/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19160868]

Someone needs to write the era-defining novel for the current 18-25 year-old age group of people who are against the direction our society is taking.
I'm not a writer, so it won't be me.

[Anonymous No.19160960]

It'll be me. Ask me for proof

[Anonymous No.19160963]

>>19160868
We're all in this together. It's a movement.

[Anonymous No.19160965]

>>19160868
Your savior

[ist No.19160972]

>>19160963
ipso facto

[Anonymous No.19160983]

>>19160960
May I see proof that it will be you?

[Anonymous No.19160986]

>>19160868

Suzanne Collins already did, you just got filtered.

[Anonymous No.19161016]

done and sent;)

[Anonymous No.19161041]

>>19160983
sure

They are reading Ted Kaczynski. At this very moment, thousands of teens are confronting the unabomber's intellectual heritage. Anti-capitalist, the lot of them. Some of them are marxists, some of them are nationalist conservatives, some of them are third positionists. All of them are fed up with the way this world is run. The constant doom and gloom of "news", the shirking of responsibility on the part of everyone who ought to hold responsibility, a world so broken and unresponsive that apocalypse seems like a viable, inevitable, and even acceptably positive alternative. Capital is inescapable, but worse than that, irrevocable deracination is guaranteed. Every day we stray further from god. These kids know it, and they know nothing else. Whether good or bad, whatever the future truly holds will be insane and ridiculous and disappointing and not our fault. And yet we are the ones responsible. Who could begrudge another's suicide under such conditions?

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19161060]

>>19160868
I reject your age requirement for this project
If it were aimed at just this sliver of a demographic it surely wouldn’t be era defining

[Anonymous No.19161067]

>>19161060
Substantiate your rejection by posting era-defining 2020s literature

[Anonymous No.19161070]

>>19161060
Shut up you dried up old hag

[Anonymous No.19161073]

>>19161067
So far, nothing can be said of the 2020s that wasn’t already said in the 2010s. The decade is young however.

[Anonymous No.19161086]

>>19161041
Your writing sucks. As an 18-25 year old facing these issues you don't do a good job speaking to my/our shared experience. Name dropping Teddy does nothing as an attention catcher

[Anonymous No.19161090]

>>19161073
I dunno, I feel like since 2000 the decades are kinda swirled together. Maybe I'm just a prisoner of the moment, but it doesn't seem that each decade is different in culture the way the 20th century in America was.

[Anonymous No.19161099]

>>19161086
fair enough

[Anonymous No.19161109]

>>19161041
anon, I...

[Anonymous No.19161114]

>>19161041
>Every day we stray further from god.
It was actually quite good up until this point. Unironically repeating a meme+cliché does not work in this context. If you just deleted this sentence and everything after it and found a different way to close it off, you would have a working paragraph.

[Anonymous No.19161208]

>>19161090
>latchkey kids
>helicopter parents
>full blown quarantine (imprisoned) kids

Yeah, anon shit hasn't changed at all. Are you a fucking frog, man? Does the boiling water not hurt? Do you not see the oodles of dyed hair weirdos? The metric tons of psychiatric medicines pumped in and out of the masses of children? Fucking children! Developing humans poisoned by mind altering chemicals. Do you not remember that just 10 short years ago race was never discussed at all? Are you even sentient?

[Anonymous No.19161225]

>>19161208
I can't lie desu, the biggest cultural change in my life has been the decline in LOTR media since the end of the Hobbit movie trilogy.

[Anonymous No.19161243]

I will write it if someone funds me as a patron. I already have it written in my mind

[Anonymous No.19161511]

I’m definitely with ya on this. Ya hear stories in history of people like losing their minds and going crazy over works of art like the Rite of Spring Riots. What if someone wrote a book that sent so many young people! Where has the violence gone?

[Anonymous No.19162070]

>>19160963
This is unironically the problem
Absolutely zero individual agency because everyone’s afraid to do anything outside of the collective

[Anonymous No.19162080]

>>19161041
Your writing is terrible, please improve.

[Anonymous No.19163744]

if anyone wishes to write what OP had requested it better be on determinism{hereditarianism to be specific}.

[Anonymous No.19163753]

>>19161090
Nah, each decade is different still.

[Anonymous No.19163955]

>>19160868
what would happen in it? would the protagonist be a loner, or would there be a cast of characters depicting different contemporary philosophies
The problem with existing stories about social pariahs is that they still interact with people and women to get the plot moving

[Anonymous No.19164041]

>>19161041
>didn't capitalize God
ngmi

[Anonymous No.19164053]

>>19160868
I've been meaning to.
>>19160963
Cool, we do need to set up real life groups. I've been looking for people with a.... based line of thinking.

