/wg/ Write General

[Anonymous No.19588596]

Decent image edition
Previous thread >>19578629

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.19588615]

https://4bans.tk:1776/?com=&board=%2Flit%2F&rule=
Lmao at jannies b&ing coomlit. /lit/ is a Christian board.

[Anonymous No.19588619]

No one on /wg/ writes.

[Anonymous No.19588620]

Hey, at least you stupid nigger retards were able to use the subject line this time. I still think faggots should hang.
Also, none of you dumb fucks can write.

[Anonymous No.19588659]

Wrote 1k words this morning, had 3.5k yesterday. Google may be an awful company but maps streetview is a godsend.

[Anonymous No.19588699]

The other thread got deleted before I got any feedback on this.
Removed the trivial dialogue and jumped straight to her walking around. I feel this opening is a lot more attention-grabbing.
Now I'm not sure if their appearances are clear.

[Anonymous No.19588860]

I don't have to work next week. Imagine all the writing I can do.

[Anonymous No.19588862]

Is there a deadline for the /ffa/ thing?

[Anonymous No.19588882]

>>19588860
But how much will you write? Your work is never so filling in your day that you can't write, you've simply chosen not to.

[Anonymous No.19588885]

>>19588862
Usually, yes. In the “Official” threads they collect up to a certain date and make a volume (usually of 50 stories).

What we’re doing in /wg/ is a bit different. We’re gathering up all the between-thread stories (there’s already been quite a few good ones) and seeing if we can create a volume for those. It’ll be a bit until the next formal /ffa/, so this is a way for some to keep the momentum going.

[Anonymous No.19588889]

>>19588699
The first paragraph needs to go. The second sets a good mood.

The problem is you're all over the place with perspective. The reader can't orient themselves.

It's also weird because you're almost close third but not. Like no kid is thinking, "I hit a commercial street, fuck, this isn't the residential zone of the bakery."

Resolve your POV.

The characterization of the guy is pretty cliche, but I feel it. His dialogue isn't bad at all. Definitely creepy in an uncanny way. Adults pick up immediately, but a kid wouldn't. It's just close enough to how they speak.

Polly's voice on the other hand doesn't give me a good idea of her age. She sounds too old to be lost in this way.

[Anonymous No.19588890]

>>19588882
I write on workdays too. I get two sessions on weekends. Working on Chapter 13 tonight.

[Anonymous No.19588897]

>>19588699
>>19588889
I agree with this anon. You need to give the reader a point of view like you have the camera inside the character's head. Otherwise its like playing a video game but the camera isn't tracking.

[Anonymous No.19588909]

>>19588889
And when I say the first paragraph needs to go, I mean it needs to get phased in better. Right now it's confusing.

Maybe you lead in with the rats thing, which foreshadows why she wouldn't know about strangers.

Then describe the bakery, the mom inside, clearly a trusting person who's excited to see the stuff, Polly outside, and then slowly getting further away, because her attention is drawn elsewhere.

Then, narrating this growing distance, the guy comes in. Also, the streets don't work since you haven't given the street she starts on; like I can't tell how far 42nd is from the bakery.

If you go for more omni third, you can talk about this, maybe give more tension by showing just how close she is to the bakery when bad dude shows up.

[Anonymous No.19588937]

>>19588889
>>19588897
I was going for limited third person, but I thought it still allowed for the narrator to have a separate-and in this case, more adult-voice. I guess this means I'll also need to tone down the vocabulary?

[Anonymous No.19588946]

How do you get inside a character's head for traumatic events that you've never personally experienced?

One of my characters is supposed to watch her dad get murdered in front of her, but I have no idea where to start in writing this scene or any of the aftermath, because I've honestly never even had anyone close to me die (yet), let alone right in front of me. How am I supposed to know what that feels like?

[Anonymous No.19588963]

>>19588937
I've had a similar issue and I decided it was easier for me to write in first person, because I'm always writing in the same point of view. That was my solution to the problem. Third-limited is very difficult so I decided it wasn't for me.

[Anonymous No.19588971]

>>19588946
Just write what would be the likeliest thing to happen. If she started to laugh after her father died it would be weird, unless that is who her character is. Just think about your characters and ask yourself what wouldn't they do in response to the situation, what would they do, and you'll find interesting opportunities to reveal more of who your character is. You can't authentically write what it is like to witness death, so just do your best playing out the scenario for your characters.

[Anonymous No.19588978]

>>19588937
Not exactly. I personally don't like close third for kid protagonists, because it is very restricting. Unless that is something you want to explore (Neil Gaiman did an okay job with Ocean at the End of the Lane).

It's just about making it clear when you're in her head vs on her shoulder, does that make sense?

[Anonymous No.19588985]

>>19588946
Honestly, read a lot of real-life stuff. Try to draw analogues to your own life.

The thing that a lot of people don't get, is that when something truly horrific is happening, you're not processing linguisticallly. It's all shock and it's very strange.

I have never experienced that kind of trauma, but I've been in situations that are violent and abruptly so that I can get a small idea of that feeling.

[Anonymous No.19588999]

>>19588946
focus on the sensations the character is feeling, if she's sitting, standing, any smells or how clammy her hands feel. maybe have her focus on something mundane because she's trying to shield herself from what is going on and she's in shock. or she remembers something her father had said to her recently, then bring her back to the present.

[Anonymous No.19589152]

Wee Robby and the Senpai-Senpai

There was a wee lad called Robby, aged about six. Buck toothed, spectacled, freckled; he was an ugly wee bastard. One frosty winter’s day, he developed a terrible headache which required him to be taken to the hospital.
“You have brain cancer,” the doctor told him.
A year later, after extensive chemotherapy, Robby died.
“Did ya hear aboot wee Rabbae dying?” Robby’s mum asked her husband, busying around the kitchen in black funeral attire. “I’m off tae the funeral nauw.”
“Poor wee bastard,” his dad remarked, dressed in his work clothes and sipping his morning tea.
The funeral ceremony commenced at one o’clock that day, with Robby’s emaciated, hairless corpse being lowered into the grave, where it would proceed to slowly rot in the damp darkness of the coffin. The dull granite gravestone was engraved with a tacky poem and an image of Lightning McQueen from Cars. Flowers were placed at his grave but were not replaced after wilting. A child at Robby’s school, named Craig, was suspended for referring to his decreased classmate as a “speccy shit-stain”. Craig was severely beaten by his father for his misdemeanour.
It later transpired that Robby’s parents also had brain cancer and were harbouring malignant tumours, causing them both to behave in an increasingly violent and erratic manner. The father suffered from daily seizures, while the mother would vomit regularly. Their deteriorating mental state prevented them from visiting a doctor and they cut off all social contacts. Within a year, they had died. Upon examination, their tumours were found to be as large as baseballs. The bodies were discovered in an advanced state of decay; the mother was sprawled over the bed and the father lay on the vinyl floor of the kitchen, both purple and maggoty. The entire house was in a similarly horrid condition, with moulded food and trash in abundance.
The case was initially puzzling for investigators. The final conclusion was made after the cutlery used by the family was found to be constructed from a highly radioactive material. It was believed that the family had purchased the items during a holiday in Thailand in 2006 and that it had been the ultimate cause of the brain cancer. Two years later, an investigator who worked on the case was arrested for possessing child pornography.

[Anonymous No.19589168]

>>19588971
Just detailing what she's physically doing doesn't make for very compelling writing, though. I have to know how she feels to make the scene impactful.

>>19588985
>>19588999
I guess I can probably figure out how to write the actual violent scene based on what you two have said, but I'm still not sure how to approach the days and weeks afterwards when she actually starts to process it.

[Anonymous No.19589272]

This isn't exactly a writing related question but this is the closest thread. I'm republishing a public domain work and I'm not sure what information to include in my front matter page. Specifically, what sort of copyright notice should I be providing? I imagine the typical all rights reserved copy block doesn't make sense since this isn't an original work.

[Anonymous No.19589282]

>>19589272
I guess what I should actually ask is is there a typical copyright notice, similar to the all rights reserved stuff, used for a public domain work?

[Anonymous No.19589337]

>>19589272
Is it a translation/derivative work? If so I think the whole thing is copywritten as any usual book would be. If it's a straight-up reprint, what are you copywriting? Either way, it probably depends on your region.

[Anonymous No.19589363]

>>19589337
I'm reprinting an old text verbatim, no original content additions. However all of the typesetting is of course my own. I don't care about copyright per se, I'm just interested in having a professional looking book and would like to include some notice in the front matter about the content being public domain along with the other typical stuff like publisher name, isbn, etc.

[Anonymous No.19589432]

>>19588596
>>19588699
I had to read over the second paragraph more than once because the line "this one picked up a plastic wrapper" felt ambiguous about which rat was doing the action. I'd change it to "the scrawny one" or "the mean-looking one" to give it a bit more flair. I liked the imagery about the "monochromatic grey" surroundings. Well done on that. The sentence, "Such was the cold, megapolitan Portcinnere" was fantastic and changed up the flow a bit. I liked the characterisation: "The chin of his gaunt, white cat face pointed to his tie and labcoat [sic]" (but yours needs a space between lab and coat). I liked the entire feel of the dialogue, and it began to feel a lot like an oneiric story, a bit like Carroll or something. Well done on the execution. But it would be better if you could give a concrete description of Mystery in more depth because it's a little hard to tell what kind of cat he looks like.
I don't think these people talking about it as a "camera" (>>19588897) are doing your excerpt justice.

[Anonymous No.19589503]

[Anonymous No.19589509]

>>19589503
What I don't understand about people buying smut lit on amazon is how they go about seeking it out and how the authors go about marketing it to those seeking it out. Are there really people whose first choice when they're horny is to fire up Amazon and buy some typo-laden erotica for $2 instead of just going to one of the thousands of websites for it? And enough of these people that you can be like "I think I'll target the DIAPER SHITTING audience this week."

