off-putting and makes the narrator sound like a dribbling tard.
>I managed to surmise (somehow) that the stars and clouds were gone after clearly seeing the evidence in front of me.
Also, too many repeated phrases
>As I looked around, marveling at the silverish tint which covered the world and made it seem as if someone spilled quicksilver all over the world..
The world.
> Shadows were shifting around every object reshaping and shifting position with every movement of my head and every step I took.
Shifting.
>Just like the Moon before it, now the oak seemed to fill more and more of the night sky. Because of this effect it seemed like the tree became a pillar, holding up the night sky.
Night sky... etc.
I guess try to clean these bits up so it reads better? You can cut out a lot of filler words and get a better pacing and be a little more coherent with the path the narrator is taking. For example
> I started walking down the wall, in the direction of the lawn. When I touched the silvery leaves, my perspective changed again, and with it gravity, now back to normal.
They talk about heading towards the lawn, then mention touching leaves. I guess from either a tree or hedge, but the mention of lawn puts an image of grass in my head so it feels out of place.

>>22203527
Thanks for the advice anon. Perhaps i should just start ovr with this one. I'm an ESL and I tried translating it directly to English from my notes and it seems it was s stupid thing to do. To be honest I was too embarassed to even proofread it properly, since it's my first time showing my writing to anybody. I'm sorry I left so many mistakes. I'll try to do better next time.

>>22203337
Yeah, but using an idea that someone else came up with makes me feel utterly retarded because I didn't come up with it myself, kinda feels like the writing isn't mine. I experienced something similar to this not long ago when I was at a paint and sip with some guys I know, we were painting cows and since I suck at painting mine didn't look very good, especially the nose, the teacher came over, gave me some critiques on the nose, made me stand up and then painted the entire nose for me, I no longer see the cow paining as my own.

>>22203550
What's your mother tongue?

Amidst the steel graveyard of what was downtown Manhattan, shaman Xiolan had gathered a loose assemblage of homeless and schizophrenic debris lurkers, the consistency of his gathering shifting from one moment to another, never having a fixed number of participants. At the limit of his assemblage, one couldn’t tell who belonged to him and who didn’t. Xiolan was inhumanely tall, with a frail, skeletal frame, his long, tanned fingers would move as he spoke to accentuate and mirror the plosives of his speech. His ancestry was unknown, but a skilled ethnographer among the schizophrenics ensured everyone else that he must be of Nuristani origin, based on his facial features and his accent. During one of his many eclectic performances, which mostly consisted of him reading bio-chemistry school texts in what was either Persian or Pashtun, which he would momentarily translate into English whenever a Police Squad patrolled by, he revealed a speaker box connected to his iPhone. Rhythmic pounds of what was most certainly supposed to be the kicks of a piece of electronic music going at roughly 90 BPM, almost entirely located within the sub-bass spectrum, lead into a piece of a more complex arranged music, the thuds of the pounds giving way to distant percussions, clicks and clacks, quite slow in its pace overall, the music’s rhythm was undeniably effective. The aggregate stopped paying attention to the unfolding scene, until a slow, reverberated, stretched and down-pitched sample of a male voice emerged from within the arrangement of metallic rhythms. Only two seconds long, the male voice succumbed to the next loud thud of the sub-bass kick, disappearing from the organization of the piece, but lingering on in the activated stretch of memory of the listeners. Xiolan, upon noticing the effect the male voice sample has had on his assemblage, spoke silently, so as to only allow those standing closest to him to understand what he’s saying:

>>22203589
Polish. I read a lot of English lit and write some essays in that language, mostly as a practice and for academic purposes. I figured that maybe I could try actually writing some fiction for once. I scrapped few versions and finally I decided to just make up a dream I wasn't supposed to have and write a short horror story about it. But I really should have paid more attention when translating.

>>22203587
Maybe instead of thinking of it as a a finished element, think of it as a lego brick. It is true that somebody already came up with a basic shape and even patented it, but it's up to you to put it in an interesting context and if you have enough skill you can completely reshape whatever it is that you choose to interpret. If your goal is originality, you should concentrate on how you use things already put in front of you, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. I believe that if you try to be too independent, you will never be able to create anything interesting.

>>22203734
>I believe that if you try to be too independent, you will never be able to create anything interesting.
This is a good way to look at it, thank you for explaining it to me this way, anon.

>>22203712
How long did it take you to learn English? Was it hard? I've heard from some ESL folk that there are some really hard parts about learning English like how we have a lot of words that are spelled differently to how they sound like "laugh".

Also, do you also have Polish power?

A new chapter of the Kill List is out. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54622/the-kill-list

The next chapter will mark the end of "part 1", so to speak, and I'll be taking a break for editing that first part before moving on to the next. Really happy with how this has turned out, and I'm eager for more critique, especially since the story, at least for a single total act, is complete

>>22203792
English it's pretty much everywhere and i was exposed from a very young ago to it, so it wasn't all that hard. I had more problems with German, but that's probably due to my teacher being a walking nightmare. While I spell things correctly I still vocalise words in my head, as if i was spelling them in Polish, when I write to not make mistakes.

>Also, do you also have Polish power?
I started boxing last year so I guess I have a little bit of it

>>22203874
I've seen you post here a few times and while I've never read your stuff, I see that you're committed to your writing and I hope you find heaps of success in it, anon.

>>22203885
Thanks anon, that's very kind of you.

>>22203879
>I started boxing last year so I guess I have a little bit of it
Damn, he didn't even get what I was referencing. Good job on starting boxing though, wish I could find the motivation.

>>22203890
Sorry, I am not very well acquainted with the memes, but I remember guys face so I assumed you were making some kind of fighting-related joke

>>22203874
>The reign of her father, King Furan Ordreid, has come to its end in a bloody coup détat, plotted by his closest advisors. In the chaos, Isadora manages to flee the castle, and dedicates herself to reclaiming her throne and wreaking vengeance on the those who broke their oaths to her family.
Holy shit my whole story similar like this too. I guess this trope is kind of popular? If you don't have str dex boxes on your story i am willing to read your story

>>22203894
>Sorry, I am not very well acquainted with the memes
You're all good, just some dumb MMA reference, he's a Polish UFC fighter that has in his words "legendary Polish power" because he hits very hard. His name is Jan Błachowicz.

>>22203898
No boxes in the story, it's very much just an attempt at writing a typical fantasy novel. I'd appreciate your feedback, especially if you're writing something similar!

While it starts as a typical revenge plot, I've veered off into elements of cosmic horror as the plotline progresses, though, in the first part (chapters 1-17), those elements are only hinted at

>>22203911
Another thing about him that I thought I'd add is that he wears a bracelet for the week leading up to the fight that has a part from a noose inside of it that was used in the suicide of some guy he from while walking. I think that's pretty badass.

I've been inspired recently to get back into writing. I had an excellent idea for a short story last week that I hope to start working on this weekend, but have also considered revisiting a draft of a unrelated short story I never finished. I'm conflicted if it's worthwhile, if there's something valuable already in there or if I should just rewrite the whole thing now that's it's been a while. I unfortunately had to yank out things to fit the single post rule, but only about 200 words.

>>22203914
Phew, missed a bullet. Mine starts with the mc escapes but family gets abducted for a public hanging by their uncle. When he finds help to rescue his family, they get roped. And after it starts as a revenge story but through the chapters he will be friends with the orphans and his world view will change. I'll check your story to maybe get some ideas of how you handled some aspects that i am still wondering how i should do. When does your story take place? In middle ages or, french revolution like timeline or something? https://pastebin.com/0FKtvj9F here you go friend the initial premise of mine

>>22203930
I don’t want to be here.

…

I am not in the mood to babysit Hayden’s alcoholism, either. Personable and mostly polite, he retains these elements while drinking, but his dignity and restraint go out the window when his BAC increases, a piecewise relationship I could easily show graphically. I might do that this weekend. Sketch it out, define the axes, leave it on his desk as a joke. But it’s not a joke, so it wouldn’t be funny, and I don’t want to be cruel.

There he is now, the bubbly man-child hopped up on too much ethanol. Flitting between tables and the bar energetically, aimlessly, unbridled, like a dog that knows a walk is about to begin. The kind of behavior some people would find endearing, or amusing. I wonder how many shots he’s bought for people he won’t remember tomorrow morning, how much of his weekly earnings he’s going to squander. … Now I just go along with him when I can spare the time or give into his wheedling, and do my best to hold onto his leash.

I’m nursing a beer, exerting myself to hold an expression on my face as bitter as what I’m drinking. It seems to be working, as I’m mostly invisible to everyone around me, their eyes dodging my gaze when I phase into reality long enough from them to see me. Some asshole has queued up an impressively awful set list on the jukebox. The type of music that you enjoy when you’re thirteen because you don’t know any better, but by eighteen find dull, and then at my age, intolerable. I scowl at the trite chorus, and wince when the tinny riffs try to assert themselves. I’m going to give Hayden the thirty-minute warning the next time he walks by me. In the meantime, I’m throwing glares around like Clint Eastwood, drinking my hoppy beer too quickly, smoking like a third world coal-fired power plant.

