/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19578629]

I think I'll start my book tomorrow edition

Previous Thread >>19559445

For Prose:
>The Art of Fiction
>Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere)
>On Becoming A Novelist
>Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft
>How Fiction Works
>The Rhetoric of Fiction
>Steering the Craft
>On Writing, Borges
>Links: https://pastebin.com/i4RLYJEx

For Poetry:
>The Poetry Home Repair Manual
>Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry
>This Craft of Verse, Borges

Related Material:
>What Editors Do
>A Student's Introduction to English Grammar
>Garner's Modern English Usage

Suggested books on storytelling:
>The Weekend Novelist
>Aristotle's Poetics
>Hero With a Thousand Faces
>Romance the Beat

Traditional publishing
> Formatting manuscript
https://blog.reedsy.com/manuscript-form

[Anonymous No.19578657]

>>19578629
Hello sirs please remake with a fucking subject sirs

[Anonymous No.19578672]

>>19578629
Here's my opening:
>Yon trees danced as the wind winnowed and as we came up the valley, filled with mossy forests and whispering creeks. Skylarks darted overhead with lilting canti, and I bent my ear out the opened window. The wheels turned, kicking up dust and pebbles, until eventually the boxcar came to a halt. We arrived. End of the road. My eyes fell upon the decrepit structure, an amalgamation of dust and stone and rotten wood; the old motte-and-bailey, from those ancient songs of the Troubadours, sighed as wind passed through it: a draugr, then stirred.

[Anonymous No.19578689]

>>19578657
but sir then they can filter the shit thread sir

[Anonymous No.19578695]

>writing nigger and its derivatives in dialogue
How do I get the courage?

[Anonymous No.19578718]

>>19578695
Just do it like McCarthy does and pass it off as "realism"

[Anonymous No.19578793]

I'm willing to upload one more chapter this week. Do I upload it tomorrow or save it for Friday night?

>Undying Emperor

[Anonymous No.19578801]

>>19578672
>Yon
I don't like it.
use amalgam instead of amalgamation

[Anonymous No.19579039]

Ah fuck. I'm explaining character motivations through dialogue. Goodbye 900 words.

[Anonymous No.19579495]

>>19578801
>I don't like it
Facts don't care about your feelings.
>use amalgam instead of amalgamation
Why?

[Anonymous No.19579517]

What happened to the idea that we have a link that we put authors in to support them?

[Anonymous No.19579585]

>>19579517
Nobody here writes, so there's nothing to support.

[Anonymous No.19579632]

>>19577936
Anon asked about an isekai plot where mc keeps being reborn in different worlds. 1st problem with such a story is that it becomes way to episodic, and that you need a main character that is interesting enough to keep it all together.

Anon also wanted to blend all the worlds together in the mind of the mc. This is actually a good idea if done right, but for an epic fantasy setting? Execution would be hard. One tip I would give is to have reoccurring characters. Why not make the same characters, the sister, the opponent, the father or whatnot, keep reappearing in different disguises in the various worlds? At least if you do it like this you'll be able to keep readers interested, as they want to see how sister in this world differs from sister in other world (even though they are both "the same person").

[Anonymous No.19579656]

show me the book that is the closest thing to yours, or rather, the one you want to exist

[Anonymous No.19579672]

>list of /wg/ authors pastebin
https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQ
If you want to be on this list then reply to this post with the site you posted your novel on and your pen name.

[Anonymous No.19579674]

>>19579656
Pillars of the Earth meets A Wizard of Earthsea

[Anonymous No.19579712]

>>19579656
Infinite Jest meets Tristram Shandy.

[Anonymous No.19579737]

>>19579656
Yoshiki Tanaka's Legend of the Galactic Heroes series, if the cast consisted of more cute babes.

[Anonymous No.19580017]

I've been thinking of publishing on RR, but I only have about 20 chapers written and I'm unsure of how much time I'll be able to commit to working on it.

To you few who write, is it viable to pump out chapters as you go, or is it better to have a batch ready to release to ensure regular uploads?

[Anonymous No.19580046]

>>19580017
We had a discussion about it last thread but I stand by to reason to schedule a chapter daily until you exhaust your backlog, or roughly about 100k words. After that you can do whatever, but it might not be viable for you if you won't have time for it.

[Anonymous No.19580217]

It's been so long since I finished my draft that I think I'm finally ready to edit it. I just now realized that I never really knew when writing it what journeys my non-protagonist characters were on. Now that I force myself to write that out for each of them, everything that needs to change seems so clear. I think I might actually try to get this thing published after all.

[Anonymous No.19580330]

>>19580017
Try to keep your releases as regular as you can. Blowing your load early on and then reducing the output to a trickle is going to cost you readers. People are impatient and pre-emptively drop you if it looks like you're going to ghost them. But there is no need to post every single day. Readers won't be online every day, too frequent posts leave no time to comment, and you want to encourage comments to show your story is alive. Like three chapters per week is frequent enough and you should be able to stick to that schedule easier.

[Anonymous No.19580562]

>>19579656
The Wheel of Time series with a flare of The Epic of Gilgamesh and a bit of Faust

[Anonymous No.19580606]

>>19580017
I plan on getting a story published on RR myself. I was thinking of writing at least like 8 chapters before I jump in myself. From what I have seen, try to keep a consistent schedule of at least 1-2 chapters within a span of around 2 weeks, that will keep most people coming back.

[Anonymous No.19580647]

>>19578629
You can thrash about and gnash your teeth all you want, but manga/anime writers are ALWAYS gonna have better ideas and get away with it.

[Anonymous No.19580865]

>>19580647
This one has dragon loli. Doesn't matter if your premise is good if your execution is shit.

[Anonymous No.19580894]

is it bad that i keep scraping projects because i'm figuring out what i like in terms of genre?

I'm a newer writer and i wanna know if this is ok while i get my footing on writing and learning how to write and my process

[Anonymous No.19580927]

>>19579517
I would want to avoid namefag drama
>>19579656
The Big Lebowski except they actually bowl and there are aliens from a crime syndicate
>>19580894
I scrap projects all the time. It takes a while to find a good story that you like and is in a genre you are excited about writing in

[Anonymous No.19580986]

>>19579656
Mike Hammer in space.

[Anonymous No.19581012]

>>19579672
Can you add me?

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/49395/the-undying-emperor
James Krake

I'm going to be buying ads in January for my cyberpunk novel, so I could use a bit of name recognition. I'd say I was a contributor to Unreal Press but vol 3 needs to actually get moving

[Anonymous No.19581013]

>>19579656
The Quran

[Anonymous No.19581016]

>>19579672
Please no. They're just gonna shill their shit novel non-stop

[Anonymous No.19581069]

>>19580865
>dragon loli.
Rim isn’t a little girl, though.

[Anonymous No.19581124]

>wrote 1200 words between two different texts during work again
I haven't even had dinner yet and I'm doing so great! Today is a good day. I'm going to write about a huckster describing Hell to an impressionable congregation. He claims to have run into this guy.

[Anonymous No.19581125]

>>19579656
>Rainbow's End meets Wise Blood
I am trying. Third draft coming up this Spring. I feel better about the ending now, after tweaking the prose I think I've set up for a tragic end with a visual that stuck with me.

[Anonymous No.19581139]

>>19581124
Have you read Beowulf? Grendel isn’t really smart enough to hold a conversation.

[Anonymous No.19581141]

>>19581139
I didn't mean Grendel the character, I specifically meant Grendel the CGI abomination, that's the exact thing he's going to describe to them.

[Anonymous No.19581155]

>>19581141
Don DeLillo does cinematic writing well, look into him if you want. Libra, specifically.

[Anonymous No.19581157]

>>19581155
I've read Cosmopolis.

[Anonymous No.19581161]

Why did you forget to put /wg/ in the title? I get confused when I look at the catalog and have to scan my eyes through all the other gay threads on this board

[Anonymous No.19581245]

Any issues with these first two pages? I fear the bakery scene draws out for too long and makes the direction of the story unclear. At the same time, there should be some buildup as to how she gets lost.

[Anonymous No.19581324]

>>19581245
>I fear the bakery scene draws out for too long and makes the direction of the story unclear.
Yes.
>At the same time, there should be some buildup as to how she gets lost.
How it happens is so trivial (and also surreal), you're better off starting straight from her being lost.

[Anonymous No.19581434]

>>19581245 Just like >>19581324 said, the bakery scene draws for too long and the fact that she got lost(which, I believe should be of higher importance) is too short and it happens
too quickly
Maybe you can try starting with the bakery but don't let it be your main focus

[Anonymous No.19581641]

>>19581161
Brainlet filter

[Anonymous No.19581772]

What's the deal with poetry? How do you even?

[Anonymous No.19582045]

>>19581772
I don't know, but I read poetry daily to learn a bit on efficient word usage.
Reading "A Stone, A Leaf, A Door" by Thomas Wolfe lately.

[Anonymous No.19582084]

>>19581245
>I fear the bakery scene draws out for too long and makes the direction of the story unclear. At the same time, there should be some buildup as to how she gets lost.

You are nitpicking bullshit that 99% of readers wont even notice. Finish the fucking book and quit obsessing over pacing until your first draft is finish, FFS. Dont let anyone ITT giving you (you)'s discourage you from writing. If you have a plot just fucking write.

[Anonymous No.19582127]

>>19582084
This.

[Anonymous No.19582286]

>>19578672
This is a common problem where you aren't breaking up your sentences, and are going by what something sounds like, rather than what information it relays. It will appear muddled and be tough to get through to the reader.

>Yon trees danced as the wind winnowed and as we came up the valley, filled with mossy forests and whispering creeks.

So here, there are trees moving, the wind changing and the characters in the story moving to some location. That's a lot of information in one sentence. But then you go on:

>Skylarks darted overhead with lilting canti, and I bent my ear out the opened window
Now you are describing the environment again, and the action of a character.

Everything is layered and compound. But the human brain works better when like goes with like, and there are clear divisions between information. And so compare your paragraph to something like:

>environmental description:
>Trees danced in the winnowing wind, with skylarks darting overhead etc..

>We came upon the valley, and I bent my ear out the window, the wheels turned etc.

The information is not layered with environment description, character action, environmental description, character action and so on. That is sort of thing is frustrating to read no matter how beautifully it is written.

A good way to think of this is like a comic. You want to get the environmental description out of the way in an opening panel, called an establishing shot, and then you can stick with character action after that.

There's also an excess of punctuation, and the prose is over-developed in some parts.

> the old motte-and-bailey, from those ancient songs of the Troubadours, sighed as wind passed through it: a draugr, then stirred.
This took me several readings to get through, and I'm still not even sure what is being said, for instance.

[Anonymous No.19582316]

>>19580017
what's RR

[Anonymous No.19582336]

>>19582316
Royal Road, it's in the OP

[Anonymous No.19582340]

>>19582336
Oh never mind, it hasn't been in the OP for a while. It's basically a webnovel platform like Wattpad or AO2 that you can publish fictions for free on. Originally started as a TL site for some Korean webnovel about 8 years ago before it branched out to fanfic and then original webnovels.

https://www.royalroad.com/home

[Anonymous No.19582345]

>>19582336
>it's in the OP
I don't see it in OP

[Anonymous No.19582419]

Friendly reminder that the market is currently geared towards everything not white and not male. This includes genre fiction. Do not get frustrated if you are trying to get an agent and cant, drawer your ms and try again in 9mo.