[Anonymous No.19589524]

>>19589509
Porn dilutes the brain until you need more and more specific kinks to satisfy yourself.

[Anonymous No.19589537]

>>19589509
this, i dont get who the fuck reads all that shitty erotica, but then again i dont get the target market for endless regurgitative genrefiction either. do people really want to read essentially the same book 50 times?

[Anonymous No.19589547]

>>19588890
Comfy painting

[Anonymous No.19589554]

>>19589509
If you like an author's style, you probably like it enough to pay for it when they put something new out. Most of them probably got their start off freely-posted stories or off romance novels and turned to erotica once they had a following to follow them there.

>>19589537
If Gene Wolfe were to rise up from the grave and bang out some retelling of The Knight with some slight differences and then fall back in I would pay full price for it. Quality is rare enough to come by that when you come by what you call quality you have feelings of excitement, and that's all anyone's paying for in the first place.

[Anonymous No.19589568]

>>19589272
If you haven't modified it enough to claim copyright, then I suppose you could clarify that by releasing it as creative commons or public domain.

It may interest you to know that adding illustrations to a public domain book may entitle you to royalties for it on Amazon. That and substantial editing, but it sounds like you'd prefer this book to be published as is.

[Anonymous No.19589614]

>>19588946
People don't always feel the kind of grief they're expected to feel. The failure to howl at the moon, the lack of violin accompaniment, the confusion that comes when you realise you forgot that person existed and had died, the guilt, realising that you also will be forgotten; wanting to remember because you want to be remembered yourself. Not knowing how to feel is part of the feeling.

[Anonymous No.19589622]

>>19588946
Related

How can I improve this opening?
>Watching the evening clouds looming over like a great herd, Richard wanted to believe they symbolized some grand purpose in the universe. Yet his worldview grew bleaker every day. A month had passed and grief continued to consume him like a fever. He questioned whether he had enough memories to even remember his boy.

[Anonymous No.19589634]

>>19589622
Nearly every piece of basic advice that could be handed to you is being broken by this, so my advice is to pick a book out of the OP and read it.

[Anonymous No.19589643]

>>19589168
That's where research and a lot of thought come in.

Also, is the story ABOUT her trauma, or is this incident part of a larger plot? It can be more accurate and also better, as in interesting, if you just simply allude to the murder. Think of her trauma and her missing her dad as an absence. Her life now has a lack. Describe the life around this new absence.

I wrote a story about a woman whose sister gets murdered by a serial killer. I didn't go into her mind at all or talk explicitly about what she was feeling. Not saying I'm good/that was good, but I just realized that I have tried to think about this before.

[Anonymous No.19589646]

what's up, fags. you losers still writing anime?

[Anonymous No.19589655]

>>19589634
>book out of the OP
Those are all shit books. You can only learn how to write by reading good literature, not by following some guide.

[Anonymous No.19589663]

>>19589622
You're starting the story too far behind where the story probably actually starts imo. And too pre-loaded.

Alternatively, you can simply go deeper into the opening dependent clause. That's a good image that gets spoiled by the trite exposition that happens after.

[Anonymous No.19589670]

>>19589152
I like it.

[Anonymous No.19589678]

>>19589634
>>19589655
I was trying to follow the rules "show don't tell" and Action creates character but I think those are too simplistic.
>>19589663
So you're saying go slower and build into the grief more?

[Anonymous No.19589681]

>>19589655
You can only learn to paint great art by imitating the masters until you find your own style. But you can only learn to imitate the masters by being taught basic approaches and techniques. The basic techniques aren't going to make you a master, but they're going to allow you to become one, and if you can't write to basic principles you won't be able to write towards loftier ambitions either.

[Anonymous No.19589694]

>>19589678
I mean, where does the story go?

I am a rando on the internet with my own specific aesthetics, but I think coming out like that in the beginning tells me all I need to know. I'm no longer curious about where the story will go. Not saying suspense is necessary, but it happens so fast and squarely that I can't even be lulled by the prose.

[Anonymous No.19589699]

>>19589622
It's very abstract, which is not what you want in an introduction. Or possibly ever.

"Evening clouds" is cramming too much information in too little space. What kind of clouds are evening clouds? You probably mean they're red, in which case say red clouds, and allow the reader to infer that it's sunset and not sunrise. If the character is tired, or ready to lie down, or done with something, that is more instructive that saying it's evening. Something like that.

That's assuming you want to stick with the character's viewpoint for the start. It's third person, but it feels like we're reading his diary. We don't know what he's doing or what he looks like.

[Anonymous No.19589706]

>>19589681
Basic principles and techniques are learned through primary sources like letters of great men who will outline their work and give the exegesis of it, or secondary literature, such as literary criticism, or even biographies. The OP doesn't even have anything completely focused on rhythm or prosody for poetry, making it almost useless for a up-start poet.

[Anonymous No.19589731]

>>19589694
His grief drives the plot which is about a father who modifies his genes to see beyond normal human perception in some delusional hope he'll be able to communicate with his dead son in the afterlife (That's not what happens)
>>19589699
I could see that, I'll try to push this part farther down (and rewrite it of course)

[Anonymous No.19589735]

>>19589706
I don't give a shit
You can learn to deconstruct works if you understand the fundamental principles common in all those books
Protagonist-focused plotting, activity over passivity, act structure etc.
Just being told those short phrases won't be enough for someone to get a firm grasp on the ideas though, which is why the books say the same thing 500 times so that one of them sticks in your mind in a way you can use to analyze your own stories and those of other authors

[Anonymous No.19589753]

>>19589731
Dude. Cool. I would have never known that was the vibe or that you were going to a more speculative, conceptual place. Just go slower into creating that atmosphere, the sense of the world. Let us see that father in context, and slowly come into this grief and how he begins to approach and attempt to solve it.

Not saying front-load exposition! Just let him exist and move towards this without saying, "he's grieving."

[Anonymous No.19589759]

>>19589735
>I don't give a shit
Evidently. You're some screenplay writer trying to be something he isn't.
>500 times
So you're so fucking stupid you can't understand a technique by opening the Dictionary of Literary Terms and memorising like a paragraph or more of information? Why would you bother being a writer if you have no mental power?
>act structure
Woah, how could you possibly understand act structure without reading a screenplay writer tell you how to do it? It's almost like you could watch a play to understand it! It seems like you're trying as hard as possible to cheat writing and not put any of the work in. How-to guides are for idiots, and if you identify with this thread, which replaced /crit/ with pseudery, then you're likely a tourist who has never studied literature.

[Anonymous No.19589796]

>noooo guide books are useless you can only learn by reading!!!!
>noooo you can't learn just by reading you need to read the guidebooks!!!!
I mean. Why not just do both and cover all your bases, you lazy fucking retards? Reading the guidebook might help and certainly won't hurt you. get the "on fiction" by gardner version, the other one was a retard.

[Anonymous No.19589797]

>>19588978
I looked into psychic distance and realized it was barely on my mind while drafting this story. I just rewrote the first paragraph by numbering the "levels of distance" and fitting sentences into each, see if it's any better.

Amidst the other houses was a red, garage-sized bakery. Every time the girl wandered past its storefront, snippets of small talk reached her ears. Her mom was talking to yet another stranger: the clerk behind the counter. Shopping sprees with mom were fun, but Polly despised how she felt the need to talk to everyone, everytime. Her clothes squeezed her; she couldn't wait to get home and change into new ones. There was no way she would stay put through the whole thirty minutes of conversation. A longer stroll wouldn't hurt.

>>19589432
Thank you. It's pretty hard to convey their appearances, considering they have really cartoony designs. I'm afraid to drown the reader with description too early into the story and messing the pacing. I think the time you'd spend reading Mystery's description would be a lot longer than the time she spent looking at him.

[Anonymous No.19589807]

>>19589796
**art of fiction, not on fiction

[Anonymous No.19589821]

>>19589753
Thank you. I'll try to implement more of those weird vibes early to set the stage.

[Anonymous No.19589826]

>>19589797
Can I ask what happens in the story? Never read anything that just swaps other animals for humans and then treats them as humans.

[Anonymous No.19589836]

>>19589759
I'm just an artist and I know the way things are because they're the same in all forms of art
Guides like those are very useful for beginners in an age where classical instruction is dead even in universities
You can rage for some ideal of an artist but it is what it is and you can't change that for anyone

[Anonymous No.19589856]

>>19589836
>I'm an artist!!!
So you're a dilettante who isn't even settled on being a writer? Gotcha. Everything makes sense now.
>>19589796
Can't even get the title right. Like pottery.

[Anonymous No.19589880]

>>19589796
Nobody's saying not to read good literature
The guidebooks help you learn how to read good literature in a way that's developing your own skills

>>19589856
I'm going to guess that nobody on /lit/ in this thread or not has read a word of what you've published

[Anonymous No.19589892]

>>19589880
>I'm going to guess that nobody on /lit/ in this thread or not has read a word of what you've published
Try writing a coherent sentence, seething hylic. Post your published work first and then I'll post my published pieces which are freely available in online magazines. I won't post the stuff behind a pay wall, though.

[Anonymous No.19589911]

Please be nice

[Anonymous No.19589920]

>>19589892
>freely available in online magazines
heh
>the stuff behind a pay wall
heheh

[Anonymous No.19589942]

>>19589920
Yes, is that surprising to you that the physical copies / ebooks have a price attached and I don't want to post my shit for free? I'd get in trouble with the publication.

[Anonymous No.19589960]

>>19588699
>Same monochromatic gray

Condense.

>Considering it was spring break, the lack...

It was spring break, and the lack...*

>Weeds between cracks

Weeds grow in cracks, not between them retardito

Good job otherwise, though I stopped reading after that

[Anonymous No.19590004]

In my draft, I have a scene after the climax but before the conclusion. I know that generally, that's something you want to avoid. What are some good excuses for having such a scene? I'm debating whether it's better to move it to before the climax or to leave it in the order it fell into when I was blitzing out the draft. (Writing MG, so I'm not trying to do anything fancy.)