I shift on my stool, rocking the ash-covered table and sloshing the beer in my glass. I watch as the dark liquid slides up and down the opposite sides of the glass. Periodic motion. Damped by gravity and friction. I look around at the other patrons in the bar, at the aging hipsters, the party girls, the tired-looking, overdressed middle-agers, and wonder if any of them would know what I mean by those terms without careful explanation beforehand. Staring at the cheap piercings, cliché hairstyles, and ugly tattoos in unflattering places that comprise this mass of walking, talking, breathing caricatures makes me quickly return my gaze to the street outside the plate glass window in front of me. I down the reminder of my glass in three large gulps. That’s two in forty minutes. I sit shaking my legs up and down on the balls of my feet for about a minute or so before coming to the conclusion that I need to get out of here. … Snuffing the last of my cigarette, I start to stand up, intent on telling Hayden that I’m leaving, that he can come back with me to the apartment or take a cab, when two full glasses of stout slam theatrically against the table.

>>22203931
Ah, mine is in a medieval time period, but obviously not real world at all. Yours seems much more grounded, in a good way

>>22203935
>breathing caricatures makes me quickly return my gaze to the street outside the plate glass window in front of me.
When were they ever looking out the window? You mentioned that they were looking at their glass of beer and the patrons but never anything about outside.

Would you understand what the author means if they say that an older woman waves a "sassy" hand at the main character after receiving a compliment?

>>22203989
yes I would, but that sounds very silly

>>22203998
How would you describe it? I don't wanna sound like a retard.

>>22203968
I suppose when I wrote that I thought it might suggest the narrator was staring out the window for the duration of the musing, casting occasional glances around. Fair point. Easy fix. Change "return" to "avert." That's the sum of your thoughts, though? One word out of ~530 being poorly chosen in the context of the first few paragraphs setting a scene?

>>22204011
>That's the sum of your thoughts, though? One word out of ~530 being poorly chosen in the context of the first few paragraphs setting a scene?
No, that's just what I thought of pointing out, sorry, I should've gone into more detail, let me do that now.

I actually enjoyed what you wrote, you use very descriptive language that makes it really easy for the reader to create a mental image of what's going on and what the surroundings are like. I also like your writing style, it flows well. Sorry that this sounds retarded, I'm not good at reviewing things are describing why I like things.

>when two full glasses of stout slam theatrically against the table.
Upon a quick skim read this did catch my eye though, would it not be better to write something along the lines of "Two full glasses of stout get slammed theatrically against the table."? Glasses of stout can't slam themselves, something has to be slamming them, this might be just retarded nit-pickyness though.

Are there any examples in novels(or cinema, not too bothered) where the protagonist plays an active role in advancing the narrative but they are out of sight from the reader and narrator.

Royal Road is taking no action against AI generated fiction. It's over now.

>>22204101
Based. They just killed their own site.

>>22204074
What do you mean by this? Is Fight Club something that would apply?

>>22204101
>>22204118
Definitely didn't kill it. It's just harder for people to sift through the new story trash pile and find good ones if it gets flooded. And it's not being flooded. There's some AI if you look through but not that many and in the current state of AI most people recognize there's no point in trying to get it to write longform, so it'll take some improvements in the tech before people bother. I doubt anything changes with this new policy.

>>22204036
>you use very descriptive language that makes it really easy for the reader to create a mental image of what's going on and what the surroundings are like
Thank you. That is high praise to me, as I consider descriptive writing a cornerstone of my style and every time it is referenced it's a nice bit of reinforcement that I'm doing something correct.

>it flows well
I wrote this years ago and there are several things I would change to smooth certain constructions, but I'm glad this initial draft isn't clunky to you.

>Glasses of stout can't slam themselves
No, but I'm not implying that they are. Consider, "The two cars slam against each other." We know cars don't drive themselves, so clearly do not slam themselves, but you don't need to write, "The two cars get slammed against each other," or "The two cars are slammed against each other." I mean, you can do that, but I would say that you're potentially implying some kind of atypical external force is acting in those cases, beyond people driving them. Lastly, the next line is,

>“Another drink for you, sir?” Hayden mockingly asks, in an equally mocking British accent.

so that should directly imply where they came from, no need to say that human hands made the beers slam on the table. I really wanted to post more, and hated that I had to chop out 100 words that in hindsight were important, but 3000 characters is really not much. I totally understand why there is a rule about posting, though.

>>22203357
is the trouble here it's hard to believe a redneck would know the word phantasmagoria?

>>22204239
Ya 'dem ghost thingamajigs ain't be haunting this Dem fields anymore ya heard me?

>all these great writers in this thread
>They all use vocabulary I never even heard of
>Ideas are top notch
>I can barely muster up a sentence
I'll never make it...

>>22204330
Thanks for the compliment.
I hope to make the pastebin one day. I have at least four novels and dozens of short stories I want to do. Lots of hope for the future.

>>22204330
hey at least look up on the bright side, some of use literally can't put our whole stories here because we are ESL. i mean you are one step ahead most of us.

>>22204010
Just avoid the word "sassy" and instead commit few words to broadly describe her movements, icluding her hand, as very confident, brash, nonchalant, flamboyant etc.

>>22204330
Just start writing bullshit anon. Just do it. Start writing anything that comes to your mind at this very moment. Do it now.

Can anyone review my erotica profile?

https://www.fiverr.com/s2/92ef17063b

Wrote a few private commissions for people, mostly cuck stuff. Thought I'd try to make a few pennies on the side.

>>22204504
Why subject yourself to this?

>>22204330
With that attitude, you're right. If you're serious about writing, read good books, starting trying to write stuff, learn a few new words daily. If you're just fantasizing about writing, or think it would be fun to be a writer because there's nothing else going on in your miserable life and why not, I'm going to suggest you think about doing something else.

>>22203603
It doesn’t feel like this should be in the past tense

Returning to this piece, how's the start?

When Aldo starts work at Pariah, his floor manager, Ken, escorts him from corporate to the factory floor and tells him that he might initially find the position “non-stimulating,” but also “hey, job’s a job, I know that’s right.” After, he pauses to look at Aldo. The latter nods back, “Yeah, know that’s right.” Ken claps him on the back, smiling, and guides him through the front hall. Fumbling through his jeans, he whistles “Here tey are,” and slides a cheap-o pair of scratched-up safety goggles into Aldo’s front shirt pocket. “Me? Don’t wear em. If you’re careful, you don’t got ta wear em.”

They are mostly silent the rest of the walk through Corporate—a flip-book of cubicles, mostly empty, a few stacks of fossilized, mildew-yellow printer paper. Aldo hasn’t worked in a factory before, though he’s cooked up a pretty good idea of what it might entail—an amalgamation of Santa’s workshop and a low-security prison, where you could punch-out license plates in-file but still bring your own lunch and go home after. As he will come to find, it isn’t that. But it also isn’t better or worse, either—just something else, like if you imagine a new car behind Door Number 1 but, once opened, standing there is a gorilla. While some manufacturing facilities do resemble Aldo’s delicate preconceptions of factory work—plenty of visibility, clear organization, rows of finely-tuned machinery shitting out gelatin swans—Pariah Elec. LLC was founded in the caution-be-damned, helter-skelter 60’s under the name Hitchens Electric which, after an onslaught of lawsuits for illegal chemical dumping on School County grounds, reformed under its current name a few short miles from its original location. Shortly thereafter, there was a lengthy, disorganized moving process in which trucks—dump trucks, U-hauls, flat-bed trailers—, all contracted from different companies, transported everything to the “new” facility—a twice-burned-out storage house that bankrupted when the mills went under (abandoned mills and old fertilizer silos, the ancient ruins of Appalachia, still loom over all small mountain towns “on their way out”). Lacking any oversight, middle managers unloaded and placed things “temporarily” in a haphazard minefield of working (and defunct) machinery that only concretized over time. And thus: an indecipherable, mechanical labyrinth with no maze-master, full of trapdoors to record-rooms, meaningless, gigantic number-bearing signs, littered with archaic machinery unintelligible to all, bar the occasional overalls-sporting centenarian who, brought along with everything else, examines a rusted-out block of steel and exclaims, “well I’ll be damned, it survived the move after all.”

>>22204268
mmhm gat dang apparitions an what not

>>22204563
In the next chapter the same segment is reiterated in the present tense

>>22204133
The main character is an ex solider that has gone completely off grid at a time when he is needed the most. that's the hook. it's rather generic so I'm looking for examples for me bounce off of. an additional note, the ex-solider was in the War on Terror, showing the time frame of the story.