Also, friendly reminder that the market is roughly 2 years behind in popular sentiment as this is the timeline for releasing novels. GRRL Power/Black power social justice books are flooding the market now, but if you look at what books are being signed on querytracker and publishers marketplace you will see that over the last year the trend has shifted towards LGBTQ and Asian Focused stories.

Wait for the market to swing back around if your goal is to get published. Self publish if you don't give a fuck.

[Anonymous No.19582565]

Just a reminder that while /ffa/ is between official volumes, we’re joining /wg/ for those who still want to practice writing and discussing flash fiction!

How it works:
1. Choose a prompt (full list of unused prompts below)
2. Write a story 1,000 words or less based on the prompt
3. Post it in /wg/ with the tag [for FFA]
4. Add a new prompt for the list

Prior three volumes available for free (pdf, epub):
https://archive.org/details/@_lit_anthology

And print (low cost) here:
https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/anonymous-/gifts-evil-and-good/paperback/product-mgwkgv.html
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/anonymous-/rags-and-bones/paperback/product-9d7gp2.html
https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/anonymous-/simian-deluxe/paperback/product-y6z687.html

>Unused prompts
A closet full of skin suits
A dating app with extraordinary risks and rewards
The academy of Paranormal Life Coaching
This will be India in 5 minutes
What? I can’t hear you!
A first responder who summons tornadoes
A grizzled detective goes undercover on 4chan
You reap what you sow
"Please don't forget what I told you"
The location the GPS took them to seems to be a little off
A tapestry constantly being added to
Murder in the Cathedral's sanctuary
The cellar houses wine and... bodies?
Finding a one-of-a-kind book in the library stacks
A co-worker has a hidden talent
A shut-in decides to go trick-or-treating
The best way to die on a dessert island
Horrible timing for a pregnancy announcement
A game of twister at a nursing home
There is a ship museum in Utah
A librarian goes blind every Thursday
Someone crashes a child’s birthday party
POV of an alley cat in Istanbul
An unusual item at the bottom of the sea
Pina coladas and long walks in the rain
A gateway opens between hell and earth
a slasher villain's first date
An elevator that doesn't work
>A flooded castle, sinking into the mud [in progress]

[Anonymous No.19582576]

>>19582565

>>Unused prompts
Since no one is really biting at these (many are shit) I’m open to adding new prompt suggestions

[Anonymous No.19582594]

>>19582419
Massive cope. It's very likely (almost certain) that, even if they do pick your book up to publish it, it will be one of the 95% of books that get published and sell little and are completely forgotten. They know that, so they go for books that pander to demographics since they can be sold as things other than a story. But if you write something unforgettable, you'll get published anyways. No publisher is going to miss a chance to pick up the next Cormac McCarthy because he's not pandering. If they smell even a hint of something that could be popular enough to become a movie, they'll pick it up. If they don't, you probably just aren't that good yet.

Agents are the real filter, but what they want isn't going to change, and working your way through that is just social skill.

[Anonymous No.19582614]

I’ve posted chapter 17 of my book A Hero Among Monsters to Royal Road. Only 20 more left to post (in finished the 2nd draft on 12/1.) here’s a crappy incomplete drawing of the dwarf character.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/41979/a-hero-among-monsters/chapter/807341/chapter-seventeen-decayed-or-incomplete

[Anonymous No.19582617]

>>19582565
Oh neat. Do you have to tag the post in /ffa/ as well or are there roaming judges?

[Anonymous No.19582623]

>>19582614
Also still looking for feedback on this first chapter of what should be a horror novella.
https://pastebin.com/Wgpg5J5x

[Anonymous No.19582675]

>>19582419
interdasting

[Anonymous No.19582694]

>>19582675
That’s not a word, retard.

[Anonymous No.19582705]

>>19582617
No judges, but I'm monitoring /wg/ for any /ffa/ posts (hope to bring them all together into an in-between volume).

[Anonymous No.19582719]

>>19582614
The beginning exposition is rough and boring. Focus on character emotions to draw readers in.

>“The trick, Tad, is to never show any weakness,”
Start it here, but give every character an emotion.

>“The trick, Tad, is to never show any weakness,” Glum advised through a proud sneer, whipping the cart donkey. "Move on you!", he shouted at the irascible beast.
>Tad withered before the advice, feeling much as the donkey looked
I give Glum a mood, I give tad a mood, I even give the donkey a mood.

Almost all engagement from the reader comes through empathy with the character. If you start with exposition, they will drop it. If you don't give them an emotion, there's nothing to grab onto, and there's no engagement, they will drop it. All stories could be said to just be a series of emotions over time. People like looking at faces, and they like reading about emotions.

[Anonymous No.19582731]

>>19582286
>This took me several readings to get through, and I'm still not even sure what is being said, for instance.
If I have to spell it out for you, the motte-and-bailey is compared to a draugr (Nordic undead) to show how it is like an awoken old thing. I merely added that it was a castle from the songs of the Troubadours, since I’m trying to make out that the location is in France.
>A good way to think of this is like a comic. You want to get the environmental description out of the way in an opening panel, called an establishing shot, and then you can stick with character action after that.
It isn’t a comic. Literature is literature; comics are comics. The only reason why you fall back on that analogy is because you simply do not read and you want it to be visual media.
>There's also an excess of punctuation, and the prose is over-developed in some parts.
What is excessive? If I used a full stop instead of a comma or colon, that’s still punctuation. I think you’ve got to be more specific.

[Anonymous No.19582958]

>>19582731
bruh

[Anonymous No.19582970]

>>19582719
This is godawful advice

[Anonymous No.19582978]

>>19582970
Autists like you might have trouble with emotions.

[Anonymous No.19583000]

>>19582958
>>19582978
Illiterates like you shouldn’t be writing.

[Anonymous No.19583006]

>>19582978
You calling me an autist is funny given what you just posted
You took a line with a joke, which you apparently failed to notice the punchline of:
>“The trick, Tad, is to never show any weakness,” Glum advised the boy as they rode to the Prison of Eternal Suffering.
You took the humor out, and replaced it with some awful filler because you think that's how you're "supposed" to do things
They HAVE to follow YOUR rules and show emotion YOUR way and not through jokes that YOU don't understand
Do you see why I think it's ironic that you would call me autistic

[Anonymous No.19583022]

>>19583006
That's not me dumbass
>>19583000
Learn to take criticism, you're going to need it given the quality of your writing.

[Anonymous No.19583046]

>>19583022
>That's not me dumbass
Then why'd you get so buttflustered that I called someone's advice bad that you decided I was autistic based off 4 words
Did you assume I was the author

[Anonymous No.19583056]

>>19583022
>Learn to take criticism, you're going to need it given the quality of your writing.
I’m already published and you can’t even parse a simple opening without wanting it it be a comic book.

[Anonymous No.19583057]

>>19582731
Anon,

Someone took the time to read your shit writing (at your asking) and provided some legit constructive /crit/.

Take it or don’t, that’s up to you. But the dude deserves a ‘thank you’ for his effortpost, not a rebuttal. I say take feedback wherever you can find it (I read only as far as ‘Yon’ before I decided to pass).

[Anonymous No.19583067]

>>19583057
Your Reddit spacing shows you to be a tourist. Bye now.

[Anonymous No.19583101]

>>19583056
Woah man, I take it back. You're published? Holy shit dude. That changes everything. I'm sorry, my criticism was 100$ wrong and completely due to malice alone. There's nothing true about it. Nothing will ever hurt you, baby. Nobody can hurt you, darling. You're perfect and have nothing to change, ever. Not even your dense, lifeless, needlessly over-worked prose. Love you sweetums.
-Mommy

[Anonymous No.19583110]

>>19582594
>Cormac McCarthy
Wouldnt get published today. He'd immediately get dumpstered for being too purple. Pseuds run the agent houses, pseuds run the publishing houses.

[Anonymous No.19583119]

>>19583101
Writing is like a comic book!!!!!!

[Anonymous No.19583138]

Is it a terrible idea to include one single moment of omniscient foreshadowing in an otherwise limited POV story?

Would be something along the lines of
>She straddled the parapet, one foot planted on the stone platform and the other dangling a hundred feet above the ground, where, unnoticed by anyone, a hooded figure silently slipped into the door left ajar.

The rest of the story is purely from the girl's perspective, so would that be too out of place?

[Anonymous No.19583149]

>>19583110
You have no idea what purple prose means

[Anonymous No.19583161]

>>19583149
neither do the pseuds

[Anonymous No.19583162]

>>19583149
Yeah, the point I'm trying to make is that Agents don't know what purple is, neither do the publishing houses. They would dump Suttree in the trash before even making it through those monstrous few first pages.

Keep up anon.

[Anonymous No.19583173]

>>19583138
Average reader wouldnt even catch the pov shift, they would just skim and assume the girl saw the hooded figure.

[Anonymous No.19583174]

>>19583162
Those first few pages are “monstrous” because it’s satire. I think publishing agents could appreciate that.

[Anonymous No.19583178]

>>19583162
Well, you failed pretty handsomely at delivering that "point". And it's pretty bold to claim a living author's book wouldn't be published today, as if 40 years were somehow unfathomably long span in human history, you goddamn zoomer

[Anonymous No.19583193]

>>19583110
You might argue that Blood Meridian wouldn't be published today if it were by an unknown author, but you would then have to argue the same thing about The Road, and that would make you a retard
>Pseuds run the agent houses
True, but a good book is a good book
You think of yourself as beneath them/beholden to them and that's your problem

[Anonymous No.19583201]

>>19583173
You think so? Even with the "unnoticed by anyone"?

It's important that they weren't noticed, so maybe I should just have the girl question whether she closed the door on the way into the tower or not. That should be enough for observant readers to be like "oh no, she left the door open, didn't she?" without making them think any of the characters know about the intruder.

[Anonymous No.19583221]

>>19583174
They dont. Getting your first book represented is literally a first paragraph make or break scenario.

Watch this for examples. https://youtu.be/aduzco1VJZE

Oh and your prose isn't as good as Cormac's was and never will be. Stop getting your hopes up, write to the market or die.

>>19583178
>as if 40 years were somehow unfathomably long span in human history

It is in the publishing world when the novel has all but gone out of fashion in broad society. The only people reading are doing so to attach to themselves whatever political dogma is pushed within its pages.

[Anonymous No.19583231]

>>19583201
Yes. You'd have to intentionally slow the scene down to get people to notice something small like that. You can't expect your readers to catch literally everything.

Also, you are nitpicking over a phrase when a novel consists of at least 250pages of phrases. At the rate you are going you wont finish. Just write.

[Anonymous No.19583242]

>>19583231
I said "story", not "novel". This is just a short story, so arguably every sentence matters a little more.

[Anonymous No.19583248]

>>19583193
No, I'd argue that the Road would be a great first book for Cormac to query with, get his foot in the door as a high-concept fiction writer, then soar from there.

The publishing world has not been kind to westerns since like the mid 90s. I mean, look at how hard Norman Maclean had to work to get River published.

[Anonymous No.19583256]

>>19583242
I'm sorry to have to break this to you, but it doesn't. Short stories aren't as rigorous as poetry. Read more short stories.
Bradbury has some well-loved, highly successful stinkers.