[Anonymous No.19164082]

>>19164053
I'd join a /lit/ writing group. Of course I'm a shit writer with awful prose and everything I've ever submitted has been rejected but I would participate

[Anonymous No.19164088]

>>19164082
same, I'd participate too

[Anonymous No.19164112]

>>19164082
>>19164088
Furthering my initial thought: while I think a /lit/ group would be cool, since we could connect our ideas on an international level, I would recommend everyone in this thread, who's willing to write more... dissident ideas in an artistic manner, to find people they can relate to in their personal lives and start building a project to start an (online?) magazine.

[Anonymous No.19164120]

>>19160868
Working on it. Should be published in a few years. I'll let you guys know then.

[Anonymous No.19164143]

I will write a novel about my experience of alienation. Let us start a movement, frens.

[Anonymous No.19164231]

>>19161208
My parents were helicopter parents in the 00’s

[Anonymous No.19164232]

>>19160868
have there been any good generation- or era-defining novels since fear and loathing in las vegas? I don't think any generation since the baby boomers have been homogeneous enough for one novel to encapsulate

[Anonymous No.19164374]

>>19164143
All my works I noticed have this theme, of how absurd society/religion is. One story I'm making is an assassin destroys his company because they lay him off a day before he retires. It turns out at the end, the email to fire him was a joke, the assassin was accidentally CC the email.

[Anonymous No.19164382]

>>19164374
I would read the fuck out of that, anon

[Anonymous No.19164499]

I’m writing a book about a guy who works for a private company that is contracted by the Federal government to inform on groups of domestic extremists. The object of the main character’s contract is a group of nihilist good old boys at a liberal arts college in central Wyoming. Little does the protagonist know, the group was set up by the company he works for to defraud the Federal government. The true believers in the group don’t know that though, and the main character grows increasingly attracted to their desire for universal destruction. Hilarity ensues.

[Anonymous No.19164540]

>>19160868
>18-25 year-old age group of people who are against the direction our society is taking.
Alienation, isolationism, and the search for meaning and fulfillment would all hit home for young adult readers. We live in a time where personal pleasure and escapism are kings, and people have next to no hope for the future. What kind of work would confront these issues while captivating such an audience?

[Anonymous No.19164548]

What you think of this?
> I was determined to lose my virginity before turning 20 years old, I had had no luck. Navigating the world with an unattractive face is a condemnation of shipwreck, a penalty that had been imposed on me since before my birth. The events that precede my existence consist in themselves a kind of tragedy. My parents were two individuals who barely found a way to reproduce, the lowest elements of their lineage. If you looked at their relatives you would see that there was no reason for them to be so disgustingly horrible. Otherwise they weren't doing so badly, they had modest successes and were moderately talented, but all the ladders wobbled before the sexual hierarchy. Martyred by the cruelest of all whores, Mother Nature, all their actions implied an apology for their presence in the world, the shame of inhabiting absolutely undesirable bodies. Hypocritically, humanity, this cursed race that has no problem tearing each other apart, conspires to procure the best genes for the species, displaced and humiliated, those who are poor in genetic value have no choice but to get together. Thus, my parents were lucky and damned to meet, and they loved each other as much as you can love an ugly, that is, almost nothing.

[Anonymous No.19164569]

>>19164548
I don't think the prose is terrible except for
"I had had no luck". Get rid of one of those 'hads"
I wouldn't read the book thought cause I don't want to read about someone who whines about being ugly. Whining is inherently boring.

[Anonymous No.19164578]

>>19160868
THERE IS NO VOICE TO BE HEARD AMONG '18-25 year-olds', THERE IS NO ERA-DEFINING. WHAT WE NEED IS PRACTICALITY.

[Anonymous No.19164616]

>>19164053
>>19164082
>>19164088
it seems like there's been an increased interest in this on the board lately... I've also been meaning to write the ultimate youth novel for the last couple years. would anyone be interested if I made a discord? regular attendance/sharing writing wouldn't have to be mandatory, it could just be a forum supplementary to /lit/ for more focused discussion of writing or ideas worth writing about.
if we're actually trying to write, we gotta communicate. all the literary fags in history wrote letters to each other, and often the majority of important figures in literature lived in the same city. the unfortunate reality is that we are the closest thing to a literary community that exists today. you don't need me to tell you literature departments in universities are a joke. the majority of books written these days are written with the intention of profitability rather than self-expression, and are targeted toward teenagers and middle aged women.
/lit/ is the only community that tries to honor or even understand the legacy of the western literary canon, and we haven't produced a fucking thing.