>>22204612
I tell you what. If one of those ghouly ghouls come anywhere near me or my family, it'll meetin not only the knuckles of my fist, but y'all see that yonder over dere? Yea it ain't gonna know what hit em

>>22203246
>the pale face of the moon
his throat was dry as the Sahara desert tier metaphor, it reads like you want to be colorful and descriptive without being articulate enough for it, I recommend either writing more matter of fact-lay or reading some more and stealing(getting inspiration for) super cool metaphors from others
>I just woke up
I had just woken up
>causing slight shivers all over my limbs. then I realized I was naked
this is good, it's a good description of the essentials that also implies other details, in this case the character being naked
>reminding me of the night sky
>its crater pocketed visage
>marveling at the silverish tint
same as the pale face of the moon
>suddenly I realized
again?
>and instead of standing
and, instead of standing
>it seemed like I was standing
repetition

this is as far as I go
my general impression is that you're holding on to a number of elements that you want to add, like brief descriptions and unimaginative metaphors, without expanding on them, so everything reads a bit plain and stiff
I recommend reading baroquely written stuff, picking cool phrases, turns of phrase, metaphors... and incorporating them in your writing, so to get used to using more complicated phrases to write the same stuff
best of luck, and have fun

>>22204866
NTA but I unironically like repetition when it sounds cool. It's difficult more me to understand what kind of cadence works for repetition, because it can give lots of other impressions besides carelessness of the author.

I just read Rebuild World and now I've been inspired make my own post-apocalyptic cyberpunk setting with a sigma MC. But I'm stuck between choosing to draw a manga or write a novel. I don't have time for both.

>>22203935
that's nice, I enjoyed it, and it reads realistic
>define the axes
you define what you're measuring, decide how to plot it and then plot it on axes, the axes are already defined entities
>like
there are sooo many similies, even close to one another, like the ones about Clint Eastwood and about the power plant
you might change a few to metaphors or switch them with other rethorical figures to make the whole thing a bit more varied
>>22204011
>the narrator was staring out of the window
I figured he was keeping an eye on Hayden who I figured was inside, I too didn't imagine him looking out of the windows, and when that phrase came I figured he then turned towards the glass, which was maybe to the side of his table
>>22204167
I didn't think the glasses slamming on the table sounded off, on the contrary, quite evocative
>Hayden being an asshole
this oddly contrasts with the opening, where it says Hayden was still personable and mostly polite even when drunk

>>22204912
>what kind of cadence works for repetition
As with everything, it depends.
A repetition is just an object, and what matters is how you organize the objects rather than the objects you use.
For example, repetition might work for a list.
It might work for a long list.
It might work for a short list.
It might work for a super long list.
What's important is that it might work here because it gives a sense of cohesion to the list - if it starts with "it might work" then it's a list element.
Repeating a salient enough thing like "he was wearing an odd blue jumpsuit" might also help connect two points of the story, or bring something back to the reader's mind, though it's not exactly that kind of repetition.
Repetitions are cool, they're really cool, super cool even, if you really wanna stress something out.
Repetitions of repetitive formats really are repetitive, irritatingly so, meaning you might use them to speed up the pace of a section.
They may be used to form chasms;
chasms are something they're good for.
I feel like this sort of loses its effect because there are so many repetitions in my post, but it's typically not good sounding or useful to simply write the exact same thing twice in two different contexts but still close to one another, such as the case of the piece I commented, even though there are so many repetitions in my post.
Last thing they're useful for, if you ask me, is when you use them for [...], but it's not exactly the same kind of repetition.

I hope you enjoyed my cute little piece of creative writing.

My manuscript is technically complete and ready for publishing, but the more I edit the more I feel like I should spend another 4 years revising it. I just keep finding things to improve and now I'm afraid that all the things I should have changed won't become clear to me until after publishing, but by then it's too late

Captcha:HX0AV8

>>22203874
this is literal kino. Not even being sarcastic or shitposting, chapters 7 and 8 both had fantastic highs. the subtle romance in 7, followed by the brisk action and weird monster in 8. good shit anon

>>22204866
Thanks. As I mentioned to another anon, the is probably problem caused by translating it instead of just writing it in English. I wanted to incorporate some repetition into the text to make it seem more dream-like but I think I should probably be more careful with it. Only question I have is are the metaphors really bad? I get that they are not very imaginative, but I thought they make the descriptions more diverse. I was planning on reading some romantic and gothic literature, so maybe I'll be able to get the better feel of it and rewrite it.

>>22204954
Thank you for the kind words, Anon.
>define the axes
I suppose this may be a technical quibble about jargon, but thank you for bringing it up. It might be less objectionable to write "label the axes," but I'm more familiar in my own experience with "define," such as "How did you define your axes here?" So I'm using it in the sense of "define (the quantity measured and the units used of) the axes." Again, thank you for pointing that out. At a certain point, jargon becomes difficult to self-assess.
>like
There are only three in total, but yes, two in such close proximity without repetition is not good in my eyes, either.
>the narrator was staring out of the window
Later passages detail that the narrator is at a high table near-ish the window and seated such that he is facing the window, but can easily pivot to see most of the bar. In rereading the rest of the story that I unfortunately never finished, it's a little more obvious to me that I was trying to play around with a sense of urgency and obsessiveness by means of hyperfocus and descriptions, that as the situation that unfolds becomes more interesting, immediate, and stressful, the narrator becomes fixated on certain things (like when he trying to get a girl to either restate her name or overhear it called after being dismissive during her introduction). Clearly withholding some such details is probably not a good idea. If I return to this, I'll definitely need to go paragraph-by-paragraph and line-by-line for things like these, but that's okay.
>Hayden being an asshole
Is he really an asshole in that moment, though? Any more or less than the judgmental narrator? I guess it (hopefully) becomes a little more obvious that he's simply oblivious to the narrator's feelings, and I did cut out the context for Hayden's behavior (separated from his wife and couch-surfing).

Again, thank you for your time and insightful comments.

>>22205058
(Nice.)

>>22204912
I was going to write my own little thing, but then I remembered this film exists; I remembered its lines; I remembered its memories:

>https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/quotes/

>Dwight: [while being rescued from the Tar Pits] Miho. You're an angel. You're a saint. You're Mother Teresa. You're Elvis. You're God. And if you'd shown up about ten minutes earlier, we'd still have Jackie-Boy's head.

https://pastebin.com/GtuAmY5g
I've come to ask for advice, are scenes like this too graphic? Mc is kind of a spoiled kid who was raised without the knowledge of war and it's horrors. Should i tone it down? Does these kind of labels, make a book not "family friendly"?

>>22205334
ps:ESL so dont mind the broken translation and wrong gender stuff

>>22205334
This is appropriate for middle-school and above (12+ in US)--it's violent, yes, but not gruesome. I know you're ESL, as you said, but if I were to refer to something horrible like that more psychologically instead of graphically, I might refer to the "meat" as "the piece of the man," or something similar. It gets the point across and remains disturbing in a way that might be more palatable to some audiences.

Feel like the desscription of the moon in the first paragraph might be a little cliche but otherwise love how my first chapter is turning out

>>22205541
Yep, i was the one who impregnated the moon, so good phrasing there no problemo

First time poster here, I'll make it up as i go
>It is a sunny mid day in the Kingdom of Vahla. A young man gets thrown into the mud. To his left, the two soldiers who in who's custody he is in. To his right the corpse of his comabt mentor.
And infront of him the castle that he calls home, currently being looted by the enemy.
"He gave a good fight." One of the soldiers says to the other. "What a shame we have to take of him. I would rather be inside, lining my pockets with valuables."
The prince crawling in the mud tries to help himself up before receiving a kick into his side. "No one told you that you were allowed to go."
The prince gives a pained look with scorn towards the soldier who kicked him with his iron padded boot.
"Are these the kind of people the Empire employees," he says "ruffians and lousy thieves?" Angered by the youths words the soilders were ready to silence him even if it meant to kick out his teeth, but they were stopped by the sound of trumpets.
A brassy tone that would only play for only one man because he enjoyed it so very much. As if by command the Soilders snapped and were on their best behavior. They helped the prince onto his knees and wiped the mud from his face. The held his arms in place and stood each on one of his ankles to hold him in place. The soilders saluted as soon as a small troop of guardsman clad in silver armor adorned with red fiber approach the three.
The guardsman in the front played a trumpet and halt 5 paces from the prince before clearing his throat.
"Through the defeat of the Kingdom Vahla," the man shouts "the Titanic empire claims her lands, her city and her people. As is tradition the fate of the head of the defeated bird is in his Majesty's hand, to fly or to be crushed and become one with the soil."
The prince is bitting his teeth together in anger. His homeland is lost and he was powerless.
"Make way for the rightful ruler of everything under the skies. His eminence; Emperor Gustav Koran."
The Guardsman walks three paces to the left and salutes to the right side. From between the men infront of the price emerged the figure of the emperor, dressed in the garb of the common folk. Forty years of age at most is what the wrinkles of his face tell. A bagger on the streets, so does his sandy beard and his hair tell of his social status. A man like this could never be emperor so it seems. But everyone knows that the Emperor Gustav lives an extravagant Lifestyle but keeps the appearance of a beggar to reflect his success in founding an unstoppable force, his Titanic empire.