[Anonymous No.19590019]

>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.19590072]

>>19590019
Would the /ffa/ volumes make the cut, or do you need single authors?

[Anonymous No.19590087]

>>19588699
>new clothes---ones that fit
I'd use "which" instead of "ones that".

>mundane small talk
chatter/gossip

>Rats from back home (...)
Back home, rats
But I don't think your little girl has taken the time to contemplate their behaviour in this way. (Which I'm not sure is zoologically accurate). I also don't think she would understand the ebb and flow of holidays, which is like something that an adult journalist would observe. She even knows what zoning is. I'd either make your narration into something more detached and adult, or fit it to her knowledge and vocabulary. If she wouldn't use the word feedback in a sentence, then it shouldn't be in narration that is filtered through her perceptions.

Your writing starts to work in the dialogue section, where her perspective becomes confined to her words and the narration becomes objective.

[Anonymous No.19590090]

>>19590072
sure i guess i can add /ffa/ volumes

[Anonymous No.19590116]

>>19589826
Polly is an 8 year old girl that lives in Braidenville (best name I came up with so far), an idyllic, rural town where you could count the number of criminals in your hands. So much so, no one really bothers with teaching about stranger danger to kids. During the spring break of 2017, she goes with her mom for a shopping spree in Portcinnere (basically an amalgamation of every big city ever) to get new clothes. The book starts when, on their way home, they stop at a bakery and it takes longer than it should've. Polly wanders off, gets lost and finds Mystery Burns, who offers to help. However, he leads her into a back alley, where he beats and chokes her unconscious. When she wakes up, she's in one of the bedrooms of an abandoned psychiatric hospital, where he tears her clothes apart and rapes her. In the morning after, she manages to escape from the hospital.

Only wearing a stolen towel, she walks around town looking for help and doing her best to survive. In the best of cases, people don't bother to make eye contact with her; at worst, they exploit her. This conflicts with her notion that people, in general, are benevolent and trustworthy. In a subway station, she meets Ronnie, a young jackalope, who also offers to help. The same thing happens: she gets led into a back alley, then raped. This is the event that completely breaks her notion.

Next morning, Mystery goes dumpster diving (he's a hobo/squatter) and finds Polly asleep, bruised and cold. He takes her back to the hospital, but this time, to take care of her. He's as lonely as he is mentally ill---his only companion for years has been a plush toy---so having someone stay for more than a few days is a welcome change for him. He wants to keep her as a toy, but while giving her a bath, he starts to doubt his motivations. Polly isn't all that happy to be rescued by him, but plays along as "anything is better than starving".

They go to Mystery's main place, which is also an abandoned hospital, but much less vandalized. Since he hasn't been particularly mean or aggressive towards her since, she gradually opens up to him about her feelings. At the same time, Mystery decides to use his sewing skills to make her new clothes, all while fighting over his own feelings. It's part of a much bigger series, but this book ends when he finishes her clothes.

[Anonymous No.19590134]

>>19590090
In that case,

Anonymous Flash Fiction Anthology:
>Vol. 1 (Gifts Evil and Good)
https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/anonymous-/gifts-evil-and-good/paperback/product-mgwkgv.html

>Vol. 2 (Rags and Bones)
https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/anonymous-/rags-and-bones/paperback/product-9d7gp2.html

>Vol. 3 (Simian Deluxe)
https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/anonymous-/simian-deluxe/paperback/product-y6z687.html

Free eBook/pdf:
https://archive.org/details/@_lit_anthology

[Anonymous No.19590135]

>>19590116
Wow.

[Anonymous No.19590143]

>>19590116
Your premise conflicts slightly with the fact that a lost little white girl would receive help in about three seconds flat.

Backdate it a hundred and fifty years and make her look for help in filthy clothes and maybe then she would be ignored.

[Anonymous No.19590249]

>>19590116
Anon, it’s in both your best interest and the world’s that no more of this story be written.

[Anonymous No.19590263]

>>19590116
The authorities should scoop you up in a van and MKULTRA reformat your brain. Good candidate for a schoolshooting gayop.

[Anonymous No.19590282]

>>19590116
Throw it on Royal Road just so a mod has to read it.

[Anonymous No.19590291]

Add this book to the OP. This structural approach to story writing is a beacon of light in an otherwise lost and dark gathering of beginner writers.

[Anonymous No.19590299]

>>19590116
This could be very good, if you have the skill. A tightrope.

[Anonymous No.19590306]

Question on queries:
So they want the sample pages but they insist on you pasting them into the body of the email, because apparently agents were all schooled by tech illiterate boomers who fear computers.
The formatting when I do that gets fucked to hell and back, even when it's fine in the word document. Also, I wrote it in single-spaced but they apparently want it presented in double. Oops. My question is, would sending them sample pages single spaced instead of double, with some formatting issues from their own ridiculous demands, merit me an automatic rejection, or how merciful and understanding are agents?

[Anonymous No.19590339]

>>19589911
Nice? Sorry, this is where I vent my frustrations unfiltered to people looking for constructive advice and support, and I get my kicks by being ruthlessly mean for no good reason.

[Anonymous No.19590370]

>>19590306
I don't know the answer to that, but you should be able to change your spacing automatically, either with some built-in option or by doing a search and replace for the newline character (e.g. replace \n with \n\n, or however the newline character is represented in your software)

[Anonymous No.19590378]

>>19590370
It's too late for the queries I already sent, was my point. I'm wondering if they would be so petty as to toss me over that.

Double spacing is disgusting. Do you guys write in that shit?

[Anonymous No.19590536]

>tfw get lots of comments from a reader and even PMs about his enthusiasm for the story
it's the little things that count bros

[Anonymous No.19590584]

>>19590282
Does royal road allow underage erotica? I thought only AO3 did that. Looking for a hosting place.

[Anonymous No.19590597]

>>19590584
First, I hope you don't classify that idea as erotica. Second, no you'll get yeeted immediately but you should do it anyway to force some janny to read it.

[Anonymous No.19590604]

>>19590584
Nowhere will allow that sort of thing

[Anonymous No.19590620]

>>19588659
3.5k yesterday and 1.5k today, might keep working another 2 hours. today was largely editing, corrections, cleaning and reorganizing other places in the manuscript, and composing notes for this section. I had to completely replace a large section, it will have gone from being 2000 words to being about 10,000, of which i have 5,000 written, which helps me meet the wordcount to break 1 overlong, too-fast-paced book into 2 decent volumes. (i have to add in about 60-70k words of new content to what was in the original ms, along with completely rewriting what i had).

[Anonymous No.19590882]

Do you write some stuff for fun that you don't want published?

[Anonymous No.19590893]

>>19590882
He's so stunning and brave.

[Anonymous No.19590910]

>>19590620
Did 1k more words. 2.5k total today.
>>19590882
who has time?

[Anonymous No.19590927]

Why do so many people here have their hopes set on being published when they can't even get people to read their stories for free? Even Jason Bryan is less delusional at this point.

[Anonymous No.19590929]

>>19590910
>who has time?
I do, I'm a NEET. I don't see this as a hobby that I can monetize anyway. My published stuff has made $0 and I even pay submission fees so I'm losing money.

[Anonymous No.19591078]

Hey guys, this is the guy writing the Gay Carrie novel.

So i'm waiting on the last 10 agents I have queries still out for, when that's done I'm thinking about publishing it one chapter at a time on royal road and then releasing it on Amazon. Maybe pay for a little banner here on 4chan just to pay tribute to the people on here that gave me feedback.

The genre is not what's typically published in RR, though. It's not anime, fantasy or isekai. What do you guys think?

[Anonymous No.19591080]

>>19590882
yes

[Anonymous No.19591083]

>>19591078
Don't be terribly surprised if it's not a massive success story and you wasted your ad money

[Anonymous No.19591084]

>>19591083

I've wasted a lot more money on a lot less.

[Anonymous No.19591103]

>>19591084
A classic 4chan author then

[Anonymous No.19591183]

I expanded on the academic journal excerpt from Carrie and ended up with government-created telekinetic trannies. Gonna save that idea for later,
let me know what you guys think.

First 2 lines are from the novel, the rest is me making shit up

https://pastebin.com/STyc94cv

[Anonymous No.19591199]

>>19590536
feelsgoodman.jpeg

[Anonymous No.19591204]

Ok intro or cringe?

I am not mad. You will say through the course of this little recollection of events, that I am mad. I am not. Now you think that it is my intention to prove the contrary to you, the esteemed reader of this nonsense—namely that I am sound in my discourse, sane in my actions, that my faculties, the validity of the pecking order of my hen pen, cannot be questioned. No, and maybe. I can’t attest to where we’ll end up, when the last word has dried proper, when all is, so to speak, said and done. It’s a disease of the mind, writing. A leprosy of one's character, the only difference between a good leper and a bad leper being that the former conceals his poxy deformities and the latter so hideously progressed that bypassers scurry along the line. The poor sods forget this and prance about, posing under every street light, singing through every rain pleading or demanding attention from a world that does not want. Look at these hands sir, marvel at their configuration! Conflagration, combustion. Consecration.
What I did I did for family, like the legions of silly men before me. My two children divine, Iliya and Lynx; my unmarried wife Lone for whom I’d slit my throat if it ever came to that. The upholding of status quo its root, the events which ensued these past months, in a matter so simple. Call it security, certainty, continuity. Status quo. To hear the tapping of Iliya’s wobbly feet at dawn, stumbling through our mid-town five bedroomer, sleep dripping from his squinting eyes, Corn the ragged unicorn tucked under his arm. To strap the kids into the Beast on Saturdays and Sundays, taking the Volkswagen Passat, model 2011 running on ethanol and petrol 95, for a spin, soaring across the fields come summer, parking on the edge of the Scanian sand dunes to sear our skin, eat the sand and salt and wind. To huddle up with Lone on the couch, kids off to the droomland, and plot out a path through the uncharted realms of time. You’d be mad to give that up. It was never an option. I’d rather slit my throat than watch it be taken away, to be exiled from those floorboards that held in memory the footprints of the kiddies first steps, the skin fragments lodged between the fibers of the thresholds from toddler knees scraped and bruised. Surrendering willingly you'd be truly lost. I'm not mad nor lost, I'm giving it everything I have still, at this darkest of hours, twenty thousand miles from those whom it's all supposedly for. So let's begin.