[Anonymous No.19164624]

Feel like the younger generations today are incredibly conformist.

[Anonymous No.19164626]

>>19164616
Yeah I guess I'd be down with that plan. I say we need a place to congregate other than /lit/ and the second anyone mentions discord people roll their eyes and say we need something better, but there really isn't anything better out there.

[Anonymous No.19164647]

>>19164626
Matrix, maybe

[Anonymous No.19164663]

>>19164382
Fuck it, it's an idea I've been having. Not sure if this is any good or not, but here you go. This is just a tease, cause right now my writing skills is shit. Sorry anon for reading cringe.

"To take anthers life is natural. We've all done it: our ancestors threw a spear at prey, their children build farms to mitigate the process of hunting, their children built cities so people can work together to fasten the process of eating corpses. So it's no surprise that in this day and age, humans would become the prey, with their blood being made of gold."
"Jesus Mark you're bumming me out. From first to final day, you've been sounding like cynical poet". Bob takes a pill of painkiller.
"Just feeling, nostalgic. I may not be so young and innocent, but I miss rambling. These days I don't have time to think, beyond the job." I reach for my Samsing© Universe™ 25, scrolling past emails waiting for the trains.
"I'll miss you. You're a good guy: you saved my ass more times than I care to admit. Even missed out on the bonuses.
If I can ask, why you even signed up for this job?"
We watch as the trains go by the metro. We're waiting for the courier to pick up my equipment. Of course, there was streamline way to do the process: but it felt fitting ending your job by how you got the job.
"I need a 500K deposit to enroll my daughter in college. Writing on the culture of forums wasn't going to cover it." I scroll past all the goodbye and severance emails
"But I just got to know: how did you get refereed, and what did they say to make you accept? The process to go from thug to hitman is a long one."
An email called 'Severance Package' showed in my inbox. I open it to read

Subject: Notice
Dear Marc,

I regret to inform you that you are being laid off from your position as Chief Assassin effective 04/04/2044. This layoff should be considered permanent.

A recent economic downturn requires that AML lays off 250 employees.

These layoffs are not related to individual performance.

Company property must be returned by 04/14/2044:

Thank you for your contributions to the company. If you have any further questions, please get in contact with [contact name].

My best wishes for success in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Jeff, CEO of AML

[Anonymous No.19164665]

>>19164626
People need to make friends where they live and form affinity groups. There are non-conformist writers where you live, nobody has really tried to network with them. This internet shit is dumb. You can't form any cultural bloc with atomized individuals over the internet. You need to be geographically anchored. The internet shit is doomed to fail. I've been a part of too many internet creative groups and they're always rent apart by pettiness that you can only get away with online. Nobody has the balls to be an effeminate gossiper and back biter in person. Just start talking to people, go to open-mic nights at coffee shops and meet people. Read your manifesto and talk to people who are interested in it. Etc. Write one-act plays and perform them with people. Go analog. It's the way. Balkanize literature. Arts flourish in fragmented times.

[Anonymous No.19164670]

>>19164663
"How do you feel about misspellings in emails?"
"Huh, I guess I find it unprofessional. Properly laugh and move on". He swallows another pilled, covered by the health insurance policy.
"If they said go fuck yourself and misspell your name, how would you feel?" Bob swallows the water down.
"Fuck him up. Like my teacher in high school, oh boy. Bastard got me expelled, and misspelled truancy! Cunt had the time to fill out a strongly worded message, about me being a minute late to class. Had to get this job cause no other place accepted partially completed GED, and my moms needed it".
"What if he has friends to protect him?" A slight of hand trick, I upholster the gun I strapped in my coat.
"Fuck him. Nobody fucks with me, and has the audacity to misspell that shit. I expect a degree of professionalism, or at least a simple fuck off. I hate lazy emails" Bob drinks from his water.
He then started chocking on the water, as his lungs are pierced. The friend of my enemy is my enemy.

[Anonymous No.19164704]

>>19164665
>Do this and don't do that
Look, if you want to make friends IRL, be my guest. It takes time to get to know a scene, and it's not like you can't juggle both analog and digital at once. Think it might be worth a shot, for those interested anyway?

[Anonymous No.19164713]

>>19160868
>who are against the direction our society is taking.
Thanks for the laugh. Zoomers are 100% domesticated nigger-cattle. You will never do anything except live and die as disenfranchised slaves unaware that you were ever alive.