[Anonymous No.19583259]

>>19581245
I unironically think your opening would be much better if you removed the very first sentence. The sentences that follow it give all of the relevant details, so you don't need that exposition.

[Anonymous No.19583263]

>>19583193
>You think of yourself as beneath them/beholden to them and that's your problem
Elaborate.

[Anonymous No.19583265]

>>19580894
hsve you tried doing short fiction first? You might find that you can ease into something with shorter pieces.

[Anonymous No.19583266]

>>19580894
Stop figuring out what you like in terms of genre and start plotting.

Literally any good plot can be put into any genre.

[Anonymous No.19583275]

>>19582565
can we just start fresh with the prompts, you can honestly scrap most of these since I really don't see any of these being used

[Anonymous No.19583282]

>>19583263
No

[Anonymous No.19583295]

>>19583282
Yeah, I didn't think your argument had much substance. Thanks for clarifying.

[Anonymous No.19583300]

>>19583259
Seconded.

[Anonymous No.19583307]

>>19583275
Give me some new prompts, then.

[Anonymous No.19583329]

>>19583295
You'll learn the lesson yourself or you won't matter, all there is to it

[Anonymous No.19583336]

Rewatching Longmire and I'm very interested in picking up some more Western Mystery novels along the same genre, including the books the show is based upon.
I'm just enamored with the philosophy and the poetry that comes with the Wild West, especially the interaction of cultures (Cowboys and Indians).
Is there any other books I can read like this that you'd recommend? I feel it can really help me write my western story.

[Anonymous No.19583347]

>>19583329
I literally don't have the time to advertise my work. I'm a stay-at-home dad who gets Saturdays.
What are my options?

[Anonymous No.19583350]

>>19583329
>you won't matter
Why should we be listening to you? Prove that you matter or shut the fuck up. I bet you haven't even finished a manuscript, let alone a short story.

[Anonymous No.19583374]

>>19583336
If you havent read Blood Meridian, why not?

[Anonymous No.19583414]

>>19583256
what is that argument?? hard disagree, you should read more short stories.

[Anonymous No.19583445]

>>19583307
Not the person you're replying to, but coming up with prompts is fun and I've been told I'm pretty good at it, so I'll throw a few at you:

- Why robot teachers were discontinued
- A very lost succubus
- Gender Selection Day
- The whales save themselves
- Elevators have been portals this entire time
- Seven-year-old serial killer
- A minor god trying to prove its existence
- Japanese ghost fish
- The hitman hired to kill himself
- What lives beneath the moss
- The most embarrassing phobia

[Anonymous No.19583451]

>>19583350
If you don't want to consider opinions without associated personalities, you should not be on this website

>>19583347
I don't know what you mean
Are you talking about self-publishing instead of going through agents? That's not what I was talking about, but if it's what you mean, you can just buy adspace and twitter followers and promoted posts and etc. for pretty cheap instantly

[Anonymous No.19583455]

Can someone give me an example of a passive protagonist? I have mine constantly setting out to do things but them going wrong and him falling victim to pre-existing circumstances and I'm afraid it feels like he's a passive player in the story.

[Anonymous No.19583491]

>>19583374
the road is better than bm. much more meat to bite into

[Anonymous No.19583503]

>>19583414
Point me towards a writer that has 100% flawless phrasing in every single short story he's written. You cant.

>>19583451
>That's not what I was talking about
Then what the fuck were you talking about? Continuing to keep the hobby as just that?

>>19583455
Horror protagonists generally are passive due to the nature of the genre. Plot tends to happen to them instead of their being an agent that drives the plot. Hope this helps.

[Anonymous No.19583511]

>>19583347
litteratlly white washyour bookswith your creditcards.

[Anonymous No.19583537]

>>19583414
listen its all stories with sum sort of a morallewe want

[Anonymous No.19583540]

>>19583347
>stay-at-home dad
>doesn't have time
lol. lmao

[Anonymous No.19583542]

>>19583511
What is the best market to do this on?

[Anonymous No.19583565]

>>19583540
Buddy. No offense, but you do not know what it is like to raise children without using technology. 6am-8pm every day I read the same 10books in rotation, listen to the same 30 songs over and over, maybe go to a park and watch the little one toddle around while I listen to the wind thrum across the pines. Then at 8pm I try to sleep but its up every 3-4 hours (sometimes more) to settle the little one back into bed. I'm so sleep deprived I'm going retarded. Word recall is at an all-time low and I can barely focus.

But hey, I managed to finish 2 horror novels, a spooky middle grade, 2 short stories and am currently like 11k into my most recent ms.

Saturdays are literally all I have and I value writing time over advertising time. As I type this up my little one is beating my arm with "Llama llama red pajama" .

Would you deny a book to your own progeny?

[Anonymous No.19583574]

>>19583565
You sound like a good dad, anon

[Anonymous No.19583577]

>>19583503
dude, what?

are you aware of how much shit poetry is out there?

genre form and analyzing them accordingly is a thing. I'm not going to analyze a short story on the basis of prosody (though good prose is intensely alive to rhythm). I'm not going to analyze poetry on whether or not there's a character, or fault it for the limit of its scope.

Read Spring in Fialta, Chekhov's collections in the original Russian, DFW's collections, Taeko Kono, I mean, like how do I even approach this?

Good stories are hard to find, sure, but your argument just struck me as insane. There is no superiority of form, just unique constraints and conventions and challenges and opportunities to each.

[Anonymous No.19583596]

>>19583540
You clearly don’t have kids.

I work a very intense job, and I still have time to peck out a few thousand words per week. When the kid’s daycare is closed, productivity goes to zero. They’re so much more work than a ‘real job’ (and god help you if you want to have your laptop open).

-posted on the phone with 3yo crying in the back seat

[Anonymous No.19583610]

>>19583577
>There is no superiority of form
We agree. I was only speaking on the rigors of the form, not superiority.
The constraints continuum is Novel>Short>Poetry. Each has their own beauty.
My point was that no writer is 100% flawless and that obsessing over phrasing leads to stagnation or writers block. Bradbury wrote a story a day or more at his peak. Just write.


>Chekhov's collections in the original Russian,
I don't have the time to learn Russian to read short stories when there are enough masterworks in the English language to last a lifetime.

>DFW's collections
Has some stinkers.

[Anonymous No.19583614]

>>19583574
I'm trying. If I had some property out west to raise them on, I would be a perfect one.

[Anonymous No.19583626]

Spoilers for the new Basedder Man movie. How has the quality of screenwriting gotten this bad? I understand it's a children's capeshit film, but how can the dialogue be this bad?

[Anonymous No.19583658]

>>19583610
a more generous understanding of what you said gives me this: it is easier to fail at poetry, i.e. create something with no redeeming factor. That means nothing about the difficulty of achieving the "max" in poetry, which is the same as any other form. The heights of all forms are comparable in aesthetic achievement and pleasure.

To learning Russian--learning any language enriches reading in your native one. I suggest learning the language of whatever national canon calls to you besides English. There's a lot more out there, and most greats were/are multi-lingual.

As for DFW's collections and their stinkers, absolutely . I am addressing the claim that no short story is "whole." Restated positively, I am maintaining that it is possible for a story to be flawless, and I have read stories I believe to be thus.

Also, for the record, I got aggro because Bradbury is a middling writer at best. It read like saying, "Novels are inescapably flawed, look at the Twilight series."

[Anonymous No.19583684]

>>19583275
>>19582565
>>19583307
I actually like What? I can't hear you! and I want to write a piece with that

[Anonymous No.19583693]

>>19583596
Just throw him in the wood chipper when he gets uppity. Your problems can be solved nigga.

[Anonymous No.19583723]

>>19583596
>>19583565
No one cares about your blogpost, it's your fault for choosing to have kids with some roastie and populating this planet with more lobotomized vapid tiktok zoomers

[Anonymous No.19583734]

>>19583684
A lot of them are good, there is some dumb ones. But not at the level >>19583275 suggests.

[Anonymous No.19583748]

>>19583626
>capeshit
>capeshit made by the Mouse
Of course the dialogue is gonna be shit, this film is pandering beyond belief to fans of the older spider-men because they know Iron Boy movies are terrible. If you want to see it, just pirate it or wait till some putlocker shit pops up. But even with Tobey's return it'll never be the same without prime Raimi, he's just the husk of Raimi Spider-Man dressed up by the Mouse making dumb forced quips and shitty banter to entertain the retard masses

[Anonymous No.19583841]

>>19583723
Seethe. Have sex, lmfao.

[Anonymous No.19583847]

>>19583748
I know, I know, but I'm trying to ask why it's so bad, or more specifically how. How do professional Hollywood screenwriters write worse dialogue than middle-school fanfiction? How is that even possible?

[Anonymous No.19583852]

>>19583658
>Bradbury is a middling writer at best
Yes. That's one reason I used him. Also, most people know at least 1 Bradbury short.

[Anonymous No.19583881]

>>19583684
Done (i’ll mote whenever i repost the list)
Looking forward to reading it, anon

[Anonymous No.19583900]

>>19583138
Just put it in italics to set it apart from the rest that's her point of view.

[Anonymous No.19583931]

>>19583221
>Stop getting your hopes up, write to the market or die.
Literary markets are a market, hence why there’s literary agents that focus on literary markets. Lol.

[Anonymous No.19583968]

>>19583931
I mean, hate to tell you this, but its not that big of a market, and the literary agents are all focused on brown people or gay issues at the moment which loops right back to the point I was making.

I sincerely hope you get represented though, anon. Querying is a gruelling hellscape that will kill your love for writing if you let it.

[Anonymous No.19583971]

>He got baited and filtered into Redditway minimalism
>He "thinks" sentences have to be short and precise instead of comfy and lively

[Anonymous No.19584003]

>>19583900
Lol, that’s the worst advice I ever heard

[Anonymous No.19584053]

>>19583221
>Oh and your prose isn't as good as Cormac's was and never will be.
Why does /lit/ treat language like some unobtainable thing? Come on. It only takes 3-5 years of finishing stories on average to develop a successful novelist.

[Anonymous No.19584085]

>>19583658
>Bradbury is a middling writer at best
I've been reading this sentiment a lot this week on /lit/, can you explain what all makes you feel this way? I've heard some anons say his points are platitudes, is there something wrong with his prose too? I do like the musical voice he has. Makes me wonder if the other authors I like are considered not that good here.

[Anonymous No.19584099]

>>19583847
They're probably nepotism hires without an ounce of talent, or any script that actually has more depth than a middle school fanfic is rejected by higher ups because it's too "risky" and might alienate some of the -123 IQ masses that flock to the movies. The current formula of garbage writing with garbage cgi seems to working fine for the MCU. Brand sells, capeshit sells. So they put little effort. I mean the fucking plot of the whole movie is all because Iron Boy interrupted Strange's spell like they're doing a sitcom gag.

[Anonymous No.19584126]

>>19584099
>without an ounce of talent
>someone asks me to watch "Push" with them
>oh no protag man is attacked, his ears are bleeding and now he's deaf!
>I wonder what the consequences will be, how will he manage to face this new challen-
>wait did he just get healed the very next scene?
>Oh this guy is getting paid $10k a day to stand within a few feet of some woman as some magical way of hiding her location
>he leaves the room so the protag man can have sex with her, risking that she would get discovered and he would lose his paycheck
who writes this shit?