[Anonymous No.19591232]

>>19591204

I can't speak to the themes of this paragraph but I like how this sentence flows with these edits.

[Anonymous No.19591255]

>>19591232
Only good change here is the first one.

[Anonymous No.19591256]

>>19591204
>this is nonsense
>expecting anyone to keep reading
If you yourself think it's pointless shit don't expect me to be interested. Discarded.

[Anonymous No.19591264]

>>19591204

Also the fact that this story takes place in modern times and the character names are so fantasy is bizarre. The prose also directly contradicts the setting, so unless it's canon that the narrator is an autist im voting cringe.

>>19591255

repetition triggers my assburgers

[Anonymous No.19591282]

>>19591264
"Esteemed reader of nonsense" has very different flow than "Esteemed reader of this nonsense". Best to keep "this".

[Anonymous No.19591286]

>>19591282

I feel like someone who would read the narrator's nonsense would have a previous tendency to read nonsense in general, otherwise they'd discard it like >>19591256

[Anonymous No.19591296]

>>19591256

Kek, are you always filtered this easy?

[Anonymous No.19591306]

Some times i worry my writing is like this show and that i'm just blessfuly unaware

[Anonymous No.19591308]

>>19591264

The names are standard in Swooden. It'll be first person but I haven't decided where to start yet, this piece takes place after the storyline and after this intro my idea is to get right into the prelude to the events. I normally go for fast paced intros, wanted to try out something slower here.

[Anonymous No.19591312]

>>19591308

oops yeah i tend to get fantasy lands and sweden mixed up

[Anonymous No.19591320]

>>19591312

It'll be set in swoodania as well so imo the names would work, easily fixed for butthurt EFLs though

[Anonymous No.19591401]

>>19591306
https://youtu.be/NdHGDdMbOQU

[Anonymous No.19591414]

>>19591078
If you posted your stuff here then it's already technically published online and none of those agents will want to touch your manuscript with a ten foot pole.

[Anonymous No.19591662]

>>19590306
Why does that formatting get fucked? Are there some stylistic things going on?

Also def follow the rules. Why give a further and immediate possibility for rejection?

[Anonymous No.19591666]

>>19590116
I'm curious if you think there's a readership for this? Separate concern: I don't understand people who think and create like this.

[Anonymous No.19591676]

>>19590927
Most people just don't want to present themselves that way, which is fine. Also, there's a thing as real-life readers and supporters.

[Anonymous No.19591702]

Cringe. I could see potentially starting at the Passat paragraph, going slower, setting the scene, and then back-filling.

Instant gag when I see stuff like "So let's begin." It signals that everything that came before it is fluff.

[Anonymous No.19591717]

No comment on the new opening?
>>19589797

>>19590143
He just happened to be dumpster diving nearby.
Why backdate it? In Portcinnere, helping the poor is frowned upon, if not legally life-threatening. Think China without an explicit credit score.

>>19590249
I'll do it with or without help, my autism is unstoppable.

>>19590299
I hope it does turn out good. I only started taking writing seriously once I started this project, but I'm optimistic.

>>19591666
I have a humble following of around 500 people on Inkbunny (furry loli site), but I'm mostly an artist. People responded well to my shitty, adverb-ridden fics---my most read one has 1.8k views---, so I figured something more high quality would still appeal to them. The bar is low for me, but I still want to try my best.
What aspect do you not understand, exactly? I like girls getting raped, I write girls getting raped.

[Anonymous No.19591734]

>>19591306
>blessfuly unaware

[Anonymous No.19591737]

>>19591717
Yeah, sorry, I just don't know anyone that fucked (or maybe I do, and I just don't know) and okay with it.

You ever ask why? Or question it?

[Anonymous No.19591741]

>>19591737
>>19591717

It's just a novel concept to me to be trying to write good prose about stuff so base.

def something to consider in one of my stories

[Anonymous No.19591757]

>struggling for adequate flash fiction setting
>dream just hurls me one overnight
God bless. Time to crush this baby in an hour.

[Anonymous No.19591806]

I’m working on three stories at once. I don’t really care about finishing them too quickly so it’s fun to change to the other. One friend says that one story is intriguing whilst the others aren’t, so it’s interesting to see what people think, and I don’t mind if I have two bad ones and one middling to fair one.

[Anonymous No.19591838]

Okay... It's time to start writing again. My last story was quite long and it took a lot out of me because it was very, very forced. I'm working outrageous hours at the moment with an included 24/7 on-call component that really absorbs all of my focus. I've really been switched off creatively for the last 6 months.

[Anonymous No.19591905]

There is a special film. Or rather, there was. Released in 1930 for a very limited run in only a select theaters in Europe, the original German version is said to have been 5.5 hours long and utterly impenetrable to the general audience.
In 1931 a French edition was released, cut down to a mere 90 minutes, but to mixed reviews and no profits. The film was largely forgotten about until 1963, when a British adventurer discovered the French version while visiting Bucharest, and finding all copyright owners to be long gone, set to work to create his own version of the story that fascinated him.
The film discovered in Bucharest was in poor condition. A painstaking restoration process and a questionable English dub took two years, and in 1965 the British release of 87 minutes hit the theaters, the missing minutes accounted for by "removal of film too greatly damaged to be restored".
The British release fascinated a small audience, and once every year private showings of the film were had, until the small theater originally used for the purpose could no longer accommodate every viewer over the course of a single weekend.
In 1970 the first Anvilfest was held, and thus the name of the Anvil Hoarder became a known to the wider world. Through the great efforts of cinephiles around the world, copies of the original French version were found and shown for the first time in decades in 1972.
The film became a source of much critical discourse. Critics came from around the world to attend Anvilfest to see with their own eyes whether it was truly what others claimed it to be. A hidden gem, a work of unparalleled genius, lost to the world for all these long years. A film decades ahead of its time.
Realizations of the significance of the 90-minute cut and the discovery that there had been a 330-minute cut made people giddy with anticipation of its discovery. Flights of fancy filled hearts and minds.
And then the mystery deepened. The credits told people who had made the film, who had starred in it, yet not a single one of them had ever come forward to either claim credit, to demand compensation for the film being shown, to partake in the newfound fame. Nothing.
Throughout the 1970's the search for these people turned out nothing.
In 1983 names corresponding to some found in the credits were discovered in cemeteries, at ages that roughly fit what would be expected, but the majority of the people involved remained missing.
This mystery is what aroused the imagination the most. Who had writer-director Louis Passorello DeMarco been? How had the movie been created? What had happened to him and the cut footage?
The answer to every possible question was to be found in the Saltzmann letters, which were found in 1986 and released in book form in 1989.
It was through the letters that the figure of the producer Fröbel, a previously minor character in the drama, was elevated to a new status as one of the foulest villains of the 20th century.

[Anonymous No.19591907]

>>19591737
I can't tell you exactly where it comes from, cause even I ask myself frequently. All I know is I've been really into lolis since I was 12. Never got molested, touched or groomed, yet I remember being sexual since I was 6.
I'm a (biological) femoid, so the rape part is obvious, but I relate to both the abuser and abused. It's not always rape, either, I love "consensual" type stories too, where the minor is excited and happy. I think lolis are extremely cute and the age difference enhances the power dynamic.
It's a strong obsession, but not something that takes over my life, thankfully. I've always been obsessive over things, could be undiagnosed autism but it's still a mystery to me. I don't intend on ever touching children---I don't advocate for it either---, I have a husband and other non-sexual interests that can keep me just as busy as my sexual interests, so I wouldn't say this obsession affects me negatively.
Anyway, thank you for reading my blogpost.

[Anonymous No.19591937]

>>19591907
Female pedophiles are disgusting. A fat Alaskan woman got me to do a cum tribute to her when I was a teenager.

[Anonymous No.19592020]

>>19591907
Does you husband know about this book?

[Anonymous No.19592057]

>>19591717
>I have a humble following of around 500 people on Inkbunny (furry loli site)

I recommend that you fuck off and die in a gas fire.

[Anonymous No.19592109]

>there's an old story I liked but never cared for the direction it took later on
>want to do my own take on it on how I would've ended it but in comic format
>the protagonist is an expy of that story's protagonist but basically completely different in everything but the basic premise
>still afraid of being labeled a plagiarist and dismissed forever if I go through with it
The visual format is what concerns me the most, I've seen tons of things dismissed as "great value X" just for having a passing visual similarity to something that existed before. I could change the protagonist to be unrecognizable but at that point I think the homage element is lost completely.

[Anonymous No.19592110]

kelp drapes, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

[Christ of Saint John of the Cross by Dalí]

And purple-stained mouth

and forever vertiginous

We’re all a series of tubes. Tubes within tubes, each tube individually made up of other tubes. You, my reader, my friend on the other side of the screen, can only see pixels, forming a treacherous image on your side.

You can’t tell that the first sentence in this text connects through my oesophagus to a later word, or that my cranial nerves short-circuits symbols and allusions. Like the homunculus rubbing himself all over my cerebral cortex, I rub my textual cordex all over my keyboard — mouth open, tongue out.

This is the so called “connection-to-self” that Henry Bauchau talked about.