>>22205565
not bad for an unrevised piece, but feels heavy handed. your prose feels similar to kill list anon's, look at his story to compare,but i think he writes the same as you with less bulk

i've exercised by copying others here before, and other writers in general, who are doing or trying to do what i do

I've been attempting to boil the plot of my story down to its most core elements (not the character development mind you, just the story beats). I'd love some feedback on if the events make sense
>Protagonist is given an opportunity at a new life by new boss (Organization A)
>Rich beyond their wildest dreams, every pleasure imaginable afforded to them
>Winds up coerced by another group (Organization B) into helping them infiltrate Organization A
>Protagonist's position compromises them because they could be killed for even having spoken to group B, let alone cooperating. They stand to potentially lose everything either way.
>Authority figure with Org B reveals themselves, tries to offer the protagonist protection if they can hold out a little longer, needs them to comply with their demands (kind of like a cop asking someone to wear a wire and be deep undercover)

The intention is to convey this idea that the protagonist was "fattened up" to be a ripe target for coercion. I want this reveal to feel meaningful in the sense that the character thinks they are special, only to find that they've been a pawn in a much larger game. Their boss is using them to play both sides of the field and have an easy loose end to clean up if and when things go south.

This culminates in a sort of shootout where the protagonist and the undercover guy attempt to get out with their lives.

Curious if the premise feels solid. And the betrayal from the protagonist's boss and the reason for setting them up as someone with a lot to lose who'd be a prime target for this sort of thing seems believable.

>>22205541
>looking outside my vision was filled with the heaving bosom of the moon; that silvery thot had clearly been fucked raw, as it was rotund with child, on the cusp of birth. I couldn't believe some Chad defiled her like this. What would happen once she gave birth? Would a New Moon come out? Would it have the face of a Chad? Would the baby Chad moon direct a cheeky and knowing wink at me, as if to say 'you will never have sex, incel'? It sickened me.
>I turned towards the images of the saints for solace... etc.
Some ideas for you.

>>22205541
>>22205561

I couldn't help myself. I'm going to remember that one for the rest of my life.

(Anon the rest is fine but tone down the pregnancy fetish.)

>>22205720
not truly enough to go off of, but if you build the relationship between the protagonist and his boss up, you have some opportunity for real gut wrenching stuff. Think the truman show-- what if the protagonist somehow married the boss's daughter, and even SHE was in on using him as a means to an end? something like that to build their relationship as being real.

>>22205638
I'm not familiar with this anon. Where do I find his stuff?

>>22205730
see
>>22203874

I HAVE TOO MANY FUCKING NOTES AAAAAAAA

>>22205733
Thanks

putting some coffee on, hoping for a productive night:
"Boy howdy, Wyna, what'd you go and do that for?" There she was, face down on the rug, Bill stepping over the woman now to remove the still-burning king-size cigarette from her hand which was cast up like a zombie, then extinguishing it in the ashtray, glass and heavy, inlaid with cherubim. "For all God's creation, Wyna. I swear," picking up the beer cans, tissues, chip bags, magazines and old jackets which were all somehow piled upon her ridiculous figure, ass in the air, right in the middle of this, Bill's one and only lunch break. Gently rolling her over, he winced and heaved her up onto the couch where she continued to snore violently. "We ain't neither one of us young anymore, Wyna," fixing now in the kitchen a sandwich, honey in his voice, sipping from a can of cold tomato juice from the fridge, carefully arranging the salami in a stacking, circular pattern. "Just keeps gettin harder and harder, going on the way you are. You know I know better than anybody. Something has gotta give." And he knew she didn't hear him, but talked anyway, having seen once a television special on the powers of hypnosis, grainy and black-and-white, narrated by experts in the field, wherein a balding Austrian hypnotist entranced some thirty-odd Alcatraz inmates into not only believing themselves free, but that they were themselves now the guards, patrolling with mops and brooms as if the rifles of their charge, marching with military precision, about face, and with a snap of the magician's fingers back to barbarous criminality, the spell having been cast via subconscious suggestion while the subjects were under a heavy, induced slumber --- and so Bill talked anyway, thinking that maybe just being plain drunk might be enough, and hoping if nothing else even a little something would be introduced to her via the dream-world, so to speak.

>>22205729
So the "boss" character in this set up is really more like middle management looking for upward mobility. The gut punch here is meant to be the reveal that the protagonist's closest friend and the one person they thought they could really talk to was raising them like cattle this entire time, their whole purpose for being there in fact was to groom them for this very purpose. There is a bit of that "Truman Show" vibe that's meant to be conveyed, along with this feeling of how "unfair" everything seems to be. I've noticed this trend in media where if you put the protagonist in a really unsatisfying spot it gets you more invested in finding out just how they're going to manage to get themselves out (example of this that comes to mind is that movie Limitless where the guy runs out of the pills). Anyways, there's meant to be this really brutal moment where this protagonist has to call their entire new life into question and wonders what else was fake, were they ever really good at their job? Were they only ever just a prop in this larger game?

>>22205541
if anything i think maybe lean into the pregnant mother image but, this could be a very sacred kind of image which i think is undercut somewhat by the wording

>>22205777
i feel like you have a cohesive direction to follow. I'd have you watch "Uncut Gems" for the type of vibe you mentioned-- the protagonist falls from one bad situation to another, often due to his "friends" failing him. By far the most stress inducing movie I've seen recently. Give it a shot and you might find inspiration. Good luck anon

>>22205767
i like this prose

>Please rate:

You don't know who I am
for I have been away for long
Do my tears not mean
anything to you?

Tell me what has come to this place
so I can find the thread's end
Tell me those stories of yours
that make knees bend on their own

Tell me of songs you sing at dawn
before the death's wolf comes
waving its tail, the milk rotting
from within the mothers' breasts

Tell me if people keep sitting on their heels
whie looking at the fire
and if the village's most beautiful women
hide snakes under their tongues

>>22202052
It was a rough draft. I am training myself to not go back and correct errors. I whip up an outline, set a timer, and just tell the story.

>>22205797
ESL?
not very good

>>22205786
thank you anon :)

>>22205816
No. What'd you change?

>>22205827
>before the death's wolf comes
before the wolf of death comes

>waving its tail, the milk rotting
milk rotting

>tell me if people keep sitting on their heels tell me if people sit on their heels

>>22204010
Flippant.

>>22204604
Lads… please…

Is 4.5k-5k words too much for an opening chapter?

>>22204604
boring. Wher'e sthe swords? Where's the monster fight? Where's the fantasy? The magic? The cool factor? I work all day, i dont' want to read about work.

>>22205736
Only quads can defeat anon's giga-outline.

>>22205888
no, of course not
>>22205878
enjoyable enough, one potential qualm being, why would the manager think Aldo would at first find the job boring, but later maybe interesting? what sort of work do they do here

>>22205893
although this anon may really be right. this is how the story starts? is it too dry? dryness not always such a bad thing. i like having the beach by the ocean

What do you think about action/fight scenes opening up a story or a chapter? I know a lot of people who aren't too fond of them.

>>22205903
Well Ken just says it’s non-stimulating. That’s all he says about it. I don’t think he says it’s interesting, so my prose must be unclear

3k words done tonight.
Tomorrow, I edit the final chapter. Then I will proofread it for a week and try to make this my first novel. This is the end of the line.

>>22204680
The main example that came to mind is Rambo.
the other examples, I think, are parodies of Rambo, e.g. Charlie Sheen's character from "Hot Shots Part Deux".
I have a vague memory of Chuck Norris having a few parts like this.

>>22205947
i took this
>tells him that he might initially find the position “non-stimulating,”
to mean Ken suspected Aldo might also later find the position "stimulating"

>>22205736
How do you organize them?
I use a free-form outline editor called TreeLine.
It's capable of a lot more than I've used it for.
It's free and open-source, too.

>>22205925
I am a big fan of action scenes opening up a story.
It's called "starting with a bang".

>Write story about a midwit protaganist
>Prose is simple
>Write story about an intelligent protaganist
>Prose flows with complexity and linguistic flair

You'd think I would have a more obvious control over this but I'm literally relying on intuition, which makes me feel like a midwit.

How many of you actually hope to make any money? Surely even if you claim you don't care, your actually imagine it. How many of you really don't feel the need to escape your current life style?

>>22205964
Makes sense, I’ll revisit the word “initially”

>>22204330
Read and write and write and read.

>>22205990
it is a remote dream. i write for myself, but of course if i should get paid for it, so much the better.

>>22205990
I can fall back on my job but I would be lying if I said that I want to write for free.