[Anonymous No.19164721]

>>19164663
>>19164670
The ideas behind this are ok, and I get that you know you're shit and this is just a teaser but wow your prose is bad. It reads like you're ESL and typed this up in 5 minutes, which for all I know you actually did. For real though the concept is good anon, just keep refining your writing

[Anonymous No.19164726]

>>19161041

[Anonymous No.19164744]

I'm going to write it dw anon just give me a few more years of reading

[Anonymous No.19164778]

I am eagerly awaiting this book. There have been some good books written in recent years that are blueprints for a defining book of the 21st century, like Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen. But ultimately all these scholars and writers have very little understanding of the world’s youth. They have no idea what it’s like for the younger generations to be born and raised on the Internet, completely molded by memes, trends, subcultures, performances, and engagement in a global political discourse. I think that a Zoomer will be the one to write the great critique of globalization and 21st century decadence, but it will probably take years to happen. The fact that we don’t have it yet is just another symptom of our decadence, instead we have to sit through dozens of mediocre writers saying the same boring shit about Trump over and over.

[Anonymous No.19164787]

>>19164721
Sigh. Thanks anon. I'll practice my prose then. Now I said it, I feel compelled to finish. >>>lit/wg/ here I go

[Anonymous No.19164835]

>>19164665
I'm the discord guy and I mostly agree with this. I've never been in a similar group before but it's definitely true that when you take away like third of the information people normally exchange when talking to one another - body language, emotional cues etc - their social systems kinda go haywire.
but I think in this particular situation there are very few people that are genuinely non-conformist and creative, that go to social events looking to meet up with other people so they can talk about books.
I was fairly social until about a year ago and while I met plenty of interesting and creative people, I never met a single person who claimed to be a writer that didn't have purple hair. most artistic people don't write anymore.
I agree that creative discussion works way better in person but I think this is the next best thing. also I've read harry potter, and I know that the only way to succeed is to believe in hope and love even when it makes no sense. so join me, friends. https://discord.gg/7uMae7hP

[Anonymous No.19164868]

>>19164647
Based /g/ man.

[Anonymous No.19164872]

teat

[Anonymous No.19164874]

It's already been written and you can take part in fixing it. All it takes is courage, dedication, and effort to God. You will summon him and be given powers to repair this world.

Mark 9:38
38 “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”

39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us.

Luke 11:13
13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

Jeremiah 29:13
13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

[Anonymous No.19164879]

I'm currently trying to write a novel very embedded in the current culture, but where the MC tries to escape the incessant connectivity. I want to interview a bunch of anonymous zoomers to get their honest views of their lives, hobbies, interests, and the world they inhabit and the world which awaits them. Anyone here a university student who could leak me a mailing list for your faculty or department? I will pay people (modestly) to complete the interview.

[Anonymous No.19164900]

>>19164835
Yeah, I generally agree that it's hard to find like MEN, dudes, who are actually interested in literature from a point of view of excellence and novelty. I might just be lucky. But I do think they're out there, and if you live in a city of over 50,000, chances are there are at least one or two /lit/izens. Idk. All the times I've met cool people are when I've like performed something that I wrote. People come up to you when you out yourself like that. idk. Be the leader, be the ezra pound of your circle. Sounds cringe, but that's what you have to do.

[Anonymous No.19164904]

>>19164879
Just look up a random university's mailing list.
>>19164900
Funny enough I did this: I got a Linux enthusiast group, thorough me shitting on linux, seeing the person was interested still, and bringing them in.

[Anonymous No.19164916]

>>19164900
I live in a town of 300 boomers though

[Anonymous No.19164964]

>>19164904
It only links me to lists to JOIN, not to send out to.

[Anonymous No.19164976]

>>19164835
I'm having all kinds of trouble with discord, maybe next time

[Anonymous No.19164979]

I'll be brutally honest about my autism for a moment and say that for the past few years I have been writing notes for both a nonfiction book about decadence in globalization and a fiction novel that communicates the same themes. I constantly work on them mostly to refine my interests and writing with no intention that they'll ever be made into real books but a part of me wishes one day they could. I wrote the novel as a lengthy screenplay at first but I also write notes to format it into a novel since the screenplay was supposed to emulate literary narration anyways. There are 3 different narrators who are high school zoomers becoming disillusioned with life and depressingly anxious about the future, always fantasizing about growing up in the 80s and romanticizing their life to make it more interesting than just sitting on their phones all day.