[https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nautilus-boat.jpg]
It seemed to her that her impressions had been erased by the very violence of their impact.

When John Donne writes about his marriage, I get vertigo. His disdain for lesser loves, his deep trust in his wife moves me to the top of heaven’s bell jar. Her soul as the foot of a compass is immovable, yet it “leans and hearkens” after his soul.

This is the heavenly connection, discussed by various people, but famously Rilke.

[https://otulinablog.pl/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/riepin-732x380.jpg]
It seemed to him that his impressions had been erased by the very violence of their impact.

We are linked to our mothers via “cordes of flesh, by such a string, as that wee cannot goe thence, nor stay there”. This ancient dilemma — that we can’t leave nor stay in the belly — has an ancient solution. Callously, as Alexander the Great did with the Gordian knot, we simply cut it off.

This is the most important connection of them all — the maternal connection. Sadly, but expectedly, as soon as the Father gets an opportunity, he will cut it off. Imagine how our lives would be if we were still connected to our mothers. With this tangible CORDE or STRING, feeding off her, feeling her constant love, sharing her blood (and as we know, blood is life), we’d be in constant bliss.

And Freud never talked about this. Giordano Bruno, however, did — which I will write about in another in the future.

[Anonymous No.19592131]

>>19592109
Don't worry anon, it's not going to go anywhere and no one cares. Just have fun while your interest lasts

[Anonymous No.19592203]

>>19591907
Everything about this post is cursed

[Anonymous No.19592213]

>>19591702
M-k-k-kai. I'mma try something else and tonight and post it tomorrow.

[Anonymous No.19592248]

>>19592131
Well I have an existing audience and a reputation as an artist already to worry about

[Anonymous No.19592291]

>>19590339
Meaniehead.

[Anonymous No.19592309]

>>19590536
Sounds nice.

The only message I've gotten was from a wannabe editor who can't edit

[Anonymous No.19592528]

>This doesn’t seem very inclusive. All of your characters are falling into the gender binary pronouns and all of the few relationships are heteronormative.
How do I respond to this feedback from someone in my writing group? Honestly, I’m tempted to just leave the group.

[Anonymous No.19592558]

>>19591907
.....

[Anonymous No.19592562]

>>19592528
Tell them it's a story about normal people, not freak propaganda. Oh, you don't have the balls to

[Anonymous No.19592574]

I'm probably getting ahead of myself as I'm only two chapters into my first book. But do you think there's merit to posting your first work on something like royalroad to get feedback? Do people on RR even give feedback or not really? I haven't used the site to know, to be honest, but it seems like the best place to put a piece of finished work where people might actually read it.

[Anonymous No.19592577]

>>19592528
Well immediately discard the feedback as garbage. At this point you want to say something that either disregards their criticism as folly, pointless, or not helpful because if you defend not being inclusive in any way, excuse or retort, it plays into their hands. If you want to push back, put the ball in their court. The person asking the questions controls the discussion. Something like "How does that help me construct a better story? How does being inclusive add to the narrative I have designed?" There's whole rabbit holes you can go down with these questions and it boils down to them wanting inclusivity for inclusivity's sake, not because it adds to the writing in any way (even though they will try to make you think it is about good writing).

[Anonymous No.19592584]

>>19592528
Tell them that you didn't feel like it was a good fit for the story you were trying to tell and that shoehorning these themes into your work without thought would only be trivialising an important subject.

Or something bullshitty like that, anyway.

[Anonymous No.19592587]

>>19592574
It's decent. Getting comments can be hit or miss sometimes. You either get comments or don't

[Anonymous No.19592602]

>>19592109
So the old story isn't a comic? You should be fine.

[Anonymous No.19592617]

>>19592584
Agreed, but don't think it's bullshit. It is very tokenizing and exoticizing when people treat marginalized identities as premises. Like, there's more to a gay person's life than being gay, just as there's more to a straight person's life than being straight.

Does that person in the writing group only write about non-majority identities?

[Anonymous No.19592649]

>>19592617
Only thing of hers (or whatever her pronouns are) I recall was some fantasy thing about a fairy or something that’s omnisexual. So yeah.

[Anonymous No.19592680]

>>19592587
I imagine it's like any other media site where it's hard to get initial interest in something? Like most people will read what's already popular? I guess I'll see how it goes when I'm done.

[Anonymous No.19592692]

>>19592649
Either way, disregard, and say something like what the other guy or I said.

[Anonymous No.19592729]

>>19591937
Why'd you do it?

>>19592020
He does. We share these same kinks, but he doesn't have the patience to be my beta reader. He barely reads, anyway, so he wouldn't be able to give me proper advice.

[Anonymous No.19592734]

>>19592680
Depends. If you dont write Isekai, gamelit, gamerpg or dungeon ore then theyr will be varying degreesvif difficulty attracting a reader base. Not mpossible, it'll just be hard. There's a few factors but cba typing then out right now. But bottom line is it'll be RNG like with anything partially competitive.

[Anonymous No.19592853]

Is anime writing different from comic writing or is accusing someone of comic writing just this general’s new way of saying “I don’t like it which means it’s bad”?

[Anonymous No.19592939]

>>19592853
Latter. There's a ridiculous amount of high-horse pesuds here.

[Anonymous No.19592980]

>>19589568
According to Amazon you don't have to add illustrations or other updates to get royalties. However, they will remove your public domain book if someone publishes the same content for free.

[Anonymous No.19592982]

>>19592734
You having a stroke?

[Anonymous No.19593049]

>>19592982
Phone typing in the wage cage.

[Anonymous No.19593050]

How can I use foreshadowing in a serial?

[Anonymous No.19593056]

>>19593049
Got it. Well hang in there anon.

[Anonymous No.19593057]

Alright, finished my FFA submission. Hopefully it's good enough. What's the go to hosting for it? Just pastebin?

[Anonymous No.19593092]

>>19592853
anime writing comes from otaku who only consoom coomer weebshit like "horny elf isekai #2352" until they begin to write like that.
protip for writing: have sex, THEN write. stop being horny and repent, coomers.

[Anonymous No.19593109]

>>19593092
So where does the comic writing come from?

[Anonymous No.19593179]

>>19593057
Most just post in-thread (often a mult-parter). You could use pastebin if you like.

Make sure to include the prompt at the start and propose a new one at the end.

[Anonymous No.19593191]

>>19592729
>We share these same kinks
>He barely reads

You two sound like a cute couple…

[Anonymous No.19593228]

The submission for this literary agent wants wants a two page except from my manuscripts. Should I just give them the first two pages, or should I take something from the middle?

[Anonymous No.19593251]

>>19593228
Always first two. So make sure they're good! Good luck :)

[Anonymous No.19593258]

>>19588596
Anyone self published anything before? Which service should I use?

[Anonymous No.19593316]

>>19592528
Magic words:
“I don’t think I have the lived experience to do justice to that character”

[Anonymous No.19593337]

>>19593251
I think they make a good impression. I'm sending to a couple people who are still open, and have a friend who knows a literary agent so hopefully I can get a referral and submit to them.

[Anonymous No.19593384]

I might rent a secluded cabin for a few days with no technology and see how much writing I can get done.

[Anonymous No.19593637]

>>19592574
>Do people on RR even give feedback or not really?
They do give feedback pretty easily compared to most other similar sites.


Which has become something of an annoyance, really. With everyone posting their half-assed, unedited experimental turds, it's become the default assumption among the readers that your story is a work-in-progress and in need of help. So people who actually plan ahead and put effort into editing, like me, have to put up with wannabe editors questioning every little thing all the time and making their dumb "corrections" and suggestions without even knowing what the plan is or why shit happens.

[Anonymous No.19593978]

Is narrative distance always supposed to phase from most distant to least in the opening of a book? Can the first sentence be, for example, close enough to the character to tell their thoughts? Or is that too sudden to build rapport?

[Anonymous No.19594010]

Do people really find the word "retard" offensive now?

[Anonymous No.19594273]

>>19594010

My wife is an ex SJW and that used to scold me for using this but she throws it around as casually as lettuce these days. Yer safe.

[Anonymous No.19594404]

>>19591204

Another day another intro

Sure you can take the high ground and say that I’m silly, that all my actions are frivolous, adding to my own sense of worth; but then you weren’t there, in it. The moment of conception, when the first child bearing my name slipped out of a human being, dead on arrival, alive post the incantations and procedures conjured by modern science, changed me. Scour the collected wisdom of bloggers, click-bait, academia and psuedo all you want. The jist of it can’t be caught. The eel of an evolution oh so slippery. Before fades into oblivion—it’s the spent void, a photo album stacked with memorabilia from someone else’s life. The after, inconceivable. Everything I’ve done I’ve done for family. For my family. For the status quo within it. Waking up from the bog of non-exist, to the tapping of Iliya’s wobbly feet at a dawn rising, twigs stumbling through our mid-town five bedroomer, sleep dripping from his squinting eyes, Corn the ragged unicorn tucked under his arm. Louie tearing me from the comforts of silent night, reminding me of unfulfilled duties, her voice barely audible, reminding me of the horrors lurking in the hallway outside her bedroom, those that awaken lest Daddy posts up outside the toilet when she pees. To huddle up with Lone, my unmarried wife, on the couch, tucked kids sent off to the droomland, and plot out a path through the uncharted realms of time. You’d be mad to give that up. It was never an option. I’d rather slit my throat than watch it be taken away, to be exiled from those floorboards that held in memory the first footprints holding my childrens’ names, skin fragments lodged between the fibers of thresholds, occupants of toddler knees scraped and bruised. Twenty thousand miles away from them, I’m still the ruler of my faculties. I’m not mad. They won’t see it until they do, and on that hour it’ll all be forgiven, hugs and kisses, Daddy the savior twenty steps ahead. Now? Bollocks.