>>22201866
I did it again. Nearly done with my first draft of my second chapter. I plan to edit the first two chapters this weekend.

>>22205783
I'll check it out, I've actually heard good things about that but never wound up seeing it. The protagonist herself I think has a really satisfying character arc, with some really low points along the way. I appreciate your feedback.

>>22205990
I think everyone would like to get paid the big bucks for their work, not sure if everyone would like the fame that comes with it though.

>>22205990
I'm willing to break even if it helps me get more readers. But I'm no stranger to business, so I have more than just hope to make money. I love the job I have today, but if i ever made enough from sales/royalties, you'd best believe I'd quit my job.

>>22205990
I made a few bucks here and there. It's just a fun hobby. It'll be nice to have my book on Barnes and Nobel one day, but it is what it is.

>>22205990
Would I like money? Sure, what I would also love is if one of my favourite authors read and liked the book, that would be awesome.

>>22205990
It's nice that the barriers to publishing have been lowered, but that just means readers are drowning in content.
Writing something is pretty much like playing the lotto.
But there's just enough people that slave away for 20 years and then hit it really big (e.g. Andy Weir) to keep me going.
Meanwhile...I still have my day job.

>>22205990
I'm sad my newer books make far less money than my first book and my newer books are so much better.

>>22206088
Target audience and time both matter a lot.

>>22206088
What is this? Doesn't look like Amazon.

>>22206088
Have you tried any self promotion? Not talking about shilling here but doing shit like TikTok (Yes, I know, cringe) or YouTube shorts or Instagram reels or anything like that? Short-form content is the new way to go.

>>22206107
Yep. I posted on instagram, twitter, and even had my friend (a cute girl) post it on booktok. Probalby got like 2 or 3 sales. from there for Emily Project. I think Valora should work since I wrote it to see how well YA fantasy actually does. got one sale from RR, but I need to try booktok and possibly bookbub. But it's still only in ebook stage I can wait a bit.

>>22206114
I've also entered the Beautiful Kingdom in Amazon's storytellerUK2023 contest. I hope I get something there. I'm going against TONS of Historical Romance. Hope the judges find it interesting enough to push it to at least the 3rd round.

>>22206114
>bookbub.
Huh?

>>22206114
>>22206119
If I were you, I'd also look for a publicist who has a strategy for the Beautiful Kingdom. Even if you have to wait until next May for Asian History month, having other kinds of strategies get the word out better than ads. You have a chance to renew interest I think, and consider that launch timing is more an issue for businesses that are trying to meet their budget. That is why it's way more crucial for a business to delay launches to get just the right timing to maximize profit, but as an author you can get more chances even if the launch was weak.

am i not a real writer if the fact that my work will never get read bothers me to the point where i'm not even motivated to try? the only thing that's ever going to get published anymore is ai that's the future and we all know it deep down.

>>22206252
>the fact that my work will never get read
How do you know?

I need some help. I hope someone will do the honors.

I don't think I'm capturing the problems of having a cashless society well enough. What do you guys think? Does the message come across or should I elaborate and have better examples?

https://pastebin.com/zGhhEr5k

>>22206252
So are you going to try posting some of it on Reddit's fiction-oriented subs, or are you just going to seethe about that site?

>>22206271
I don't know, i mean you're technically right yeah, but i know from being a musician for years that its hard to get anyone to sit down and give a chance to anything from a nobody and i just feel like with literature it'll be harder. Then again I feel like i should just try i'm just scared i guess i'll be honest. scared of alot. poor reception, finding out i suck (I hate writing cause every time i do i feel like i'm just awful, i only have some confidence in my writing because its something i always did exceptionally well at in school often earning praise and sometimes being read for class). it's just i know i'll never be doestoeyevsky or melville or shakespeare or Spenser or Milton and it just bums me out. I know i'm being too defeatist, i just feel like my life is supposed to be a series of ventures into various fields of interest only to be let down everywhere i go.

>>22202871
>The definition of terrorism is to make people comply using fear and violence to attain a political goal. Are you going to let terrorists win?
Different anon, but I fear consequences form my boomer parents more then activists. I have (((autism))) and they think I'm Chris Chan bc of it. I feel that if anything in my writing offends them, they will send me to a group home. Are you saying my parents are terrorists?

>>22206305
Let's be real and I don't mean for this to sound bad but hear me out, you're never going to be the next Shakespeare, you're never going to be the next Milton, Koontz, Weir, King or Doestoeyevsky, you have to make peace with that, they're one in a billion writers and the chances of anyone on this board being as big as them is basically non-existent, it's not just you, it's nearly everyone on earth, don't get caught up comparing your work to theirs cause it's never gonna be as good and I promise I mean that in the least mean way possible, my work is never gonna be as good as theirs either, that's just something I have to live with.

Also.
>alot
Kek.

>>22206305
Although most of the advice in "Write, Publish, Repeat" was IMHO useless and solipsistic, the title contained a grain of truth—you just have to keep trying.
You never know what is going to catch fire.
Andy Weir slaved away in the software-industry salt mines, writing many short stories and novels, before "The Martian" somehow exploded for him.
Now he's a multi-millionaire.
>>22206306
Is moving out of your parents' home an option?
If not, why not?
I'm autistic too, but at least I can (mostly) hold down a STEM career.

>>22206088
>Not doing litrpg or progression books on Patreon
Lololol you already failed.

>>22206330
>Andy Weir slaved away in the software-industry salt mines, writing many short stories and novels, before "The Martian" somehow exploded for him.
>Now he's a multi-millionaire.
Not the guy you're replying to but these sorts of stories always keep my motivation alive.

>>22206319
i literally said in my post that i'm not those guys, but you were too busy creating a fictional character in your head to take down because you like pointing out flaws in others. Of course i'm going to compare my works to theirs though, i would still want to try to make the best works possible and something that is recognized as truly great. also yeah i was going to predict that you're just going to take my casual writing on 4chan while i'm stoned as the way I would write anything I'd seriously try to publish. look i have humility but i think you're someone who seriously just enjoys being negative and tearing others down.
>>22206330
i know thats one thing to do its just with ai there literally may be no point because of ai literally becoming our only authors in the future. publishers would not even consider hiring a human writer and people would have conversations like "can you believe they used to have humans write stories" "I know thats so weird". maybe i'm being too pessimistic though, it'll be hard to get rid of the drive to be creative which does seem to be an evolved thing due to it's correspondence to specific activity and formations of parts of the brain.

>>22206349
also sorry to samefag but like i said i'm stoned, anyway i'm honestly not even worried about getting rich although i would atleast like to get an underground following or atleast something, and at the very least post humous praise. but i guess that is pride getting in the way. I know the correct thing is to just not care. fuck.

>>22206252
Don't think as much about the reception. Think more about the story and the art of writing. If you cultivate creativity, style and talent, you can find an audience. Writing doesn't have to be your entire life. It can simply be part of it. And also remember that fame is not what people think it is. Legacy is greater than that, and you can build that in many ways besides writing and without fame.

>>22206360
it's not like i'm thinking about reception all the time. I do put alot of thought into my story all the time I just honestly get scared to start writing it down. I know that to create a great work one must put in much effort and i do accept that. I guess i'm scared of putting in effort and risking not gettting any recognition in return (and possibly not even making something great at all.)

>>22206349
I literally said I meant it in the least mean way possible and I mean that. I guess I did just read it like a retard and went off on an unrelated tangent cause I thought you were upset that you'd never be as big as those guys, I wasn't tryna tear you down or be negative, brother man, sorry that it came across that way.

>>22201849
I know that cat

>>22206349
I've pointed this out a number of times about AI on this board and elsewhere, and while it might comfort you others don't want to believe it.
The level of cynicism about man today is stratospheric. Yet when you look at facts regarding the complexity of the human mind, how it operates parallel interpretations and gives rise to unrivaled complexity, the multiplicity of connotation behind any idea due to the unique history of each person and other kinds of things.
For low brow content, AI may be able to write decent. Perhaps it will mostly write well for only technical work. But for literature, AI does not have access to the thought processes or experiences people do. AI has speed, memory, and the ability to extrapolate some non-obvious relationships the way that a Design of Experiments can. But it cannot relate human experience in the same way that a human can. By the time that AI can, people would already have access to tech that allows them to do the same, so there'd be less distinction between us and computers. I am not saying that will come to pass necessarily. I mean to say that people are caught up in marketers who want investors for their AI company the way 3D printers had hype last decade, and that the innovation is greatly exaggerated. As I said before, cynicism has blinded us to the documented majesty of the human mind. The most ambitious writers should not be afraid of being upstaged.

>>22206400
people are sarcastic sometimes, but fair i guess i should have taken the more charitable interpretation as well. it just upsets me the thought that i'll never be as good as them, really. But I also figure it follows that if one is that good then the works they make will be great but there is of course the question of effort. Still i also think that I do have some really profound ideas and am quite exceptionally intelligent, though I know that is very common especially with creative types.