[Anonymous No.19164991]

>>19164976
What about a general? For some reason they never materialize on this board.

[Anonymous No.19165040]

>>19161041
Trash.

[Anonymous No.19165598]

>>19161041
I didn't read this but I'm going to say it's trash anyway to make me feel better about myself

[Anonymous No.19165607]

>>19164964
Apply to a university, get the mailing list, than go ham. Also I'm a uni student: I can do an interview

[Anonymous No.19165727]

there hasn’t even been a good book about the Great Recession yet.

[Anonymous No.19165962]

>>19165727
that's because nobody starved

[Anonymous No.19166282]

>>19161041
wtf i thought this was perfectly readable and quite funny
why is everyone calling it trash?
>every day we stray further from god
perfectly acceptable little easteregg for those of us about which the passage is written

[Anonymous No.19166297]

>>19160868
>18-25 year-old age group of people who are against the direction our society is taking.
I'm 24 and running for mayor of a major american city in the next two years kek

[Anonymous No.19166309]

>>19161041
>unabomber's intellectual heritage
Its 2021 and I still can't tell if shit like this is bait or not
>They are reading Ted Kaczynski
And only that judging by their hilarious understanding of it

[Anonymous No.19166599]

>>19160868
Im just the ideas guy. Here's your story:
>body horror about being raised by a single mother who conceived the protagonist from sperm from the sperm bank, shes an ideological single mom
>mom tells him he's a girl
>wakes up one day and his dick is cut off, (s)he becomes a media darling for about a week
>complications arise from the axe wound, gets gangrenous
>media doesnt want to hear it, mom resents the child for hurting the LGBT movement and becoming a permanent financial liability
>either the mom kills the kid or the kid commits suicide
>its all in first person from the pov of a kid who only barely understands what's going on

Basically, Stephen King-ify the life story of Jazz

[Anonymous No.19166693]

>>19164616
>>19164626
>>19164665
Are none of you aware of /wg/

[Anonymous No.19166768]

I've already been writing it.

[Anonymous No.19167205]

>>19160868
zoomer here
ive been thinking about a new idea, i want your opinion on it

I was thinking of writing a greentext novel loosely based off of Water Margin.
The premise is a bunch of 4chan/incels/gang members other socially or economically disenfranchised modern peoples across the world are forced to go on a bunch of adventures and explore various parts of their respective societies.
Eventually they gradually meet up with each other and decide to form their own society and rebel against modernity and go on adventures and campaigns gaining support and protecting their movement

I thought it would be cool if it were kinda like an ensemble cast with no real main character, just different ideas and situtations/characters interacting with each other
The original water margin was heavily criticized in it's time because it's heroes were actual criminals, I wanted to include this by adding people like Elliot Rodger and Cho Seung-hui (and others) to the team too, and try and analyze them from a different perspective.

Everyone is gonna have a cool nickname too lol,
>Elliot Rodger: The Supreme Gentlemen
>Role: Lead Commando, fights with a SIG Sauer P226, uses his hothead attitude to lead his friends into the fray of battle

>Cho Seung-hui: General Cho
>Role: Bard, Fights with two handguns, a selective mute, never talks except to inspire his teammates with his poetry and play quotes during the heat of battle

and some new characters
>Callum Gecko: The Golden Bull
>Role: Trader/Financial Expert, originally born into a dirt-poor family, he grew a small 500$ inheritance from his grandfather into a trillion dollar fortune through his incredible trading ability
>He even becomes accepted among the top financial elites of the world, however becomes disgusted at the realization that he has become what he has hated the most
>Uses his fortune to help start the great crypto boom of the 2010's and help get his autistic socially outcasted neet bretheren rich
>His plot is eventually found out, and is forced to run away and hide out with the team, and help them find a way to financially beat the elites at their own game

idk lol

[Anonymous No.19167213]

>>19160868
fight clug

[Anonymous No.19167462]

>>19160868
Here anon

[Anonymous No.19169200]

>>19167462
Fuck Quebecois

[Anonymous No.19169216]

>>19160868
Write a zoomer version of the temple of the golden pavillion, except instead of burning down the pavillion zoom zoom shoots his boss in the face

[Anonymous No.19169244]

the last people who you could write an "era defining novel" for were probably born in the 70's. People born after 1980 tend not to read that much.
Reading in general, and reading literature in particular, is a fringe activity for people aged 18-25. Its inconsequential. For example, most of the anons on this board are aged between 18-25 and they're not slightly interested literature ..... and its a literature board!