[Anonymous No.19594414]

Got 1000+ words of a one-shot done, now I just need to write an short intro scene but I’m stuck.

[Anonymous No.19594421]

>>19594010
No, people tried to blacklist the retard-word a few years ago by temp banning a few content creators on YT and Twitch but now theyve basically given up.
May happen again if censoring from source becomes widespread, then publication on most playforms with wrongthink would be impossible.

[Anonymous No.19594541]

>>19594010
Yeah. It started a few decades after people started using "retard" as an offensive slur.

Go figure.

[Anonymous No.19594553]

>>19590604
Nah, AO3 allows it.

>>19590597
Thanks. Won't waste my time with nazi book burners.

[Anonymous No.19594631]

>>19592729
>Why'd you do it?
Because an older, cool person asked me to. Kids are impressionable and impulsive, cunt.

[Anonymous No.19594746]

>>19592853
Objective reality exists. Let me break it down for you.

Western comic writing is painfully portentous. The writers can't seem to get over the boundaries between panels and have to make every line of dialogue into a separate motto or quip.

Anime/manga/light novel writing is all the same, which is quick flowing and facile dialogue. It's not portentous at all. Characters are stereotypes, which isn't the case in western comic writing: there's no such thing as a tsundere heroine. That's not to say that western characterisation is better; it's often thinner than manga characterisation, because it doesn't even bother to give its characters a set of pre-defined traits. The emotional life of western comic characters is pre-pubescent despite their giant muscles and spherical breasts; manga characters are perpetually pubescent. Their dicks vibrate in the presence of any female.

Manga dialogue is the playing out of roles in quick and light banter that never leans too heavily on how real humans interact or think. Facile reasoning and shallow analogies are trotted out. Nothing harsh or real is ever encountered. You could be forgiven for thinking that the author was grown in a vat and raised in a pod.

[Anonymous No.19595087]

Alright, I got it cleaned up to how I like it. I hope it gets added to the anthology. I'm taking criticisms either way.

Prompt
>What? I can't hear you!
[for ffa]
https://pastebin.com/x624WzDn

New prompt
>An old man hears a distant band playing his wedding song

[Anonymous No.19595328]

>Spend years thinking about my theories to life
>They make perfect sense in my head
>Try to write them down and it's rambling nonsense

[Anonymous No.19595334]

anyone mind giving me a talley of when they stopped reading?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lG1kU46xhbOtBK4cyygybXd74mo8802RZaCkntQPAqs/edit
It's my nano work in progress thing. Giving it a break until I finish the outline this week and give an ear to other things.
I'm aware it might be stupid in areas, but I'm pretty much too echo-chambering in my own skull to see what needs to be corrected right now. Hence the break.

[Anonymous No.19595486]

>>19593978
Definitely not. Plenty of good books (particularly first-person, but there're others) start right in it.

[Anonymous No.19595773]

>>19588596
Would the characters being stuck in a time loop cheapen death?

I'm writing something about a killing game. Every time the game ends, it resets with the dead contestants being brought back to life, and brainwashed to be a different person. While the surviving contestants get mind wiped. As so much of their memories are transplanted or erased with their personalities differing between games, they might as well be different people. The winner gets to be the ringleader of the next killing game

[Anonymous No.19595820]

>>19595773
Yes that cheapens it. I don’t know how you could even begin to think otherwise. You seem far too caught up in the dynamics of the game if you’re this willing to throw away any chance of character development occurring.

[Anonymous No.19596046]

>>19594010
>Do people find a word intended to be offensive as offensive?
Can I phone a friend?

[Anonymous No.19596208]

I wrote like 90% of my novel while queued in various matchmaking pvp games. I can write like 300% more than I would as long as it's in really short burst windows.

[Anonymous No.19596276]

>>19595773
>a killing game. Every time the game ends, it resets with the dead contestants being brought back to life, and brainwashed to be a different person
Sounds like that shitty LN

[Anonymous No.19596526]

My mom complemented my work again.

[Anonymous No.19596529]

>>19595334
I read up to the part where Icarus tells the kid not to eat the bark
I can tell you were going for an Alice in Wonderland vibe, but it’s not giving me anything new so far. You should put in a hook earlier in the story to get me interested

[Anonymous No.19596535]

>>19596526
Moms are critical to a young boy's growth

[Anonymous No.19596580]

>>19589152
Why would you write this. Now I’m sad for no good reason

[Anonymous No.19596726]

>>19596276
Which one was it?

[Anonymous No.19596745]

>>19592729
So I'm mining you for content now, just so you know. How did you and your husband learn of sharing this?

[Anonymous No.19596754]

>>19595334
second paragraph, but I'm probably not your target audience. I didn't like the first italicized paragraph.

[Anonymous No.19596789]

>>19596726
I was thinking of Hakomari

[Anonymous No.19596845]

Do you guys think it shows too much of my hand if I make the lending bank literally ran by Satan?

[Anonymous No.19596952]

>>19596845
Do you think that's somehow a new concept?

[Anonymous No.19597062]

How are you dealing with the fact that the year is almost over and you didn't make it again?
I'm thinking of participating in a ton of short-fiction contests next year.

[Anonymous No.19597257]

>>19596745
What, you're gonna write something based on me?
It was the sole reason we met, since he was a fan of my art at first. He got to DM a friend of mine to do an art collab, and she showed me his art and convinced me to talk to him, since he also started drawing the same things.
See, back in the day, I started a community by accident. My Polly and Mystery, at first, was just fanart the original owners didn't approve of, but more and more people came to tell me they loved it. So I kept doing it, and got more friends that did the same. He's the last one I found from that niche. We didn't only talk about our shared interest, as I suspected he would, he wanted to know ME from the start. Today, we know we'll be with eachother for life, but we haven't officially married yet, so I call him my husband anyway.

[Anonymous No.19597282]

>>19597257
My Polly and Mystery art*

[Anonymous No.19597349]

>>19588596
What's the best place to publicly post finished works to get public feedback and reception? Is there a better place than Medium.com?

[Anonymous No.19597353]

Opening to a short story for practice. Feedback Welcome - 1st draft

[Anonymous No.19597360]

>>19588699
Is this furry fiction? The whole "she's actually a parrot" threw me off, wasn't sure if that was a metaphor or not until the strange cat showed up. I think it reads well!

[Anonymous No.19597366]

>>19597353
fucked up the post here is the proper version

[Anonymous No.19597372]

>>19597349
In this thread

[Anonymous No.19597403]

>>19597360
Yep, see the pic on >>19589797

[Anonymous No.19597758]

>>19597349
Here, Royal road, Scribblehub, SpaceBattles, r/redditserials and r/HFY if you're feeling daring. There's also tapas, and AO3 if it's fanfic.

[Anonymous No.19597764]

Is stealing simple lines like "days of nothing" bad?

[Anonymous No.19597787]

>>19597764
Mediocre writers use cliche all the time.

Feel free, man.

[Anonymous No.19597851]

>>19597764
You’ve probably stolen far more by accident. Even if anyone reads your writing very few will ever accuse you of theft over something so minor. Anyone who does should probably be written off as a retard.

>>19597403
I don’t want to fuck this Cheshire Cat so I’m going to pass.

[Anonymous No.19597982]

Since we seem to be in the habit of asking questions - What would you pick for a main character? 1000 year old [insert powerful entity] in the body of a child or a rugged 50 year old man?

Personally, I'm a bit fatigued with the child genius protag who isn't really a genius because they're older than their parents/teachers. I would like a story for once that resolves around some old wisened professional establishing himself in a "New Frontier" type of setting or a story where said man over-throws the status quo. Way too many "child grows up and becomes the next coming of jesus" stories out there. Plus there's more mystery in how the guy got to be so powerful - I guess the difficulty would be from making the main character face genuine challenges.

[Anonymous No.19598178]

>>19597062
I got a promotion in my day job, my writing has improved (in my opinion) and I now consistently read on a daily basis. I think it's been alright.
>>19597982
I'd go with 50 year old man, it's interesting to deal with a character that has a long past and reasons he acts the way he does. So long as you don't have some backstory moment to explain every little thing it could be nice. I think kid that's not really a kid is tiring too.

[Anonymous No.19598218]

>>19593228
It's always the first 2 pages. and 2 is strange, usually they ask for 3 chapters or 50 pages or something.
>>19593316
based
>>19593978
limited vs omniscient? it should be consistent through the entire book.
>>19594010
so i'm told. it's now "hate speech" even though it was a medical term just 20 years ago.
>>19597062
i still have queries out pending.
>>19597982
50 year old man. i love miserable middle aged guys as characters. grumpy bastards are a pleasure both to read and to write.

[Anonymous No.19598308]

>>19589622
Update

>The limitations of human perception struck Richard as he stared into the Boston harbor. The clouds' fractal patterns shared similarities to the tissue samples awaiting him in his MIT laboratory. Given the many systems that drove the life of those cells, he imagined all the various forces and energies beyond the visible scope of man driving the tides of the oceans and the whirling of the wind. For years he had thoughts regarding the structure of the universe and what held all of its atoms, planets and space together. These ideas had given him hope for a higher plane of existence, a state of being beyond our everyday experience. Yet he grew bleaker by the day.

[Anonymous No.19598352]

>>19598308
Quick edit, but it's still clunky

>The limitations of human perception struck Richard as he stared into the Boston harbor. The clouds' fractal patterns had similarities to the tissue samples in his MIT laboratory. Like the systems that drove those cells, he imagined all the energies driving the tides of the oceans and the whirling of the wind that lay beyond the visible scope of man. For years he thought about the structure of the universe and what held all of its atoms, planets and space together. These ideas gave him hope for a higher plane of existence, a state of being above our everyday experience. Yet he grew bleaker by the day.

[Anonymous No.19598403]

>>19597758
>r/HFY
That place is a fucking cesspool of trash. Nobody should post there, period.