>>22206330
>Is moving out of your parents' home an option?
I just did two mouths ago. However, they can still decide to take that form me. They still have a lot of power over me.
Even little things in my writing could make them decide I'm an "extremist" and theirs no telling what they would do then.
>I'm autistic too, but at least I can (mostly) hold down a STEM career.
My dad told me "Linux is fringe" and dammed me to the welfare trap.

>>22206423
You talk to much. This isn't therapy, go write your story and post an excerpt already.

>>22202846
>>22206423
If this bothers you this much, just drop the story and write something else.

>>22206417
>it just upsets me the thought that i'll never be as good as them
This is what I was trying to get at in my original response, you shouldn't be getting upset at that thought because you already know that you won't be, no point in getting upset at something that you know is impossible.

>>22206423
If it's that much of a problem, just work under a pseudonym

>>22206443
i know but then it feels like my life is meaningless

I'm writing a narcissistic character, what animal should I use as a metaphor?

>>22206294
https://pastebin.com/yN8FhJcp
Edited it a bit to add in a bit more story. Same problems apply. Hope someone reads it.

>>22206482
Obviously a peacock

>>22206482
A house cat.

>>22206500
>Obviously a peacock
I've got that noted but I feel it's a bit heavy-handed

came from /adv/, fuck it

So me and my friend are writing a story about an apocalypse from the view of a teenager. Thing is I do not have a good excuse for a teenager in 2023 writing or recording an event in the first place (story is told from a first person perspective like blog). Realism is very important in this stroy and talking to my younger family and a discord teenage friend the concept of a diary is alien to them. Twitter is the most they'll dwell into when it comes to introspection but they dont go in dept into it, and blogging (from what i gather) is outdated.

I'm writing purely for fun and to kill time since i need a hobby. Thing is I have the story mapped out and I know where i'm going with it, but i just don't have a good excuse for a teenager to write or voice the events that are happening in the beginning of the apocalypse / shtf in order for the story to start in the first place.

I plan on one of my younger relatives to voice over my story and read it out as a voice recording with editing, i have the story i just don't have the excuse. I want the voice recording to be normal, something that seems realistic and not cheesy in 2023 at first but transition into something serious which will be the vehicle of my story.

>>22206535
Ok

>>22206482
A crow

>>22206545
Yeah.. Look /adv/ sent me here sorry if this is a stupid question.

>>22206547
Crows aren't narcissistic, they can and have built relationships with humans in the past and will bring them shiny things that they find.

>>22206551
You didn't ask a question

>>22206535
maybe it could be a framed like series of TikTok videos?

>>22206562
You ever read the crow and fox? Some the stories have the fox win a sweet by having the vain crow talk, dropping it from his beak

Update, fuck it i'm going to just keep writing anyway.

>>22206601
hell yea dude

>>22206592
Made-up story vs real facts. Yeah, I know what I'll be paying attention to.

>>22206619
Crows also attack people and hold grudges, it fits

>>22206535
If the internet is down then a social media addict could decide to try to replicate the feeling by writing a dictionary, but in social-media style (perhaps progressively less so with time). Making video or audio recording doesn't make sense in the long run, except if we are only talking withing the first 24 hours or so. Battery will die very fast, it is rare for people to actually have mobile batteries to charge with. Even if he tries to go to a store where they sell batteries, if he is not big and strong, unlikely to get anything. An event like that in the story would make sense anyway.
Well, it also depends on for how long there will be electricity, which depends on what kind of apocalypse scenario it is to begin with.
If you actually try to think of reasons, you can easily think of others too, even some that are actually more meaningful to protagonist as a person. Do you really want him to be just a stereotype or something more nuanced? Mind you writing him as a hipster that prefers reading books and hates on social media is a stereotype too.

>Struggle immensely to write 10k words because everything just feels like filler
>Read some of my favourite authors and they can write 10k words where things are happening constantly and at a good pace
>See some useless fanfiction writers able to shit out 100k words on the most obscure shit
>Struggle to write 5k word essays on topics I am honest to God near expert in because I literally can't feel justified in expanding points I feel are self-evident or pointless to expand upon
>Favourite essayists can rattle off 8k where it seems they just explain a simple point multiple times.
Why am I so retarded lads? I read Junger's "On Pain" and thought to myself to write an essay on something I feel passionate about and couldn't even break 300 words on the introduction before I felt like I was struggling to write more words that seemed useful. I can't even fill a journal entry beyond a hundred words or so what the fuck is my problem? I always got good grades on my essays in college but never reached the wordcount except on very rare occasions and usually finished 750/1000 words below it. How the fuck do I get over this block where I feel like anything I say is pointless filler (even though it definitely is)? I read history books where the author can spend a full page of 400 words describing an incident of a soldier losing a leg to an artillary shell that would take me at most if I was being descriptive a hundred words and it fucking baffles me.

>>22206535
Are you seriously saying that kids these days are so fucking retarded and braindamaged that the concept of writing thoughts down in a notebook is alien? In the sense of "oh, I would never do that," or "wait, that's something you can do?"

>I do not have a good excuse for a teenager in 2023 writing or recording an event in the first place
A fucking apocalypse is not a good enough excuse for someone to write or record the event? ??? What are you going to do instead? Imaginary TikTok? (Literal) Bed Rotting?

>>22206623
Holding grudges and attacking people doesn't make you narcissistic.

>>22206691
I assure you narcissists hold grudges harder than anyone if slighted.

>>22206697
So?

>>22205198
>are the metaphors that bad
well, depends on what you mean by "that bad", I personally find them to be bland and a bit naive as I said before
>they make the description more diverse
I believe they do, but they could also make it so much more diverse and colorful that I think they're worth improving
>>22205230
>this may be a technical quibble
yes it is
>how did you define the quantity measured and the units plotted on the axes
this wouldn't make sense in context because the characters has already decided he's going to plot his dignity and restraint against his BAC and he even knows what the graph will look like, the only thing left is, as you nicely put it, label the axes
>later passages
I don't think it sounds off even as is, though if you care about making sure that this description is as clear and "factual" as possible it would make more sense to explain things more clearly before a possible/apparent contradiction pops up rather than clear things up after the fact
unless you want the reader to misunderstand for the sake of the narrative
>is he really an asshole at that moment
even if he was oblivious to the protagonist's attitude towards his drinking and the need to babysit him, the term "mocking" and the "equally mocking British accent" give me the impression that Hayden has an inkling about the protagonist's feelings and is indeed being an asshole, else I wouldn't get the meaning of "mocking" and especially of imitating an English accent, which I imagine it's the protagonist's own
unless he feels mocked because Hayden's displaying characteristics that he finds his own and positive (an English accent) in a situation and a manner that he finds negative (yee mait less down ourselves nnother point or two), but that seems like a stretch

>>22202170
>just 4
I have like TWEEEEENTY

>>22206650
>what the fuck is my problem?
That is a good question. What are you even worrying about? If you have a story idea, just write it out until it's done, who fucking cares if some other cunt would do the same with 10k extra words? More doesn't always mean better. In fact, if you can be succinct and still get across everything you need to to the reader in an enjoyable way, that's a fucking skill you should be proud of.

>>22206535
>>22206644
This would be a great chance to write about a teenager learning how to keep a diary without prior experience and maybe inspire young readers to do the same. And also make them realize how over-reliant the world is of electricity. But I doubt someone from /adv/ is going to actually produce any of this.

What if you stopped using semicolons or em dashes in your writing? I feel like it would flow better.

>>22206788
Because I don't believe that I'm correct in judging other great others and essayists as filling their works with padding. I must be mussing something but I can never point it out or find it.

>>22206819
If you're using semicolons and em dashes correctly, removing them would be like removing commas as well. How can a piece of writing flow better if you remove tools used to govern it?

>>22205990
>make money writing
not me for sure, not in this life
>you actually imagine it
not any more realistically than I imagine having sex with Anne Hathaway when I'm under the shower
>don't feel the need to escape your lifestyle
I really don't, it's not all candy and roses but all things considered it's good, enviable even

>>22206860
Couldn’t you structure your sentences in such a way that they wouldn’t be necessary?

>>22205990
I do everything on a whim. There is no dream of making money involved with my hobbies

>>22206957
Sure, but what makes you think those sentences would be better?

>>22205990
I will never make money, i am not surrounded by critics unlike most well known writers hence i dont get any comments on what i write

>>22206827
Confidence issue.

>>22206535
Vlog in hopes of uploading it to the internet if it ever returns (never).

>>22206423
How can they take that away from you?
Do your parents pay for where you're living?
I guess I should have been more specific...separate yourself financially from their toxicity.
>Linux is fringe
Linux is used extensively everywhere, from wall warts to supercomputers to spacecraft.
It's behind the Android OS which is on a boatload of smartphones.
It runs the backbone of the Internet.
It's only got 3.6% of the desktop market from what I hear, but given its other success, who cares?
It's also the greatest mad-science laboratory a programmer could ask for.
Your dad sounds like a chickenshit conformist.
t. heavy Linux user/programmer for ~30 (ever since Slackware 2.0)

This thread was killed by Debbie Downer up there, wasn't it?