[Anonymous No.19584153]

>>19584126
Retarded executives with too much money and no brain cells, they only accept ideas that they think are good, which is why hollywood consistently churns out garbage, and some of it does stick cause most people share the same sub-zero IQ the executives have. Why do you think shit like Sharknado exists?

[Anonymous No.19584226]

>>19584053
Ok but my prose will *actually* never be as good as Nabokov's, and that makes me sad

[Anonymous No.19584304]

>>19584085

Okay, so Bradbury is a middling writer TO ME. For example, I like and read so-called challenging stuff, but there's a place in my heart for Stephen King, because I read It when I was going through a major depressive period (first-time, came out of nowhere), and reading It somehow clicked and got me through. And I read all of his stuff still, even though it's All the Same Book, and I'm not going to apologize for it.

You don't have to think he's a middling writer. I personally find him lacking in what I call "daring." He's solid, but I don't see a lot of risk; I don't think highly of Fahrenheit 451, because I think it's an okay written thing that doesn't address its very common fears in a new way.

I love literature where you are watching the writer attempt something insane and somehow pull it off. It's not high-level or big brain why I like it. I like to see experimentation, I like to see writers do intertextual stuff, etc. It's just mentally, aesthetically, and emotionally interesting.

But a big thing to remember is never apologize for your taste, as long as you're continuing to read within and outside of it. You might return to the things you like now and they'll leave you cold, or you might see them in new ways and like them for different reasons. Especially important imo if you're a writer

[Anonymous No.19584379]

>>19584304
Good points all around. I certainly won't apologize.
>intertextual
I like this too. Some of the stories I've outlined are like this, and the one I'm presently writing is a response to the cheery optimism of humanity's singularity that transhumanists write about as well as some other topics. I have no idea if I'm ever going to be daring in my response, but I suppose the most idiosyncratic stance I've taken is that I think obstinacy (some might call ignorance) is virtuous, and how cooperation is immutable to a human civilization and necessary to its demise.

[Anonymous No.19584385]

>>19583847
Im gonna tell you something you probably don't want to hear. People have shit taste. In everything. Read this years Award winners and you will see more of the same.

The truth is, if you put any media in front of the drooling masses and tell them it is good they will eat it up. Books included.

[Anonymous No.19584393]

>>19584304
>I love literature where you are watching the writer attempt something insane and somehow pull it off.

Something Wicked has bits of prose that are absolutely batshit. I recognize bradbury's faults but Something Wicked is my favorite genre book by far.

[Anonymous No.19584400]

>>19584304
Can I get an example of a book you find satisfying in the way you describe? A model?

[Anonymous No.19584605]

IDIOT OP
I KEPT CHECKING THE CATALOG FOR /wg/ AND YOU FUCKED IT UP
RETARD

Spent today realizing I need to completely rewrite an entire section and it's going to end up being about 6k-8k words, previously 1k. Got good content together to replace it with but putting it in prose is killing me for some reason, even though i have the contents detailed out and well more than enough setting notes to visualize every god damned rock within 100 miles of where it takes place.

I'm back from a 2 week ban for something I didn't even do. In that time I've read more than 800 pages of reference content and have edited 30k words, completely rewriting it all from scratch. Fuck you janny. I am fueled by spite and shitty coffee.

[Anonymous No.19584615]

Went from absolutely nothing for years to significant progress on five separate short stories at once by lowering my standards[\spoiler] on a high right now.

[Anonymous No.19584642]

>>19584400
Not the poster above, but a few examples that made me feel that way:
>Cloud Atlas - crazy ambitious structure to weave together so many different stories
>Catch-22 - again, many plot lines coming together, flashing forward and backward so you can only make sense of it all on tour second read through
>Piranesi - really difficult to tell a story through a first person journal. Harder still to give the reader the sense that they understand something the protagonist (journal’s author) does not
>Faulkner - just, any of it.
>Prayer for Owen Meany - so many odd things happen, it seems really disjointed…but they all have a genius payoff.
Infinite Jest - love it or hate it, DFW had a crazy idea of what he wanted to do here…and he delivered.

Again, not my list of favorite novels…but all gave me that feeling of “I can’t believe he pulled that off!”

[Anonymous No.19584656]

>>19584393
I read that one back in high school, so it's hazy, but I do remember how odd (not bad, cool) the rhythms were. The story itself though and Bradbury's overlying worldview didn't do much for me. Oh, here's a good way to say: prose was interesting, narrative and plot not.

>>19584400
I have to name-drop what I call the Big Dick Committee (Nab, DFW, Pynchon, Joyce, Woolf, McCarthy, DeLillo, Sebald etc.), because that's obvious.

I read a lot of Russian lit in translation and the original (Russian major). Bely is not on English speaker's radar, which is tragic; everyone should read Petersburg and just treat themselves. Bulgakov, Master and Margarita, for sure.

And then I recently started Musil's stuff. Finished Torless, now onto the Man Without Qualities.

Torless is a good example of how subtle "daring" can be (I don't like anything else he's written, but Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled is also like this, also very good, and same as War and Peace, which is like an "oh, of course" write-off, but is actually an insane juggling of a massive host of characters, all well-drawn, as well as just Good).

Musil's prose is good, haunting, but the emotional psychological and philosophical currents are wild. The ending is devastating, and how he executes a non-linear sequence is horrific, perfect.

It's also, pointing to the intertextual stuff and as an example, very exciting to read Torless if you've read Goethe's Werther, Nab's The Defense, and can see Torless alongside Werther and Luzhin, and even paired with Dostoevsky's The Gambler or Notes from Underground, and like, you can just keep going out.

Like that's a big thing to the joy of reading for me, I feel like. Once you start slowly building your awareness of the literary landscape and have started to read widely, your enjoyment of everything starts to grow.

damn, that's a lot, but it's nice to go full nerd sometimes

[Anonymous No.19584717]

>>19583445
>A minor god trying to prove its existence
I like this one, anon, will give it a shot.

[Anonymous No.19584785]

test

[Anonymous No.19584984]

>>19584605
what do you write anon, I kinda want to read it
>>19584642
>>19584656
so should I stop writing if I haven't read any of these

[Anonymous No.19584986]

Is the fact that OP is too stupid to write a subject line the proof that /lit/‘s writers are too retarded to write? We never fuck up /SFFG/.

[Anonymous No.19584989]

>>19584615
you okay anon?

[Anonymous No.19585040]

>>19584984
>so should I stop writing if I haven't read any of these
Short answer: no

Long answer: I’m also struggling between balancing how much of my (limited) time to spend reading vs writing. I know one makes me better at the other, but it’s hard not to feel like I’m always choosing wrong.

[Anonymous No.19585075]

No one told me flash fiction would be a thinking challenge

[Anonymous No.19585121]

>>19584984
>what do you write anon, I kinda want to read it
Rewriting a previous manuscript from a few years ago to split it into 2 books. Historical, so it's research intensive, hence all the material to read. I'm taking the wordcount from 120k to, between the 2, 200k or so, because the pacing was too rushed and there was too much content for one novel, but in making it into 2 I need to expand it much further. Resultingly I can hardly use any of the original and have to rewrite every last paragraph. I started maybe a month ago and am almost halfway through the first volume. I'll have both done and edited by June and I'm aiming for traditional publishing. Idk, God willing it might be on the shelves eventually, if I put in the work to make it good enough. But I'm enjoying this enough to stay up until 1 am writing.

When I write I listen to either the same album or the same band the entire time to help keep my tone consistent. I've been listening to the same album on loop for the past 3 weeks straight. Hopefully my neighbors will be driven insane and kill themselves.

[Anonymous No.19585157]

>>19585075
All constrained writing is. Be it wordcount, rhyme, structure, etc. Thoughtfulness makes it read much more intentionally than the usual word vomit.

[Anonymous No.19585181]

anyone know what the longest fiction book ever written that's relatively modern is?

[Anonymous No.19585190]

>>19585181
Toll the Hounds is 392,000 words, that's the longest I've read.

[Anonymous No.19585214]

>>19585181
Series should really count. What difference does it make if there is 400k in one volume of autism or 400k across 4 volumes of hackneyed fantasy slush? I don't know why publishers love series but will trash any manuscript over 130k. If some dweeb submits a 300k word doorstopper it's the same materially as a YA trilogy, which they would fall over themselves to publish.

[Anonymous No.19585222]

>>19585181
Wandering Inn is pretty long from what I know.

[Anonymous No.19585347]

>>19581012
>Engineer turned novelist. I'm tired of seeing so many bad stories and corruptions of re-releases and re-imaginings, so I'm building my skill to become the very best.
You are full of yourself for no reason.

[Anonymous No.19585353]

>>19585347
Glad I'm not the only one who cringed at that.

[Anonymous No.19585369]

>>19585347

I've had to write shit similar to that when querying agents and publishers.

>my novel is not like those OTHER novels teehee

And then they publish more of the same despite stating they want something that's the exact opposite.

[Anonymous No.19585410]

>>19585369
>And then they publish more of the same despite stating they want something that's the exact opposite.
Certainly, this. Agents swear up and down that they're looking for something fresh and different, but what they take up to actually publish is always more of the same garbage they brought to market before, filling the shelves with mass churned out schlock. Look anywhere at a recently published list with an agency and take a fat gander at the endlessly regurgitated chick lit, fantasy YA, "cozies", detective stories with a plucky bookworm female protag who "doesn't fit in with the uneduated smal town misogynists she's surrounded by and isn't like the other girls", and various block-pastel globohomo, especially globohomo about brown wammenz struggling under the oppreshun of being brown wammenz agonized by evil yt males. Same shit every year, endlessly. I know better books are being written--it's the AGENTS who choose to publish floods of this garbage. they LOVE the shit. they posting self congratulatory virtue signalling selfies with them shaking hands with some fat brown dyke who published a mediocre YA trilogy with a self insert insufferable brown dyke protagonist mary sue in a rehashed generic YA fantasy world setting. they LOVE pumping out 130 who-dunnits with a book-hawking sexless biddy in a corset solving it with ease as all the dumb fat ugly misogynist village men get schooled by how much better she is than they. agents LOVE this shit. they'll push dozens of successive rags of vampires and witches and cottage-cozies out into the toilet bowl of the mass commercial chain bookstore. they do it with GLEE. in fact, if you can't phrase your query as "it's like that witch book you got a deal on 2 years ago, but set in SCOTLAND so it will appeal to fans of Outlander!" they don't bloody fucking want to publish your ass unless you have 200k followers on twatter and are a shade of brown south of beige and speak with a lisp.

Imagine taking a ball-peen hammer into the face of a blue haired literary agent.

[Anonymous No.19585432]

>>19585410
https://welcomebacktopottersville.blogspot.com/2015/03/top-ten-pet-peeves-about-literary-agents.html

Oh and heres a nice seething blogpost I found that summarizes my opinion about literary agents. whenever i have writers block I like to scour the internet looking for people who hate agents as much as I do and that gets me in the mood to write again. I hate them so much you can't even understand. if i ever got diagnosed with terminal cancer I'd fly out to NYC and spend the day going from agency to agency smashing their computers to bits and thowing their laptops and phones out of the sixteenth floor window to break on the pavement.

[Anonymous No.19585438]

>>19578672
Change to

End of the road; we arrived.