[Anonymous No.19598481]

last night I was bored and drunk so I made a game that would give me a subject to write about
this is what I got
what do you anons think?

[Anonymous No.19598560]

>>19588699
>Mystery led her deeper into a maze of alleyways, where dumpsters and parked cars decorated the path.

I don't think decorate is the right word, here.

[Anonymous No.19598614]

What type of start (not specifically chapter 1 but can be if you want to talk about what you like to see in your first chapter) to a fantasy novel do you guys like the most? i.e. Do you like it when it's in the middle of an action sequence (Sparring/fight)? If the MC is in trouble of some sort which spurs on the plot? Or maybe the MC is minding their own business and they somehow get a mcguffin that starts the plot? Or in the middle of some adventure/quest that we find it actually is as the story progresses?

[Anonymous No.19598678]

>>19592528
Leave the group if more than 1 person is giving that type of feedback or they're in a leadership position or if you feel giving pushback would result in some type of backlash - it's obvious their intention is not actually writing but political

[Anonymous No.19598806]

>>19597062
I was so sure this was going to be my big breakthrough year. My readership had been steadily growing every year and I wrote a lot of awesome stuff. But the big moment just didn't come. Instead, the growth started to slow down. Dang it

[Anonymous No.19599000]

>>19595087
I really enjoyed this, anon.
Interesting take on the prompt, what made you think of a race like that?
I had no idea it was literally over 1billion miles from earth to Saturn...
I don’t think I understood why she was giving him the note at the very start, what was the motivation there?

[None !....H.O/To No.19599005]

>>19588596 Maybe I should make a better OP.


>>19588946 It feels like whatever the character would feel like. You seem to be approaching this from the general rather than the specific.
>>19589152 Worthless trash regardless of intent.
>>19589432 Why should anyone care about this? Why spoil everything ahead of time?
>>19590019 Nice tangentially relevant advertising at best.
>>19590584 ASSTR and several other erotica sites do. Obviously almost noting for general content will allow it.
>>19591183 Sludge. This is only sort of writing that doesn't take the reader into consideration at all.
>>19591204 Oh, so you're trying to be as insufferable as possible. You're well on your way.
>>19591838 Congrats, you've wrote a description.
>>19591905 You may be interested in this book: Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, "Found" Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts
>>19592109 No one cares or would notice. Just do it already.
>>19592110 Schizo scribbles isn't really writing.
>>19592528 It's not terrible advice if you want to be published by a major publisher these days, but otherwise, no.
>>19594404 You think far too highly of yourself. You need to work on that.
>>19595087 What an astoundingly awful example of romantic wish-fulfillment.
>>19595334 I stopped reading immediately because your first sentence indicated that it was going to be self-indulgent angst the entire time.
>>19595773 Why would anyone reading care about any of the characters since they'd never have any development?
>>19597366 trash
>>19598481 I think you're a terminal mixture of /g/, /pol/, and /x/.

>>19588699 What is this supposed to be? Furry magical realism with a side of Alice in Wonderland and Beastars, among other stuff? There's no purpose to what you've written. Maybe prose is even the wrong medium for this.
>>19590116 ...and then I read this, hahahah, wew. What an amazing obliviousness to what has been written. Your literal autism is going to cause problems and you won't understand why.
>>19591717 "autism is unstoppable." Only in safe spaces anyway.
>>19591907 This makes for better fiction than what you've written.

[Anonymous No.19599017]

Holy fuck horses are complicated and have a whole dictionary's worth of special terms.

[Anonymous No.19599138]

I need motivation to start my short story.

[Anonymous No.19599168]

>>19599138
Just write the opening paragraph

[Anonymous No.19599173]

Any good resources for developing slang and dialects for a story set in the future?

[Anonymous No.19599290]

>>19599168
I’ve got the first sentence so far.

[Anonymous No.19599376]

>>19599005
>I think you're a terminal mixture of /g/, /pol/, and /x/.
thanks I couldn't ask for a better compliment than that

[Anonymous No.19599468]

>>19598481
>terry davis
>mfw I keep reading

[Anonymous No.19599478]

>>19599173
Depends on where you see society going…

Clockwork Orange
>That was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry.

Cloud Atlas
> I know that don't sound senseful, but yarns 'bout Old-Un Smart an' flyin' dwellin's an' grown' babbits in bottles an' pictures zoomin' cross the Hole World ain't senseful neither but that's how it was, so storymen an' old books tell it.

Smurfs:
>Grouchy Smurf: "Where the Smurf are we?"
>Gutsy Smurf: "Up the smurfin' creek without a paddle, that's where!"

[Anonymous No.19599514]

If I say "hoping off the red line" do I need to include train afterwords

[Anonymous No.19599543]

I'm starting another novel. How is it for intro?

The first time I ate shit? It must have happened some five years ago. A tinder date, we were fucking in the car and then the strong smell started. I finished alright, the girl got out and went to her apartment. I then drove back to my home.
It was halfway there that I noticed that in the middle of the fucking and all she had shitted inside the car, and the stool still remained there. It was dark, disgusting and smelly. Even so, somehow, I started salivating and got kind of aroused, got kind of hard.
I was never into fucked up sexual and erotic stuff. I considered myself an usual kind of guy. Liked butts, tits, vannila things you know? Sometimes a little pee play didn't hurt, I admit, but I was one of those who thought shit stuff was way too freaky.
That last part of driving to my home is a little hazy, but I remember standing still at the garage, inside my car. I must've been fully hard by then, not thinking straight and all that. I then touched her stool, grabbed it, held it tight, felt her feces squashing between my fingers. I put my whole foul hand inside my mouth. It was full of crap, full of the worst things humans do. But I never felt so sexually aroused in all of my life. I literally cummed inside my pants right there.
Since then I've been doing that. Eating shit, I mean. It's hard to know which kind of girls would be open to the idea, but surprisingly there are a considerable amount of them who are.

[Anonymous No.19599571]

>>19599543
Pretty good, thanks for sharing

[Anonymous No.19599573]

>>19599543
>another

I hope that's a joke

[Anonymous No.19599586]

While walking up to my car parked alongside the grocery store I had just exited from, I bumped into Ryan. He and I had worked the same shift at the food processing plant about five years ago. After we greeted each other, he asked me if I was still at the plant. I said I wasn’t and that I’d moved on to being a chauffeur. “What about you?” I asked him. Ryan replied by saying he was working as a salesman for a start-up called Pro Ball Shine.

>Pro ball shine? Jesus, they have to be shiny? I thought I was doing enough just shaving them. But they have to be shiny, too? How did I miss that? Is that why Sharon never even touches them? How come I’m so out of the loop? Was this some fad among young people? I’m young. Well, I’m certainly not old. Would I feel younger with shiny balls? But who would see them? Most women I’ve had sex with barely paid them any attention. Except for Charmaine. Oh God, Charmaine. What a psycho. I’m glad to have balls left after Charmaine. Jesus, I wonder what she’s up to? I should look her up on facebook, see if I find anything this time. I bet she would love shiny balls. But wait, do they even get a enough light to really shine? I guess it depends, on the posi- Ohhh. Is that it? Is it an indirect way of making you try out new positions? Like the ones bordering on being acrobatic, so you can show off how shiny your balls are. Hmm. I guess that makes sense. But that means the lights would definitely have to stay on. And Sharon hates that. Although, she doesn’t mind having sex in the daytime, in natural light. Would they still shine enough in natural light? Maybe it’s to push you into having sex during the day. Or outside, get the sun to shine up your balls. Hold on. Had my balls ever been in the sunshine? I don’t think they have! Wow. I wonder what my cavemen ancestors would think of that?

[Anonymous No.19599595]

>>19599586
>Their balls were out all day and night. Sunshine, moonshine, they got it all! Am I missing out? Should my balls get some sunshine? Is it healthy? Would I need to start gradually to prevent sunburn? Jesus, sunburned balls! Imagine that! You’d walk around bowlegged for weeks. You might end up with a nice tan, though. Tanned balls. No, tanned AND shiny! Christ, I’d be irresistible! I wonder if Ryan’s start-up had thought of a tanning spray for balls? Maybe I should make my own start-up. We could partner up. Shine’ em and tan ‘em!® All natural, vegan friendly, no microplastics. Wait, I guess regular tanning spray works for balls, too. Yeah. Damn, there gos my start-up. Jesus, I’ll be driving people around forever. Wait, what about cock-shine? Is that a thing yet? Maybe I can invent cock-shine! I mean, if your balls are going to be shiny, your cock has to be, too, right? You can’t just have a matte penis dangling over a pair of glistening balls, that’s not feng shui at all! Ohhhh. Now I get it! You make your balls shiny so whoever is there with you will want to make the cock shiny too! Like a subliminal urge, you see the shiny balls, you want to complete the puzzle! And God knows there are enough ways of doing that! Jesus! Ryan is working for some freaky people! How did he meet them?! He always looked so innocent stacking those boxes of canned peas. Who knew he’d go on to work for such a lecherous bunch! Maybe I could work there. I mean, I’ve just deciphered their hole philosophy or strategy or whatever you call it. I bet their CEO would be impressed by that, wouldn’t they?

“Most of our products are for the bowling industry, but we’ve got a couple of sprays specifically for pool balls, too,” Ryan continued.

[Anonymous No.19599657]

>>19599000
>Interesting take on the prompt, what made you think of a race like that?
I threw around a few ideas, some funny and some serious. At one point it was about two guys racing a carriage down a hill and bombing a bakers shop.
>I had no idea it was literally over 1billion miles from earth to Saturn...
It's about 800 million to Saturn and 1.7 billion to Uranus, so I split the difference.
>I don’t think I understood why she was giving him the note at the very start, what was the motivation there?
I'm open to leaving it open to interpretation. I wrote it in that she knew she was awakening to her own thought processes which meant she would be reset soon, but she was scared, so she went to an emotional anchor with her personal keys as a failsafe. If I had another 2000 words I could have really fleshed the idea out.