>>22205971
Basic bitch folders
Because every time I do more I get caught in organizing instead of writing

>>22203874
wait, i read through this all and that's it? that's the story? how can you consider this done? what's there is excellent but it ends on a weird cliffhanger????

>>22207430
Yep

>>22207430
I had to go to sleep and now I'm waging.
But I am still excited because I am finishing my fourth draft today, nothing's going to kil my buzz. Feels Goodman.

>>22207430
It was dead long before he came in.

>>22203201
that's a solid concept, my nigga.

>>22205638
After reading a bit of kill list I can say that you are right and that we have kinda the same style(?). But to be honest i try to ape dune because that's the only book I ever read in my life and that book is sometimes bulky with its descriptions. Maybe I'm trying too hard though

>>22207648
Which one, bro-ham?

Has anyone here entered their work into a writing competition before? There's one at the end of this month (July for me) and I'm thinking of writing something for it.

>>22207726
I have, four times. Not only did I not win any of them, one had a selection that took 160 of the best for the second round of judging, meaning there were at least 160 writers better than me who participated since I didn't even make that cut.
It's very depressing if you don't win.

>>22207794
i think what is depressing is not trying, anon. im glad you submitted.

>>22207813
Yeah, keep on keeping on and all that.

>>22207835
That's all you can do.

>>22207835
i've spent the year getting rejected from every artists residency and fellowship worth applying to. it is painful, i know, but i keep painting. keep writing anon.

from waiting for the bus:
>Back out on Charles Street, women could be heard shrieking, newsmen barking, the stutter of countless cameras clicking, blinking bright blinding flashes off of car windshields and the hotel windows, blitzing illiterate morse code, as the crowd pooled around the illuminated figure now exiting from the chauffer's entrance. It was none other than G. H. Preston. Smiling down on the adoring faithful, "Now, now," adjusting his tie, removing a pen from his left breast pocket, signing his name on photographs of a younger self, handsome and thin, signing also an old man's bible, or a kid's skateboard, then hats, shoes, parking tickets, t-shirts, two first edition pressings of Preston at the White House, three copies of the bestselling memoir/thriller Preston, countless copies of day's newspaper, the small of a woman's back, even a to-scale printout of the Declaration of Independence. Old G.H. maneuvered worked through the crowd like a muskateer, in this case the pen really being mightier than the sword afterall, for what fat chance, mused G.H., might he stand in honest-to-god, to-the-death mutual combat with these untold raving masses, leaning on the one hand a cane and in the other thrashing about with a brigand's rapier. A younger Preston, perhaps, and then when he had cut through the very last one of those raving loons, wiping the blood from his sword, he would run his hands through his still full head of hair and turn and standing stark before him, there she'd be --- his beloved --- standing like a tree, which he knew some women loathed to be compared to trees, but nonetheless there she stood, like a terribly erotic willow tree, drooping just so into his arms to be held, caressed softly, and tossed somewhere far off-stage.
"For God's sake, Louis. The windows."
"Sorry boss," and Louis rolled the windows up.
"I can't stand it anymore. These people." Preston pressed the bridge of his nose between his fingers, grimacing. "My God." He looked out the window at the passing throngs of faces. "All of them, Louis. There's not a single person out there worth saving."

>>22205565
Continuing this after I kinda left it as is. I was honestly still thinking of more but I was also lying in bed and tired. Lets finish up the first and many only chapter.
>The young Prince upone seeing the emperor almost bolts at him in rage but the two soldiers hold him in place. The one standing on his left foot pulls the princes throat back with his arm.
"So this is the prince Sven?" The old man waves his hand to one of the guardsman who then swiftly retrives sword.
"For a young lad you have some bite in you. If heard you killed 40 of men trying to hold the stairs that lead into the castle."
The emperor Gustav takes the sword out of his guards hand and unsheats it, inspecting the bloodstains on the blade.
"Where are my parents you devil" demands Sven. But the emperor ignores his words and twists the sword handle open, revealing an empty flask on the inside.
"Such trickery." He chuckled "I have heard that the men of your kingdom are willing to toss away all honor to defend it."
"Where are my parents"
Gustav hands the sword back to the guardsman and gives his attention to the angry prince Infront of him.
"Your mother is being escorted to her new home. I'll have her live in the Kingstower. She will be able to move freely within her confines and I promise that no one will even plucks a hair of her head. She is a trophy now and a symbol of my conquest." The prince is bitting his teeth together, churning them
"Your father on the other hand won't be able to join her unfortunately. A cannon blew him to smithereens." Enraged by his words Sven tried to struggle against the soilders, he wanted to end the old mans life then and there, squeezing every last breath of air out of his dammed throat. But he was easily subbed, the soilders slammed his head into the ground.
"Lier, you are lying"
"Shall I bring his head? Maybe you can make out gis facial features. Well it dosent matter now." The emperor takes a small bottle filled with liquide out of his pocket "What matters is your decision now. Do you want to Live and become a symbol of shame, or do you want to be freed of this mortal coil?"
Prince Sven now faced with a impossible decision. In his mind he cant be allowed to keep living. He failed his parents, he failed his men and his country. His mind wandered to the words his father the late king once told him.
"A good fighter knows when all is lost, kill me."
Amused at his words the emperor opens the bottle. "Then drink this and let it be done."
Sven swallows the unknown liquid believing it to be poison. A short time after swallowing he feels it's effect as his mind starts to fog. The emperor Gustav pulls out of his pocket his royal signet ring. The crest depicting the three legged dog from the story he so loves.
"You will live. What you swallowed was no poison but a sedative. It is strong and will put you to sleep. "
Sven is shocked and tries to respond but the sedative allready showes it's work.
(2/3)

>>22207840
Got anywhere where we can see your paintings, anon?

>>22207867
my anonymity is very precious to me in this regard, sorry anon. i can say that i show in a few midwestern galleries, and maybe somewhere in los angeles, but the risk of association is too great to post here directly : (

>>22205779

At one point later my character is chased through a labyrinth by a creature which has two backs, four eyes, several hands and legs maybe it's too sexual metaphorical

>>22207894
still i like the image of Moon as Madonna, but perhaps that is too Catholic

>>22207883
All good, hope it goes well for you.

>>22207907
thanks, and same to you
maybe one day, i can say:
>I am Anon
and nobody would believe me : )

>>22207853
>3/3
"You will in shame boy. You will be wandering this world as a reminder of your defeat and the unstoppable power of my titanic empire. My men will bring you to the western wilderness and you will survive it's harsh environment, because I order it of you as your emperor."
His mind hazy, Sven can't even protest right now. It takes all his concentration to even even listen. The emperor turns a tiny wheel on his signet ring. Out of the crest elevate sharp metalic edges. The emperor puts on the ring and the punches its face into Svens throat. He presses it deep into his skin making sure to pierce the flesh, lightly turning it ninty degress left to right until blood starts to drip down the princes throat.
The emperor pulls his fist away and the boy is now marked with the three legged dog. The pain is sharp even through the drugs effect on his mind.
The emperor says something to his men that Sven cant make out anymore, he then turns away from him and leaves.
Sven can barely fell the men who held him down lift him up and carrying him away. The only thing his fading concessions can make out is the sharp pain in his throat. He laid onto a horse, the word of the emperor echoing in his head. "Survive"
As his mind sleeps to the unconscious his eyes slowly wander to his right. Then just for a moment he feels completely awake. A carriage that must beling to the emperor. A woman sitting in there, her eyes emerald green fixed on his like a Harpy bird stalking its prey. It was but just a moment but it felt like hours.
"Survive"
Svens conciseness slips into the abyssal deep sleep as the horse starts moving.

>>22207916
One of the books I'm writing, to be finished down the line, is about some anons.

>>22207902

I don't follow any faith I'd say I lean towards Agnostcisim-Athiesm but I just thought my main character waking up in a spooky church would add ambience and make it even weirder

This is the worst thing in the world. Jeremy wiped the drops of liquid formed across his forehead. Jeremy could do nothing but bury his face into his hands. He shook his head in absolute disappointment and agony. It’s been thirty minutes since he started, and all he could muster was a small unsatisfying dropping. There wasn’t anything he could do. He tried it all— eating bowls of bran flakes, multiple servings of starchy vegetables, countless wedges of oranges packed with unsurmountable fiber, and to his dismay, none of it worked. Defeated, Jeremy looked over to the roll of toilet paper hung on the wall. Frustration welled up inside him. Not only could he not release the pounds of solid poison from his body, but someone put the roll on incorrectly— each ply of paper should release from the front, not the back, but he didn't have the will to correct it now. Jeremy wiped and not a single smear appeared. He pulled up his pants and left the room.