[Anonymous No.19585439]

>>19585410

I wished we lived in a world where I didn't have to leverage my minority status in order to get a book published but here we are. Coastal elites dictating what should and shouldn't be allowed on the free market is something that I don't see backfiring any time soon.

It also doesn't help that 95% of agents and publishers are white w*men.

Spent an entire year prostrating myself to these people.

[Anonymous No.19585484]

>>19585439
and the sheer fucking ENTITLEMENT. 95% of books published are commercial failures and, of successful books, 95% of their queries to agents seeking publication were rejections. if any other profession had a 95% failure rate they would get their ass FIRED and the whole company go tits up to be taken over by amazon. these privileged la-la-land cunts want a job where they do nothing but read fiction all day every day, post popular political platitudes to twitter, drink wine, and get to demand that authors cater to their super niche personal fantasy of a character who is just like them and has all the fashionable political opinions they do being overpowered in some vagely veiled bodice ripper set in victorian england, but feminist, of COURSE, and featuring the trendy BROWN PEOPLE. because every book set in europe or america has to be about BROWN PEOPLE or else FAGS. want to write a book set in germany about german people? YOU FUCKING NAZI YOU'RE A WHITE SUPREMACIST. but neither do they want actual stories set in a realistic africa, no, it has to be YA wakanda or a modern urban fantasy queer brown romance where the protag is a supernatural occult clairvoyant werewolf with a vampire grandmother who falls in love with a gay black fairy who teaches feminist theory at the local university by day and practices witchcraft by night to hex donald trump.

and it has to be DARK, WITTY, and FUNNY.
Karen wants to laugh, not think. just consoom chick lit rag and get excited for next chick lit rag and completely ignore the huge population of readers who WOULD read books IF and only IF something worth reading got published, nope, instead cater to the same 3 cat-women wine aunts and the 2 literate female negroes in the country, over and over again.

i fucking hate literary agents.

[Anonymous No.19585538]

Can you submit to London publishers as an American? Everything I've seen makes it seem like the London industry has its shit together at least a little better than the NYC houses do.

[Anonymous No.19585550]

>>19585538

They'll usually say if they do or not. If they don't say assume they do.

[Anonymous No.19585553]

>just write bro
>I just write
>write 4 chapters
>all shit
>the fifth chapter has no place to go

Do I go back and edit them or keep going until the end?

[Anonymous No.19585582]

>>19585553
Post them so we can bully.

[Anonymous No.19585583]

>>19585550
Fuck it then, time to count some bongs. I'll take a dude with the tooth structure of a rat form rejecting me over a white woman demanding I include Kyler in my query so she knows I read about her son along with her pointless naughty-nice list of do's and don'ts. In reality I'll just submit to both, but man do I hate New Yorkers.

[Anonymous No.19585621]

>>19585553
For me personally I justwritebro'd the protagonist's story, with the world and side characters all bending over backwards to make the plot happen to them, then spent a long time figuring out how I needed to change those external factors to make them more than one-dimensional pawns. It's helped me see potential common themes among the things I need the other characters to do, which kind of serves as a compass for how to flesh them out. Probably with more experience you can tackle more of that in editing, but if it's your first book (like the one I'm revising is,) I think that deciding what it is you want to write, at its very core, and then just plowing through any leaps of logic necessary to make that happen is a valid strategy. I've written short stories for a while and thought I was pretty good at it, but writing a novel felt like playing an extended marathon of a game of classical chess. Based on that, you're probably not going to know what you're doing until you've done it at least once before. (And serial-publishing bitches who never finish anything will say otherwise, but the fact that they haven't ever gotten to the end of a novel and had to look at perfecting it is why their stories read like garbage to anyone over the age of 16.)

Basically, I say keep going. Any inconsistencies are just easy hooks to start editing with.

[Anonymous No.19585624]

I have 3,400 words completed for today, all clean and edited, plus notes for the rest of this section.
>>19585538
Yes. I've submitted even to publishers in Israel (yes, I know). Other countries accept Americans but prefer their own, and I've heard complaints from aspiring authors that the agencies do in fact shadow-reject foreigners, but not all do and why the fuck not try them, I mean really you have nothing to lose. a lot of people write in english, even people living in countries like india or brazil, because the english language market is much larger. You speak the new lingua franca.

most agencies are incestuous with affiliated agencies in other countries anyway, so i assume if you did get accepted to a british one they would toss it to an american peer to handle the legal details for.
>>19585553
learn to first figure out what the fuck you're meaning to write and why before you vomit words on a page.

[Anonymous No.19585625]

>>19578672
I liked the amalgam of dust and stone and rotten wood

[Anonymous No.19585667]

>>19585438
Thanks, that's actually a very good alteration because it helps the flow.
>>19585625
Is it a good image or something? I should probably focus on better imagery.

[Anonymous No.19585695]

>>19582731
cringe

[Anonymous No.19585704]

>>19585695
Fuck off to Reddit if you think his advice that writing is like a comic holds up.

[Anonymous No.19585717]

>>19585704
The advice is cringe but your response to is is twice the cringe

[Anonymous No.19585718]

>>19585717
Oh, it is is is is is, is it?

[Anonymous No.19585735]

>>19585718
Seething

[Anonymous No.19586189]

My novel is inspired primarily by Carrie by Stephen King and in that there are sometimes breaks in the narrative to fictitious journals discussing telekinesis in a very academic manner.

I decided to do some creative writing and made some of my own

(the first 2 lines are from the novel, the rest I made up)

https://pastebin.com/EsGM97E2

Let me know if it sounds like it was written by a pseud (that is the intent)

I might do more of these just because I think its fun and it reminds me of college.

[Anonymous No.19586378]

>inspired by stephen king

[Anonymous No.19586393]

>>19586189
Was going to /crit/ the first line as poorly written
> Both medical and psychological writers on the subject are in agreement that Carrie White's exceptionally late and traumatic commencement of the menstrual cycle might well have provided the trigger for her talent.

Then realized that line’s from the actual book, and you took over later.

So, I guess you need to make your writing a bit worse if you want to match the source material.

[Anonymous No.19586455]

>>19586378

I really only like early SK, the work he produced while high on coke was p based. Too bad he's an insufferable twitter lefty now. In fact, he has me blocked cause I called him retarded around the time he published Sleeping Beauties (dont read it, its bad).

>>19586393

Thanks for taking the time i/lit/erate, I appreciate it.

I didn't end up including excerpts like that in my OC novel just cause I wanted to keep the scope of it small so I wouldn't get "overly ambitious first project" syndrome.

[Anonymous No.19586467]

>>19585410
Dude, this is so off-base.

Do you want to fail?

You listed a wide range of genres and categorized the Agents that read those stories as one group. Have you ever even looked at agents? They are essentially professional readers who have read everything and read everything in their specific niche. I have never seen the kind of agent you're talking about. They mostly look like lawyers.

I tend to believe that anyone who is upset at agents and not dedicated to improving their writing is coping. Hard

[Anonymous No.19586477]

>>19586467

I think that post was written mostly out of frustration. I definitely agreed with many points in there, but I'm 100 rejections deep in the query trenches so I'll admit to being a bit salty.

[Anonymous No.19586492]

>>19586477
What do you write? Do you have a reader?

If you don't have a (preferably close, brutally honest friend) reader, you need to get one. Find some way to be critiqued better.

The fact that you're even at the query stage is something to celebrate.

[Anonymous No.19586521]

>>19586492

Horror YA, the YA agents are dead on what the dude describes, desu.

yeah I have a friend that actually reads it out loud to me, It's a lot easier to find things that don't make sense that way.

I also have an (editor?) that I got off of Upwork, she's basically a paid reader who makes suggestions. I made sure to hire a yt woman who isn't an ESL cause yt women run the publishing industry so i figured her input was more valuable.

[Anonymous No.19586573]

>>19585582
No, the idea is too unique. It'll be traced back to me instantly.

>>19585621
That was my initial plan but I hit a complete dead end. I think I'll rework the bare minimum to give the story room to breathe.

>>19585624
It's five different things at once, one of which is way beyond my current skill level. I thought about cutting it out to write something easier but it just feels wrong to do that.

[Anonymous No.19586579]

>>19585432
What a read. I haven't tried to go the publishing house route myself, and I've been finding more reasons not to, and this just added to it.

[Anonymous No.19586619]

>>19586521
Are you sure it's YA? Sorry I'm asking the most basic questions ever. But maybe that's not the age group for the story. What ages are your protags? What happens if you age them to adult? Does it start making more sense, or give you more room to explore character? It's possible it's just not YA, or other things wrong that are at the level of how you're approaching querying/framing it.

[Anonymous No.19586643]

>>19586619

16-17, a large portion revolves around high school angst.

[Anonymous No.19586655]

GIVE ME AN IDEA QUICK

[Anonymous No.19586665]

>>19586655
no gf

[Anonymous No.19586676]

>>19586655
A guardian angel tries to talk a person out of suicide, only to discover the person is genuinely too horrible to be allowed to live.

[Anonymous No.19586697]

>>19586655
Pick one from here:
>>19583445
>>19582565

[Anonymous No.19586716]

>>19586697
only 1k words or less. this will be hard. i'll try though. where do i post my writing after i'm done?

[Anonymous No.19586721]

>>19586716
you can leave it in here

[Anonymous No.19586754]

>>19586643

What is the central conflict? And the sources of this angst? I'm curious what the one-sentence premise is.

I think YA is a challenging genre to hit, actually. The current market is simultaneously too adult from what I grew up with (am 24, for reference), but also usually pretty childish.

It really is possible that it's not YA even given that, depending on the subject matter. Like Stranger Things is not a kid's show, it's in that uneven ground. Do you have any properly adult characters in the book? Do your characters have lives outside of high school, is the horror part dramatically outside of high school?

When you look at agents, have you read the things they've sold? Can you see any connections between those and yours? There are so many agents, it's still possible that you're just not finding the correct ones.

It's also possible that you just need to seriously rethink and revise your project, or do better on your query.

[Anonymous No.19586830]

>>19586754

I've posted the query here before and some anon gave me tips but I haven't had the motivation to go and rewrite it yet.

If you're curious

https://pastebin.com/BZ892Y46

[Anonymous No.19586875]

>>19586467
This is the current submissions editor for Fantasy and Science Fiction.

https://www.shereereneethomas.com/

This is the person dictating if your speculative, science fiction or fantasy stories get published in the most prestigious publication for their respective genre.

His post was not off base. The industry is in shambles.

[Anonymous No.19586886]

>>19586830

Is this all of it? Because this isn't correct form--no announcement of genre, word count, etc. Also, no withholding in the query--what is the source of these dark thoughts? The query should show everything on the table, and plot the arc of the story, the main conflict, tension, and plot points. Obviously you don't have to say how it ends, but you need to show where it's going and what you do. It is way too vague right now. It comes out of nowhere that Billy is tormenting Johnny; how? what does that look like? what was the inciting incident to this dynamic between them?

Here's something that can help. Get your friend or editor to describe the story. when you're close to a project for too long, it's hard to see it in the big picture

[Anonymous No.19586888]

>>19586830
That query needs work. There are a few sites that show successful queries that you should base yours off of, as the YA formula is pretty set in stone.

