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/lit/ - Literature

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19407187 No.19407187 [Reply] [Original]

Any tips for someone who's writing their first novel?

>> No.19407210

Yeah, don't.

>> No.19407211

1. write it
2. hate it
3. see step 1

>> No.19407215

make sure it has big titted mommydoms

>> No.19407227

>>19407187
I saw a lad wearing the exact hoodie when I passed by a park a few days back. I'm not sure if it was absolute confidence or one of those ironic memes.

>> No.19407257

>>19407227
I find the idea of people essentially wearing pornography pretty disturbing desu

>> No.19407321

It's not going to be good. You shouldn't care. Finish it. Once you finish it, you'll realize how easy writing is, and then you can do it again.

>> No.19407327

>>19407227
Its irony. It's helpless insecurity veiled in an ironic "look at me im so cringy lol haha" attitude.

>> No.19408602

Yes. Stay away from the /lit/ thread.
Nothing but primary-school bullying there.

>> No.19409735

Commit to it. If it feels wrong at least finish it before scrapping or rewriting it. Once you've written your first book you'll develop a certain confidence. The trick is to just actually write it.

>> No.19409778

>>19407187
Do people like that fuck the pillows? How does that work?
~Dave

>> No.19410769

>>19407187
Actually write instead of just telling yourself you'll write a novel one day. Your first novels will be shit and you will probably not get published the first novel you write. Most important thing is that you actually get in the habit of writing.

>> No.19410807

>>19407187
To write a novel, it's just 1000 words a day or some quota you stick to.

>> No.19410865

The reason everyone is saying "just write" instead of sharing their own experiences is because the path to developing your own style and voice is different for every writer depending on their goals, skill level, and commitment. And that unique style and voice is the writer's main commodity and it takes years of humiliation and wasted effort to develop, so asking someone to blindly mentor you is like asking someone to let you borrow their business. And even if we were able to share some piece of helpful advice, it would be more effort and less payoff than just letting you discover it for yourself. We could point out that you need to start with conflict if you want to get the reader's interest, but you would learn that lesson better on your own instead by wasting two years writing a manuscript that no one wants to read because it opens with your main character's morning routine and nothing you can say or do will convince the reader to "stick with it until it gets good" because there are other books they can read, ones that are good on every page.

So just write, because the first thing you need to learn is how much effort it takes just to put 60-100k words on the page. And once you understand what kind of commitment that is, you can decide for yourself if you want to keep adding more and more effort to the process, in exchange for exactly zero reward, continuously every single day of your life while you keep paying bills and feeding yourself and trying to recover enough to keep going, in the vague hope that one day someone will sit down and put in three days of effort to read something that took you three years to make.

>> No.19410878

Write short stories first and post them here, so I can shit on them.

>> No.19410884

>>19410865
Great post

>> No.19410912

>>19410878
https://pastebin.com/2uS8kLM0

>> No.19411081

>>19410912
>https://pastebin.com/2uS8kLM0
Not that anon. I only read the prologue. Not bad, but the prose is unclear. Why was the narrator running? Exercise? Was he being chased?

Good: the actual opening scene creates mystery and this mystery is interesting enough to sustain curiosity throughout an entire story. If I didn't have better things to do, I would probably read the rest.

>> No.19411765
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19411765

Read every day, even if it's just one short story.
Write every day. An order of magnitude over 1000 words is good.
Don't spend too much time on the outline, and don't spend to much time on the same chapter. Impetus is powerful. The sooner you get all the chapters written, the sooner you can edit them to unify the whole thing.
Learn more about how stories are crafted. Come to writing general /wg/ and look at links in the OP (such as Story Genius). First tip for you: for novels, you need to understand your character motivations.
Learn how to employ literary devices, there's a lot of them so it's up to your style.
Still give time to live your life and reflect.
You don't have to commit to a style or genre starting out. Explore your writing voice and you may find where it fits best after some time.

>> No.19411964

>>19407227
I get the joke but it really does seem a little gratuitous

>> No.19412629

>>19407187
>Any tips for someone who's writing their first novel?
Just write and don't be like /wg/.

>> No.19412755

>>19411081
Thank you so much for your comments- genuinely appreciated and helpful. I think I will reconsider how the opening is structured with regards to how clear it is. In terms of my intention, it was meant to be a flashback like scene, and reading it I realize it is somewhat lacking context- however due to the short nature of the prologue, I was hoping it would suffice to set the atmosphere/setting of the story even if it seems a bit vague or mysterious.

I will keep your criticism in mind, and I greatly appreciate the compliments.