>>22207941
kek

>>22207941
>released from the front, not the back
Wait I thought that was the right way
I am so sorry

>>22207989
Hank Hill is always right.

How long is too long for a chapter? I have two that are pushing 7,000 words. I'd split them up, but the problem is that they're very dialogue heavy and there'd be no good place to do so. Plus, I feel like having a chapter break would undermine some of the tension.

>>22208066
Chapter breaks can create tension, they're short enough to not annoy the reader too.

>>22208070
How do you do this? Personally, as a reader, I'd be a little jarred if the characters were in the middle of talking about something heated and the chapter just ends for no reason out of nowhere.

>>22208124
Dosto is a good fellow to follow here, usually it ends with the narrator saying something or setting the scene before a climax

>>22208134
I'll go through my copy of C&P when I have some more time and see if I can find an example of what you're talking about. I'm sure it can be done well, but I just can't envisage how to go about it. Something about doing it like that doesn't seem right to me though. It feels like the kind of hokey gimmick you'd see in a soap opera or some god awful modern film trying to hype up a sequel.

>>22208158
A good moment from C&P would be when Svidrigilov is listening through the wall to Sonya and Raskolnikov off the top of my head

>>22207931
look forward to reading it

>>22208455
It won't be out any time soon. My trajectory is after I finish composing my other projects, I can begin writing that one in maybe 12 to 18 months. Or I could start it early next year. Not sure. Depends on a number of things. I am not sure what my strategy is yet.

>>22207726
Once. I thought I managed to come up with a pretty solid work for a short story contest, but in the end it wasn't listed among the 20 finalists. Have to admit, that did damage. I've been writing online for over 10 years with a lot of good reviews but that one contest just seemed to reduce all of it to nothing.

>>22206691
>>22206697
That's an unbounded-middle fallacy.
Not everyone who holds a grudge is narcissistic.
>>22207503
It's a serial. Serials always end on a cliffhanger.

>>22207931
Hopefully it's an expose of NEET culture and the pathetic pseuds that infest it.
I considered writing something like that, but I couldn't figure out how to make it interesting.
>>22207941
Has Jeremy tried ghost pepper?

>>22208632
i also abandoned a story of a neet, probably about ten years ago now. a few of the themes wound up being interesting in retrospect, i guess, but overall the project felt doomed from inception. a fruitless 8 months

>>22208632
I have a very thorough outline already. And yes it explores the idiosyncrasies of NEETdom and waging incels. I certainly want to test the ideas found between the fringe of anons and mainstream culture because I don't think either are entirely right. But I absolutely think the experience of seeing the world through the eyes of an autist is not worthless, it is very valuable.
>>22208726
I have seen a lot of people over the years talk about "the great incel novel" of the 21st century and I hope to make a contender.

>>22208632
>>22207957
>>22207989
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/70608/the-might-of-zareth-and-other-short-stories/chapter/1262230/21st-century-cure

here's the rest of the story

>>22208781
>ending
That's a problem for Taco Bell, not Jeremy. LOL

>>22208781
You remind me I went to taco bell the other day and two people in front of me ordered $50 worth of stuff and I was just waiting for a grilled $2 burrito.

>>22203874
Pretty nice, anon. Motivating me to start posting my stuff up on Royal Road as well. I'm thinking between holding out until I have a full manuscript and trying to get it tradpubbed and just dumping it on RR and I honestly don't know which would be better but I'm leaning towards the latter.

>>22207503
>>22208623
the dude has another chapter to post then is pausing for editing and rewriting, i think the cliffhanger is just because he's at the end of a big story arc

>>22201849
>general title in the name section
You FOOL!

>>22209060
You just now figured that out?

I couldn't edit the third chapter today, mentally exhausted from yesterday but finished second chapter. Holy hell it reached 7500 words. Should i be worried? The third chapter unedited stands as 4000 words and i am sweating rn. How many pages is 6000-7500 words?

>>22209136
Divide by 250

>>22209136
dont worry about the word count. Has it got SOVL

>>22209154
https://pastebin.com/Vi9A5SD5 check the premise, since i am an ESL you might never read it because nobody cares about fantasy writers here so i wont find any publisher any time soon. most of the time, they read only the translated western fantasy like either rothfuss, herbert, jordan, martin or tolkien.

>>22206433
pic is the outline. Yes, I'm worded even a goofy cat story could piss them off.

>>22207264
>Do your parents pay for where you're living?
With a spacial needs trust but that's enough bloging.

>>22206468
I will, even if I submit my work to a publisher. The problem is I can't collect money form my writing (if any) without them knowing.

>>22209136
Don't worry about first drafts, at all. Not in terms of word count or overall quality. I'm only three chapters + a prologue in and I've already passed 15k words. You'll trim a lot of the fat off when you get to editing. Just focus on getting the gist of your story out on paper and worry about ironing out all the kinks when you're done.

>>22209218
Yeah, the problem is this is not a draft. I am just changing pov of chapter 2-6 from first person to third person. I found that i couldn't address much of the stuff i wanted and unedited 1st pov version of second chapter was 3000 words. While editing to third person i found so many loopholes on my ideas and had to write many more things too. So word count rose up. After changing pov will get back at writing and once i finish book i'll still get back at editing everything, Thanks for advices>>22209150
So around 30-40 pages? I guess not that high.

Retooling an older work, tell me if it's passable.

https://files.catbox.moe/ocawck.pdf

>>22209240
30 pages is quite a lot, anon. keep going!

>>22209240
>changing pov of chapter 2-6 from first person to third person
My mistake then. And yep, I've been there. Changing PoV can be both very eye opening and very draining, especially if you haven't worked with different povs in the past. When I originally started writing my first (now defunct) project, I started doing it in first person. I very quickly found that it is not for me and switched to third, but not before dumping a good 6k words into oblivion and starting from scratch. That shit was unsalvagable I tell you. Pretty funny re-reading it now, actually. It had pretty much every cliche in the book: opening scene is the protag waking up, groggily looking outside his window, having a pointless conversation with his mother before hurriedly running off to (insert cliche magic academy name here) to spend another 2k words describing a lecture scene with a pointlessly nasty professor being pointlessly rude and mean to people. For some reason I had an extremely gruesome scene where the protag has to stitch together one of his friends' injured palm back together, total tonal shift and completely out of left field. Sorry for the blogpost, btw.

>just spent 500 words describing a character that won't appear for another 4-500k words
>its the opening chapter
Bad play or clever™ foreshadowing™?

>>22209266
>>22209240
There are like 4 sections I have to change POV for next week. Really enjoying the productivity lately even though it's exhausting. I feel like I get a runner's high when writing now. It's great.

>>22209266
nah it's cool. Glad to see, many people went through that process. Honestly, yeah i realised first pov just doesn't work and i just decided to go with it for some reason but it's fine while editing the chapters i have been brain storming a lot so i found a good practice too. Whenever i finish a chapter i won't just go into the next one directly, i'll give myself some time but to not fell into "writer's block" meme i'll write by editing the chapter i wrote and just think what might happen on next chapters. To be honest i was writing weird stories before starting on this one too and even had to discard a 60k story to the sides. Maybe i might come back at that one, but since it's kind of a power fantasy cliche book filled with politics i realised "i need to leave my comfort zone, this is really not different from what chinks are writing with their shitty novels" and left it right there. Rn, on the new novel everything is so out of my comfort zone it basically makes me think different scenarios. For example:
I know quite about middle ages but i really don't have much about napoleonic era or start of the industrial age so i had to search a lot when i started.
A lot of stories just take a place around middle age western towns and i know a lot about of them, so i just went and choose the story in a deserty area with only one river type of dune, and story showcases nomads life styles.
I always written about power fantasy young adult boring characters for some reason just to write i guess and left that habit and made my new mc a fat prince, who has no life experience and just thrown into wild wars and in the middle of a coup.
I never tried to came up with magic systems based on tools so i had to come up with something.(like coins placed on someone's head act according to if they lie or not, if you give your inner power into earth, you can use it as a powder for muskets etc.)

This new book just lit a new candle in me and i'll try to keep writing about it and try to not bore myself with a power fantasy wish fullfilment but a story that involves a shell shocked royalty that only smelled roses and ate like a pig on his entire life and never had a hardship. Struggle is, in the end what makes us conquer our fears.

>>22209304
>>22209304
>>22209304

When do I get my phonecall with Travis?

>>22209573
>phonecall
ok boomer

>>22209593
lol. so yeah, when do i get that?

>>22209606
Oh, right, I don't, because you are a child abuser.

>>22209726
Who the hell is Travis?

>>22209731
Travis Byrne with Urbit. Would you like to hear a story about him?

>>22209835
Sure, knock yourself out.

>>22209863
Travis Byrne with Urbit. Would you like to hear a story about him?

>>22209863
>>22209868
Travis Byrne with Urbit. Would you like to hear a story about him?