[Anonymous No.19586893]

>>19586830
Oh and querying (for me) was harder than writing the novels. You have to toe a poetic line while not making it too flowery. The querying process is the most dehumanizing experience I've ever had.

[Anonymous No.19586898]

>>19584989
Yeah I’ve now taken my meds :)

[Anonymous No.19586899]

>>19586875
Why is that a problem?

I don't know this person or this industry well (I write lit fic), but also, why the fuck are you trying to get published in the most prestigious publications when you're unpubbed?

From a cursory view of her profile, I see no red flag. You think a white dude would publish you?? that that's the problem??

[Anonymous No.19586907]

>>19586893
I'm with you there. I'll probably never get past this stage.

[Anonymous No.19586915]

>>19586893
well it’s a numbers game so it is almost necessarily dehumanizing.

[Anonymous No.19586936]

>>19586886

I culled a lot of information that doesn't change between queries. The genre and word count are things that they usually ask me to put in the header like

Query: TITLE | Genre Subgenre | X words

I also left out things like my bio (if anyone asks im totes an LGBTQ+ BIPOC #OwnVoices author) and they sometimes ask me to describe what the potential target audience for the project is so i include that as well.

According to query tracker there's something like 2k agents in the U.S. accepting unsolicited queries right now. Of those something like 300 of those accept YA.
Many of those specifically do not accept any thriller, suspense, mystery or horror. If you filter by accepting both YA and Horror you get something like 60 results.
50 of those have a 0.0% response rate to queries.

I've sent out 130 queries, I'm past trying to find the PERFECT agent
we're in ANY agent mode.

[Anonymous No.19586964]

>>19586936

Dude I feel you. I'm going through it myself with short fic, and when I'm ready to send out the MS I'm working on, I know I'll be upset, but you gotta think about what you can control--which is your writing and your query.

You cannot start spraying because you're panicked and frustrated. You need to be writing basically a tailored query for each agent, and making the case to them that they can represent you well.

In the meantime, start the next project, take a calculated break from this one, and then return to edit the hell out of it.

[Anonymous No.19586989]

>>19586964
>You need to be writing basically a tailored query for each agent,

Id rather kill myself

These assholes want a unique query that pats their ass while taking 6 months to send me a form rejection.

And if an agent would pass on a story they are genuinely interested in because I didn't fellate them enough in my query then I don't think I want to work with them anyway.

[Anonymous No.19587017]

Mx. Drapper pls

[Anonymous No.19587023]

>>19586989
They don't give a fuck about your story. This is a BUSINESS, not a "let's fulfill your dreams" club. They're not looking for a temperamental artist, they're looking for a serious business partner. Your query is about seeing how professional you are.

[Anonymous No.19587025]

>>19586989
DUDE oh my god.

Tailored does not mean suck them off. It means demonstrating that you're knowledgeable, chose them for a reason, and know what the fuck you're trying to do.

When I say tailor, I mean, read the books they sold. Understand their interests. Be able to, in a non-fellating way, explain why the fiction they're interested in and are capable of selling is well-suited to what you write.

Like have you researched anything about the publishing industry? Agents basically have a roster of people they have to go out and fight for to publishers. They have very specific networks that they've worked hard to build. They literally have to be able to fight for you and argue why publishers should take a chance.

Get it through your head that they don't want you to fail. They want someone to champion, because THAT IS HOW THEY GET PAID. They are not against you. It is just a difficult industry and you need to give them every reason why you're a good bet. Everyone needs to stop with the cope.

There is no enemy here except your own resistance to growth, which makes anyone mediocre.

[Anonymous No.19587031]

>>19587025

im gonna beat u up for calling me mediocre

[Anonymous No.19587044]

>>19586989
NGMI

[Anonymous No.19587071]

>>19586989
>And if an agent would pass on a story they are genuinely interested in because I didn't fellate them enough in my query then I don't think I want to work with them anyway
That's the trad publishing industry now. Some people may say they do it because they want to make money and yadda, yadda, yadda. Bullshit. If there's one thing you should have cast off by now, its that people only do things for money. Money is a bonus. These people are ideological creatures first, last and always, and if you don't tickle their balls just right - who am I kidding, none of them are men - if you don't give their post menopausal cunt some serious, serious loving you're shit out of luck. And god forbid if you're a str**ght wh*te m*le. Money isn't necessarily their objective, their parent companies receive free cash infusions of monopoly money just to keep them pushing the current, rotten zeitgeist.

So best of luck with getting your book published by them, but don't hold your breath. Fortunately all the tools to self publish already exist, they just require you to market on your own. Pro tip: even if you do get trad published you'll also be required to market on your own. Its a doggie dog world.

[Anonymous No.19587075]

>>19587071

doggie dog

[Anonymous No.19587111]

>>19587071
How do I into marketing?

[Anonymous No.19587116]

>>19586899
There arent very many scifi/fantasy publications anymore? Have you read that magazine lately? Its all afrofuturism and brown people power fantasies.

>>19586899
>I don't know this person or this industry well
That's obvious. If you did, you'd know that lit fic agents also (usually) represent a wide range of genre.

>>19587025
>read the books they sold
Holy fuck, NO. DO NOT DO THIS. What the fuck?? The agent will reject him in literally 5 seconds, not even get to his pages and you want him to read the Agents backlog. Holy fuck. Are you an agent or something?

>Agents basically have a roster of people they have to go out and fight for to publishers
Alright, now I know you have no idea what you are talking about. This used to be the case, but now any non-senior agent is shotgunning out submissions worse than writers are shotgunning out queries, take a stroll through twitter and you will see big4 editors complaining about this.

I can 100% tell that you arent querying or you have a vested interest in keeping the agent position mystified and prestigious.

Agents are one part vulture, one part leech, they are only in it for money and clout. It's so transparent you have to admire it.

[Anonymous No.19587172]

>>19587025

How's this

https://pastebin.com/UNgjNY6Q

[Anonymous No.19587198]

>>19587071
Dude stfu. This is pathetically astronomical amounts of cope.

Only brainlets make themselves victims to imaginary antagonists.

"Aw geez, my first project ever didn't meet instant and undying acclaim. It's everybody and the zeitgeist's fault. Can't have anything to do with me!"

I have never seen a good self-published book. Maybe ideas, but they all lack revision and polish.

[Anonymous No.19587227]

>>19587198
I know some good self-published comics.

[Anonymous No.19587233]

>>19587116
What the fuck are you people on? What self-hating defeatist fantasy is this?

Dude, yes, but that does not mean they represent every genre. They represent discrete combinations, much of them very typical (women's lit, lit, crime; not high concept lit, YA steampunk, and adventure).

Are you fucking kidding me dude. You want someone to represent you, be your first editor, and you have no idea what their taste is? this isn't for their benefit alone, this is for yours. And why are you writing in a genre you have no interest in reading and staying current with anyway?

Bruh, I just don't understand how your main research is twitter and you're saying all this. It is 100% true.

Stick to the fantasy that lets you continue to suck and never get better.

[Anonymous No.19587248]

Reading this latest conversation has left me in despair.
>have the desire to write
>spend 8 months writing the first draft
>two more months of editing
>realize you're no closer to having a real book than you were when you started writing because you have less than a 0.1% chance of getting published
>you also need to meticulously research the tastes of individual literary agents and find the ones who might be interested in your work, then write a query letter that's unique and stands out while also being informative about your work and background, your potential target audience and is also short, concise and polite
>you also need to have a celebrity-like social media presence to market the book yourself as publishers won't do anything for you despite taking 70% of everything the book earns
There really is no hope, is there?

[Anonymous No.19587268]

>>19587248

u forgot about writing a synopsis that's no more than 2 pages long and hits every plot point while also making it engaging.

[Anonymous No.19587278]

>>19587017
How about "Fag"?

[Anonymous No.19587280]

>>19587233
>Bruh, I just don't understand how your main research is twitter and you're saying all this.

Most agents have a manuscript wish list or bio linked on their twitter. It's literally the best place to find information about a prospective agent. I've gotten full requests from Agents I regularly interact with on twitter.

Do you still mail manuscripts to agencies or something? You've got this delusional headcanon about the state of the industry based on some time 20-30 years ago. It's a meat grinder. Most authors these days who get their first book published (again, more engagements on twitter) went through 70-150 queries before they even landed an agent. AND THEN comes the submission process.

90% of Agents won't even get to your pages before rejection, some wont even get through your title.

https://youtu.be/aduzco1VJZE
Watch this. Just watch it. It will help you understand what actually happens in the process.

[Anonymous No.19587281]

>>19587268
Fuck, I didn't add one to any of the queries I sent.

[Anonymous No.19587285]

>>19587281
I have it on a doc ready for if they ask for it.

[Anonymous No.19587287]

>>19587248
>>you also need to have a celebrity-like social media presence to market the book yourself as publishers won't do anything for you despite taking 70% of everything the book earns
This to me is the biggest spit in the face. I can take gatekeeping, but I can't take "Yeah we'll mass print and sell your book and keep 80% of the profit, but you have to market it all yourself so good luck and if you fail we'll drop your contract and don't even think about suing us for breach of contract pint size"

[Anonymous No.19587290]

>>19587248
>you also need to meticulously research the tastes of individual literary agents and find the ones who might be interested in your work

querytracker.com is a godsend, you can sort agents by genre and subgenre, and if you pay for premium you can even sort by response times.
And then when you find an agent you think fits your genre you can usually find a link to their manuscript wish list/twitter so you can do like 5 minutes of research to figure out the more granular details of what they are interested in/how to angle an attack.

Yes. The work skews heavily towards the writer,, but doing 5 minutes of research will net you more requests for pages.

[Anonymous No.19587291]

>>19587280
>Do you still mail manuscripts to agencies or something?

I've had one (1) dude ask to read more of my manuscript and he requested I snail mail him 50 pages, double spaced, single sided. I did.

And then he rejected me lmao

[Anonymous No.19587295]

>>19587281
They will ask if they want it.

[Anonymous No.19587296]

>>19587291
He was never going to read a single word, he just wanted to watch you grovel.

[Anonymous No.19587300]

>>19587291
You should mail him a bill for the postage/cost of printing. Fuck these leeches.

[Anonymous No.19587309]

>>19587017
State of the industry in one picture.

[Anonymous No.19587315]

>tell your wife to burn your book rather than publish it
>even Napoleon tells everyone to burn your books
>centuries later they're still around and read by millions
Why did the publishing industry change so much?

[Anonymous No.19587320]

>>19587280

Okay, what genre do you write in? It is possible that there are some differences for you than for me based on what I write, who I follow, and the conventions I've researched.

And no, of course I don't mail manuscripts.

I'm not disagreeing with you re difficulty of the process. I just see no reason to complain about it? If you write and want to get published, then that's what you do. Why is there so much fucking entitlement? Why should this be easy and fast?

Again, the only thing you can control is your research, your targets, and most importantly your writing. I just think it's so fucking lame to direct blame at things you can't control.

[Anonymous No.19587329]

>>19587320

>Again, the only thing you can control is your research, your targets, and most importantly your writing.

Read my revised query letter instead of yelling at that guy some more

>>19587172

[Anonymous No.19587356]

>>19587329
>https://pastebin.com/UNgjNY6Q

Not that guy this looks generically great (compliment for queries), you just need to flesh out the tail end to include more plot details and possibly figure out a hook.

[Anonymous No.19587360]

>>19578793
Went for friday, aka just now. That makes chapter 3

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/49395/the-undying-emperor

The forums on RR are dead as hell, doesn't feel like a worthwhile means of shilling.

>>19585347
Odd, didn't get a (you) from this.

Look man, you describe yourself differently based on the audience. It's marketing. Maybe it's not the best way to describe myself to RR, but I took that angle based on the moderator comments.

Obviously that'd be cringe to post here, that's why I didn't post it here.

[Anonymous No.19587369]

>>19587356

Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time.

[Anonymous No.19587376]

>>19586573
>That was my initial plan but I hit a complete dead end. I think I'll rework the bare minimum to give the story room to breathe.
I am once again recommending Story Genius because, if you can filter out the filler, it will get you to write a coherent plot without a dozen attempts at trial and error. (You may or may not need the "card" system it recommends at the end.)

[Anonymous No.19587388]

Hope u guys are including hashtags in ur queries ;^)

[Anonymous No.19587394]

>>19587388
These are the people standing between you and your dreams.

[Anonymous No.19587414]

>>19587172
Mostly fine up until this line:
>What neither of them know is that their lives are on a crash course with the local loner; John Emmerson and by the time it's over, the town of Westfield Valley will be unrecognizable.
Having read your earlier attempt I'd fix the grammar and add something about the supernatural bit
>What neither of them know is that their lives are on a supernaturally-charged crash course with the local loner: John Emmerson. By the time it's over, their lives, and the whole town of Westfield Valley, will be unrecognizable.
It should be more clear in the pitch that it's going to become Gay Carrie; an agent who only wants romance (not paranormal) doesn't want to see that left turn 150 pages in.

What people want is something high-concept, not "quiet," so oversell the paranormal aspect as much as you can while keeping it about what happens to your protagonist in the first act

[Anonymous No.19587415]

>>19587360
if youre not writing an isekai powerfantasy then dont expect immediate traction on any of these sites. the forums are mainly for interacting with the other authors there. youre better off shilling here or on reddit.

[Anonymous No.19587420]

>>19587388
>>19587394
Maybe Jason Bryan was right after all

[Anonymous No.19587421]

>>19587388
This is stupid yeah but anyone who isn't first dealing with the time period they've lived through or are living in is stunted imo

[Anonymous No.19587425]

>>19587414
>Gay Carrie

and there's the pitch.

thanks for your feedback.

[Anonymous No.19587433]

>>19587421
Can you rephrase that into a coherent sentence so the rest of us can find out what you're trying to say?

[Anonymous No.19587444]

Why is there no rape talk anymore? Nobody writes drama?

[Anonymous No.19587446]

>>19587433

I think he's saying that spending all your time idealizing a time period you didn't experience first-hand indicates a tendency to maladaptive escapism

[Anonymous No.19587461]

>>19587433

I think he's saying that spending all your time focusing on time periods that you didn't experience first-hand indicates that you're prone to maladaptive escapism

[Anonymous No.19587466]

>>19587414
>What people want is something high-concept,
Ahh yes, Stephanie Meyer's agent was definitely on the hunt for "high-concept"

[Anonymous No.19587471]

>>19587444
Rape in your stories will unironically get you blacklisted with some agencies if you don't include a trigger warning in your query letter.

[Anonymous No.19587474]

>>19587466

I've been reading agent's manuscript wish-list pages and many of them specifically say they want something "high-concept"

to be honest, i dont even know what that means

[Anonymous No.19587477]

>>19587461
Sounds like someone coping over being too lazy to do historical research.

[Anonymous No.19587482]

>>19587474
This one's easy. High-concept means something easy to explain, a thing with an in-built elevator pitch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_concept

[Anonymous No.19587488]

I'm trying to write a draft but it all looks like:

>A did X
>"Alright, let's do Y."
>"But if we do Y then a bad thing will happen."
>"No, here's why."
>"Okay, but why not do Z instead of Y?"
>"Here's Y we don't do Z instead."
>"Okay."
>a few lines about Y
>"Alright, let's do M."

It's 90% dialogue, 10% description and no meaningful prose.

[Anonymous No.19587502]

>>19587488

I have the opposite problem. I can write literally dozens of pages of prose that goes absolutely nowhere but god forbid someone speaks or advances the plot

[Anonymous No.19587556]

>>19587488
>>19587502
by your powers combined

[Anonymous No.19587558]

>>19587471
What, are they all faggots or something?

[Anonymous No.19587561]

>>19587558

They're all w*men

[Anonymous No.19587568]

>>19587556

Collaborative /lit/ fiction

[Anonymous No.19587594]

>>19587561
So they should be used to it.

[Anonymous No.19587603]

>>19587466
I don't know if you're trying to troll or what but
>A teenage girl's new romance with a vampire lands her in the middle of a war between their kinds and werewolves
is extremely high-concept so yes, they probably were. Maybe you're getting it confused with something like "high-minded."

[Anonymous No.19587614]

>>19587360
>It's marketing. Maybe it's not the best way to describe myself to RR, but I took that angle
I hate pretentious fake faggots like you so goddamn much.

[Anonymous No.19587627]

>>19587558

baka

[Anonymous No.19587634]

>>19587488
When you start with no idea how to write, generally the best thing to do is to pick someone else's style and copy the hell out of them. This is true with basically every medium, drawing music writing or etc. You develop your own voice once you've practiced the mechanical techniques like plotting and character arcs and pacing. Just pick a book you like with a voice that you think would be nice for the genre you're writing and read it for inspiration.

[Anonymous No.19587637]

>>19587502
What's your thought process for writing prose? I try but all of mine feels purple and unnecessary.

>>19587556
My bad with >>19587502's good makes one mediocre writer.

>>19587568
/lit/ incarnate.

[Anonymous No.19587649]

>>19587444
My first chapter opens with child femMC getting grabbed by hair implicating rape but it immediately breaks off before anything can happen, and he gets killed over it later anyway. I wouldn't dare publish anything with rape otherwise since it'd mean getting probably banned outright. I coom to female on male rape doujins all the time but it still leaves me in complete disbelief when one of you post excerpts about it. I just can't take it seriously at all, much less from anons. It kinda feels like when anon does it, its suppose to have shock value but really from almost every excerpt I read that has it it's either satire or just plain old shit post which is a common them along excerpts posted it feels like

[Anonymous No.19587672]

>write self-indulgent furry loli rape
>never have to deal with publishers or agents in my life

[Anonymous No.19587677]

>>19587627
Shit like this makes me wonder why I don't just become an agent myself and take books on to publishers that don't land anywhere else due to retarded filtering.

[Anonymous No.19587681]

>>19587627
“Page rape”? Is that what they call books that are too long?

[Anonymous No.19587682]

>>19587637
>What's your thought process for writing prose?

When getting the first draft done my number 1 priority was just getting words on paper. No stopping to think if something was necessary or even if it added anything meaningful.

I remember during a scene where a character was being berated by a demon, I just thought about how many different ways I could say "you suck lmao" and had something like 30 pages before I was just like maybe I should move on.

I also like to write out different scenarios, like what if during a scene instead of a character doing X he did Y or said B instead of A and I just write how that would go and pick whichever is the most interesting later.

During the climax I described bleachers being destroyed like 6 different ways.

[Anonymous No.19587688]

>>19579656
The Elementary Particles meets Demons.

[Anonymous No.19587694]

>>19586467
Dude, go browse manuscriptwishlist for yourself. Go ahead.
Some agents are decent. Maybe 10% of them. The rest are blue hairs. I have nothing against the ones who can act like professionals, but the rest are obsessed with far left sjw politics and push their agenda before their work.
>>19586477
I'm not even that frustrated with my own query status, necessarily. I'll get published eventually, somehow, even if the absolute STATE of the industry is making that harder and take longer, I'll keep working on myself and my own writing. What I'm really mad about is that almost everything being published is utter garbage and I can't read decent books. I dont need anyone's permission to write what I want, but for reading I am dependent, most unfortunately, on the "taste" of some problem-glasses danger-hair cat-mommy sjw twitter-addict virtue-signalling gay-lauding white-hating far-leftist agent. They are fucking up the entire industry.

[Anonymous No.19587703]

>>19587677
You'd actually have to get some books published to earn your pay

[Anonymous No.19587713]

>>19587681

I think she meant "on-the-page rape"
Like you can have rape but you can't describe it in detail, it has to be done "off-screen" or be part of a character's backstory that's not elaborated on

[Anonymous No.19587716]

>>19587672
And your 6 readers on inkbunny thank you for your service
Drop the loli and move to FA, it's more fun

[Anonymous No.19587743]

>>19586830
imo it's cringy and chuuni. "haha so dark and TWISTED dude" edge level. idk, maybe there's a market for it but it's just offputting. as others said it isnt really in proper query format. you sound kind of like a school shooter.
>>19586875
i can't even hate a black who wants to publish other blacks and promote black literature. it's the ostensibly white agents who are anti-white, anti-"cis", anti-male, anti-europe, anti-christianity, anti-trad, etc to a ridiculous, pathologic extent. it's the ceaseless in-your-face promotion of queer, gay, brown, sjw, feminist, "witchy" alt-left ideology that supersedes all notion of quality or (actual) diversity. if you go into a bookstore and every book published in 2021 is about browns, queers, and/or women all towing the same corporate-media-approved political lines, that isn't "diverse", it's monotone. look at the latest trends. "the [whatever]'s daughter", "the women of [place]", "the [whatever]'s wife". endless rewrites of some historical/mythological story BUT NOW FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE WOMAN. WOOOW so envelope pushing so modern. you can even see the women-as-a-trend in the title stylings. i want to read good literature, not cheap marketing gimmicks and vaguely veiled sjw indoctrination.

[Anonymous No.19587757]

>>19587743
>imo it's cringy and chuuni.

I rewrote it to this

>>19587172

Let me know what you think

[Anonymous No.19587781]

>>19587017
>>19587023
You say that but I don't feel agents are taking queries as a business. They dont think about what might appeal, not only to current readers, but the market of POTENTIAL readers. game of thrones for example got TONS of people reading who never picked up a book before. but agents only cater to current reader groups (cozies, detective with female protag, feminist YA, the witch mania, etc).

I may rant here often but I have a business professional background and am well composed. But agents are not professional. they only want to accept what they, personally, can "fall in love with" and are not anywhere considering the potential reader market. it's incestuous and egocentric. you can see it on their mswl, "send me stories about scotland!!!" or "I love to read stories that feature horses!" over and over again. They want ass pats that get their own panties wet, they aren't thinking about anyone except themselves and certainly aren't acting like business professionals. I can understand something like, "I like stories set in other places so I can learn about the world," but when the agent says something like, "I want stories set in 1700-1850s England featuring a feminist protagonist who is into herbalism and magick and has a pet cat and likes wearing socks that don't match" you can't say that they're acting professional when their mswl reads more like a tinder headline.

[Anonymous No.19587783]

>>19587716
more like 1.8k readers. my works on there probably sucks ass compared to what i've been writing now, in terms of technique. i just hope they'll appreciate the extra effort.
how is FA more fun? from what i know, their staff is garbage and the site is full of sjws

[Anonymous No.19587800]

>>19587781
>magick

My favorite thing is when they spell it magicks and characters go "oh my gods!" or "or my goddess!"

[Anonymous No.19587805]

>>19587781
>You say that but I don't feel agents are taking queries as a business.
They earn their living through wading through queries.
Those quotes from MSWL about what they want are an attempt at heading off a future market, not personal interest. Their job is to sell books. Full stop. They don't eat if they don't sell books to the market. Full stop.

[Anonymous No.19587810]

>>19587805
>Those quotes from MSWL about what they want are an attempt at heading off a future market, not personal interest.

I 100% disagree

[Anonymous No.19587915]

>>19587477
Promise I’m not.

What I meant is close to what other person said but it goes deeper.

It is hard to do historical fiction interestingly, because most of it is fanfic, secondary creation going off the vibe of writers from the actual time. No matter how hard you try, you will not be able to get inside the bewildering confusion and angst of living through something and not knowing who to look to for clarity, a way out, etc.

You can do it well, but it’s not even down to historical accuracy. It’s just much harder to conceive of your present than relying on the lens and validation of history and post-canonization of what survives.

Obviously there are exceptions. I’m just saying look really closely at yourself if you want to write about the roaring 20s, WWII, the Holocaust, etc. and can’t think of anything novel to say about Now.

[Anonymous No.19587920]

>>19587388
People like that would have rejected All Quiet on the Western Front. and again, the other anon, who is possibly himself an agent, was going on about professionalism, but how is that at all professional? If I blurted out something about punching nazis at my work I would be fired by end of day. being a foaming at the mouth idealogue is off-putting.
>>19587471
I've heard multiple agents say blacklists are not a thing. boy I sure hope so.
>>19587474
the opposite of what you would intuitively think of as being "high concept". what they mean is, they WANT anime writing.
>>19587627
again, this is not professional behavior. it's a hysteric, immature girl trying to wear a suit that doesn't fit her. juunichiro tanizaki would have been rejected by her and she says "i didnt realize this needed to be said HAHAHAHA LOL XDDD". she needs a therapist and a medication prescription, not to be in a position of professional judgement. she would have rejected Lolita, too. If you were in any other profession and had a track record of rejecting the big wins because they made you have sadthink you'd be out the door with a pink slip. This isn't professional at all. Most working agents have the emotional maturity of a seven year old.
>>19587172
>>19587757
>faggot lit
Well, you have a good chance of being published with that, certainly.

[Anonymous No.19587928]

>>19587783
>their staff is garbage
They can't possibly police the entire constant flood of content on there so people view their decisions as random/selective
The owner is also stupid but mostly from the tech side
>the site is full of sjws
The internet is, IB is, who cares
If you're writing online they're going to be there reading it

[Anonymous No.19587946]

>>19587805
I disagree with you. If books worth reading were published, the readers would come. instead they're fuckign around on tiktok and netflix. and it's like that BECAUSE agents are strangling the industry and will only allow certain books to be published, which they might love but the wider market does not. and by wider market, again, i'm referring to the potential readers, not the current very small group of readers of this niche garbage like cozies, feminist detective true crime schlock, bodice rippers, feminist YA trilogies, and "muh magicks witch goddess yaaas queen."

I sincerely, honestly believe they are strangling the industry. Outside of a very small portion of people with very prolific twitter accounts, actual normal human beings do not want to read this schlock, and they are not. They're on tiktok and instagram, because the currently working agents can't tell a saleable book from their vaginal excretions. Again, I'm actually a business professional, and this shit would not fly in any real world industry outside of La La Land NYC publishing houses who piggyback on previous success and nominal clout. Normalfags don't want to read about obnoxious feminist witches.

[Anonymous No.19587949]

>>19587920
>>faggot lit
>Well, you have a good chance of being published with that, certainly.
It's funny you seething retards constantly bitch about them publishing gay/trans stories. That dude's been querying his gay romance for a year and nobody wants to touch it. But I'm sure his writing is just that much worse than yours, right?

[Anonymous No.19587962]

>>19587928
what i meant was that content policing happens more on FA than IB, both from staff and users. i have a much higher chance of getting some comment like "um, sweaty, why are you writing r*pe inc*st?" on FA. it gets annoying, and there's not much of a way to filter them out in the first place, except for manually blocking them.

[Anonymous No.19587963]

>>19587949
Saying "only faggot/sjw pandering books get published" is not the same as "all faggot/sjw pandering books get published." and he said he only just revised that query, which means his rejections were from the previous version which didn't make the faggotry obvious and sounded like school shooter inceldom.

My God I just hate fudge packers. Lesbians can be kind of cute, at least in theory and fictionally, but there's something about male homosexuality that is distinctly offputting.

[Anonymous No.19587980]

>>19587962
I do noncon stuff and never get complaints on FA

>>19587963
It's probably the repressed cocklust that upsets you
Many such cases

[Anonymous No.19588011]

>>19587980
I think it's the idea of cramming a dick where poop comes from and two bony, gangly males entwined trying to lie as man lieth with womankind. it's fundamentally unnatural. men are not aesthetically appealing.

[Anonymous No.19588027]

>>19588011
So you're more of a frotting and sucking guy
That's respectable, anal is overrated
You should write a book about your feelings, it'd probably sell pretty well
Maybe a first-person unreliable narrator type thing about, I don't know, a NYC banker who's constantly bringing up how much he hates the gays
I don't think anyone's done that for a couple decades
Got a movie deal last time

[Anonymous No.19588040]

>>19587963
>didn't make the faggotry obvious

It's supposed to be a role reversal that the reader finds out in the second chapter but I can't have anything nice when querying

The main thesis of the novel is "bullying's good, actually"

Cause gay fiction is 100% comprised of victim narratives and I was tired of it.

Also I saw a recently published novel where the protags were "omg yass kween slay purrrrrr" gays marketted as #Relatable and it filled me with the indescribable rage required to write an entire novel out of spite.

[Anonymous No.19588066]

>>19588027
reading your posts made me laugh, thank you for having a mental breakdown over an opinion on a Mongolian basket weaving site anon

[Anonymous No.19588071]

>>19587963
I dont find them that offputting really. In my quest to explore absolutely all transgression I tried to understand the gays and my conclusion is that it's just hedonism and also, strangely enough, narcissism.

On a symbolic level they're obviously a bit disturbing. If you view reality as like inherently meaningful, in a religous way, then gays are kind of warped and inverted. But if you believe in evolution then they're not all that dramatic, you can see other animals doing gay stuff as well. Its just slight misfiring of instincts I suppose. It could also be a parasite. Either way there is nothing about it that's more transgressive than idk a junkie or whatever.

[Anonymous No.19588098]

>>19588027
>some literal fag is losing his mind that not everyone is a fag
homosexuality yucky
>>19588040
>Cause gay fiction is 100% comprised of victim narratives and I was tired of it.
that's respectable. ganbarre gay-anon.
>>19588071
Ah, I see you are worm-pilled. homosexuality is a disease, similar to leprosy.

[Anonymous No.19588101]

This is why this general is so ticking worthless. You faggots niggers are more interested in hashing out your homo erotic tendencies than actually writing.

[Anonymous No.19588107]

>>19588101
both anime-writing, waifu-writing, and gay-writing are all forms of coomerism.
repent, coom-brains. Find God.

[Anonymous No.19588132]

>>19587963
>sounded like school shooter inceldom.

That was the intention. I wanted readers goaded into thinking he's the protag of a wish-fulfillment power fantasy where the underdog gets revenge on the bullies.

[Anonymous No.19588143]

>>19587963
male homosexuality is offputting because the rates of disease are so high. its a natural reaction to dirty, diseased things. and then there's the behavior of faggots themselves, basically they're just oversexxed, poorly restrained beasts high on meth, who'd fuck anything with a warm hole if it let them.
female homosexuality, while not outwardly as awful, is just as bad in its own way. lesbian relationships statistically have the highest rates of domestic violence and they suffer from dead bedroom syndrome more than anyone else. very sed, toxic people who's biological clocks are ringing in their ears.
both groups are created by childhood molestation, among other factors

[Anonymous No.19588146]

>>19588066
If calling a homophobe gay on 4chan while waiting in line at the tax office is a mental breakdown to you, I cannot wait to see how your characters turn out

[Anonymous No.19588148]

This is the fastest I've ever seen /wg/

[Anonymous No.19588150]

>>19588143
>who'd fuck anything with a warm hole

Unless it's a vagina

[Anonymous No.19588154]

>>19588150
no, they'd go for that if it fell into their lap, too

[Anonymous No.19588159]

>>19588148

cause the gay guy with his faglit is the only one actually writing lmao

[Anonymous No.19588164]

>>19588148
maybe because the retard OP forgot to call it /wg/ and it didn't preemptively scare people off

[Anonymous No.19588171]

>>19588154

>homosexuals are men who fuck women

[Anonymous No.19588174]

>>19588171
damn wish i was a homosexual

[Anonymous No.19588177]

>>19588174

maybe then you'd get published, anon

[Anonymous No.19588187]

>>19588171
they have no standards whatsoever. they're only concerned with cooming. if an attractive woman was available they'd fuck her. women tend to have at least minimum standards so that keeps them away.

[Anonymous No.19588205]

>>19588171
>>19588174
>>19588177
top kek
>>19588159
I write but I'm not posting my work here. imagine 5 years from now, you think you've made it and, bam, a sjw cancel squad digs up your 4chan post history and calls you a natsee yt supremacist for posting on /lit/. i talk about the writing process, post wordcount, and complain about the industry.

[Anonymous No.19588210]

>>19588187

Imagine being down so bad you literally can't imagine a reality where someone wouldn't want to fuck a woman

[Anonymous No.19588225]

>>19588205

It's crossed my mind, but honestly I genuinely don't think im gonna make it so it's a non-issue. And if I do make it then I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it.

[Anonymous No.19588230]

next baker please don't fuck up subject line and please don't post a gay retard image

[Anonymous No.19588243]

>>19588205
>imagine 5 years from now, you think you've made it and, bam, a sjw cancel squad digs up your 4chan post history and calls you a natsee yt supremacist for posting on /lit/
i tell them to go cry about it lol

[Anonymous No.19588244]

>>19588210
considering its their biological imperative I guess I'm a bit disbelieving. but maybe they are that developmentally deviated and not merely pathetic hedonists

[Anonymous No.19588263]

>>19588244

maybe you'll come to a conclusion after reading my faglit and gaining /insight/

[Anonymous No.19588264]

>>19588230
Rape thread it is.

[Anonymous No.19588265]

>>19588243
This. Whenever I need to brush up on my future bants with retarded people I just rewatch the IBS apocalypse stream

[Anonymous No.19588273]

>>19588265
>IBS apocalypse stream
Don't remind me of this cringefest.

[Anonymous No.19588292]

New thread
>>19588290

[Anonymous No.19588481]

>>19588273
WTF is IBS? Irritable Bowel Syndrome?

[Anonymous No.19588496]

>>19588481
Internet Bloodsports

[Anonymous No.19588511]

A /pol/ retard got the new thread deleted with their OP, someone who can keep their dick in their pants and has a decent image should make a new one.

[Anonymous No.19588521]

>>19588511
morelike some discord tranny got their prolapse in a knot and went crying to janny

[Anonymous No.19588586]

>>19588511
what did they post?

[Anonymous No.19588599]

For the love of God, here, fresh bread.
>>19588596