[Anonymous No.19599691]

>>19599573
why :(

[Anonymous No.19599695]

>>19599468
what should this mean?

[Anonymous No.19599766]

>>19599691
Your writing is shitty.

[Anonymous No.19599775]

>>19599478
I'm thinking corporate neo-feudalism where everyone lives in massive offices turned city-states and company scrip is the standard currency. Heavily inspired by the old mining towns of my native West Virginia.

[Anonymous No.19599790]

>>19599766
Damn... really? Any kind of tip so I can write better? I honestly think this new novel is among my best work so far, I'm about 50%/72p done.

[Anonymous No.19599808]

>>19599766
You're not being helpful

[Anonymous No.19599810]

>>19599790
>Any kind of tip so I can write better

Yeah, don't.

[Anonymous No.19599816]

>>19599810
wtf?

[Anonymous No.19599830]

>>19599816
What's your other masterpiece about? Shitting on squirrels?

[Anonymous No.19599901]

>>19599830
Dude, if it's the content of my novel you didn't like it's ok, I agree that it isn't for everyone. But if you had a problem with the writing you should be able to tell me what I should change to make my work better.
And in regard to your question, my other novel is about an itinerant couple who makes a living making and selling snuff films with prostitutes they "hire" along the roads. It is a dark and grimy novel. The one I'm writing right now has a comedic/erotic vibe.

[Anonymous No.19599921]

>>19589272
im thinking of doing the same for a public domain book I found recently. How did you process it? did you use software to "write" it or did you type it yourself? did you edit it in sigil or amazon's program?

I'm thinking of putting it on Amazon (for shekels) and maybe archive.org, use the whole thing as an editing exercise

[Anonymous No.19599961]

>>19599921
I did all of my work in groff, an old(?) unix typesetting tool. I didn't use any of Amazon's programs, just uploaded a final pdf and ordered a proof copy. It all looks good so far.

[Anonymous No.19599966]

>>19599901
>writes about literally eating his own shit
>can't handle not being taken seriously

I was going to make fun of you, but I actually have good news for you. Pic related was my captcha. You're gonna make it, anon.

[Anonymous No.19599984]

>>19598352
So, take with grain of salt, but I hate when people lead in with something so explicit and "surface" like that. It's like giving a topical sentence in an article.

[Anonymous No.19599995]

>>19598614
Depends on how you do it, but middle of a fight, or in active trouble is very cringe.

Then again, I like either relatively slow builds or something relatively in media res but in which the MC doesn't really understand just yet (most nearly fits your last option).

[Anonymous No.19600016]

>>19599966
Haha. But the point isn’t about eating your own shit, it’s about eating the shit of the woman you fuck and making they shit on you. And that’s just one of the characters, the novel goes beyond that.

[Anonymous No.19600027]

>>19600016
Why are you even still posting?

The captcha was literally "mm poo". The god's have decided: your novel will be a success. Go out and celebrate.

[Anonymous No.19600040]

>>19600016
>coprophagia
are you jewish, by any chance? infant genital mutilation has done awful things to their sexual psyche

[Anonymous No.19600041]

>>19599173
read something like the Oxford collection of poetry, 1250-1900. Just develop an intuitive understanding of how language changes.

Then start playing around with deforming a normal sentence. Leaning on internet speak and slang, I think we'll see in spoken speech at least a "compacting" of diction.

the anon who posted about Clockwork Orange showed a good route. Look to other languages. Think about geopolitics in the time period. Who's in charge? Consider things like if English is basically the lingua franca, but China's on top economically and there are lots of loan words from Mandarin slang that's evolved.

[Anonymous No.19600068]

>>19599901
Hmm. I consider myself an open-minded person, even though this is gross. I'm also sort of testing out theoretically if anything can be a story. Your ability to do this depends on if you identify with the narrator or not, and to what extent this is fulfillment of a personal fantasy.

Either way the writing is bad right now, especially if it's the start. Are you trying to write fiction or erotica?

[Anonymous No.19600085]

>>19599984
I get that, it's a short story though. I will review it after and see if I can build it up more.

[Anonymous No.19600152]

>>19600068
>Either way the writing is bad right now, especially if it's the start.
Why?

>Are you trying to write fiction or erotica?
Uh, I guess both? It's basically about a sex therapist trying to cure the paraphilias of his pacients using a method where they all come to AA-like meetings and share their own fetishes with eachother. The start is that character explaining to the group his problem.

[Anonymous No.19600187]

>>19600152
Bruh. Oh my god. Y'all need to read more so you know how to structure these things.

if you're not going to make it so the sex therapist gets converted into weird sex shit by their patients, then this is an okay short story premise (though not my taste).

The opening is bad because there's no narrative support. It's just dialogue and straight into something only the tiniest percentage of the world would want to read. Does that make sense? I have no idea who this guy is, am not oriented in reality, and then in less than minute of reading time, he's eating shit.

I would start with some vagary around his dating, and his surprise that he's able to find girls who share his interest.

You can't be both fiction and erotica, btw. And I'm serious, you have to answer to yourself if you're just getting your tickles from writing this, because if so, you're not going to have good fiction.

[Anonymous No.19600195]

>>19600187
But not revealing what his interest is explicitly, until he goes to the meeting, if he's your POV character.

[Anonymous No.19600282]

>>19599005
jeez anon, you seem deeply troubled.

[Anonymous No.19600734]

>>19599005
>Why should anyone care about this? Why spoil everything ahead of time?
It's the beginning of Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich Von Kleist, idiot.

[Anonymous No.19600745]

I've written two short stories in the past week. Feels cute bros - I haven't been able to write for a while now.

[Anonymous No.19600758]

>>19600745
Cute? You feeling cute?

[Anonymous No.19600890]

Question about prose
>This may mean you have kidney disease
Vs
>This means you may have kidney disease
Is there functionally any difference or anything between the two?

[Anonymous No.19600917]

>>19600890
The latter feels more blunt and has greater impact, it brings to mind an experienced doctor who will now tell you what tests will confirm the diagnosis.
The former is weaker and seems to be trying to dance around giving the bad news, like someone just out of med school who hasn't learned how to handle the tragedies they will face in their profession.

[None !....H.O/To No.19600976]

>>19599514 I assume "hopping" and it depends on the context. Red line can mean many different things. If you already stated they were on a train, then probably not.
>>19599543 It's as terrible as you wanted it to be.
>>19599595 An attempt was made at humor.
>>19600734 That doesn't matter in the slightest. It changes nothing.
>>19600282 I am deeply troubled by this thread and its posters.
>>19600890 It doesn't matter because neither is suitable.
>>19599376 You're welcome.

[Anonymous No.19600990]

>>19600917
Cheers, I've always spoken like the latter but noticed most colleagues speak like the former.

[Anonymous No.19601000]

Just asking a quick question about a magic system I have for my story: does this sound good as a base power everyone shares

People in my world have the ability to actualize their desires based on a scientific principle I forget the name of that posits 'reality is fuzzy' and can't ever be measured precisely, so practitioners of an ability that lets them materialize their desires can create probabilistic projections based on those desires. For example, if you were as powerful as jesus and desired a rock to be cleaved in half, it'd happen, but if you were weaksauce like most people in my story you will just be given the ability to cut things easier or your sword might get sharper: some way of achieving your desire. This is basically how people manipulate their 'aura' in this world, one character who's especially skilled with it can rub their hands together and wish for fire and the added friction allows it to materialize easier in accordance with their desire since they can just multiply the heat. You can also use it on tarot cards or dowsing, for example. Ie. wish to know something. The fact tarot cards aren't exact means the power doesn't have to exert itself as much, since it's based on probability. This makes all sorts of basic/advanced techniques around manipulating this power, such as focusing all your willpower at once to expunge an opponent or timing it with your attacks to parry/do more damage. As you get very advanced, you can even preprogram yourself to react to certain things, but that makes you a lot more fragile when hit since your willpower is being expended consistently while the command is active

So? Does it sound too convoluted or a pain? Bear in mind, it's just one factor of the combat system. There are spells and shit on top of this, but if a body is to a sword then this power is to a magic spell; skill with it determines how talented you'll be at magic.

I don't know where else to ask for feedback on this

[Anonymous No.19601039]

>>19601000
>I don't know where else to ask for feedback on this
/tg/

[Anonymous No.19601048]

>>19601000
This shit sounds boring as fuck. Explanations for magic systems are never fun and always cumbersome to read

[Anonymous No.19601066]

>I forget the name of that posits 'reality is fuzzy' and can't ever be measured precisely
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem
For one example anyway

[Anonymous No.19601119]

>>19599005
>>19600976
Neither post is the least bit witty or helpful. No one likes a namefag, let alone one attempting to force a persona.

[None !....H.O/To No.19601140]

>>19601119 Do something about it then. Refer to my image.

[Anonymous No.19601149]

>>19601140
You're like those insecure dudes that would rather harass someone and tell them to block them than just fuck off.

[None !....H.O/To No.19601156]

>>19601149
and yet you reply. Here's another (you). You're welcome. The next one's going to cost you though.

[Anonymous No.19601172]

Cringe

[Anonymous No.19601213]

I have a section where the main character has to make a long journey. I've upped the tension in some parts but it cant be helped that there are long descriptive passages of the landscape (it's set in ancient/medieval IRL, not fantasy) to flesh out the world and leave a stronger imprint of the region with readers, especially as this area is geographically (and architecturally) interesting and greatly misunderstood by modern people. it's a rather obscure region with a complex history western people dont know much about. He goes through some cities and does interact with other characters, and there are tense parts from difficulties encountered in travel, which tie thematially and symbolically into the larger story. Still feels a little slow. How much tolerance do modern readers have for travel descriptions? Tolkien could get away with it but I'm not sure if I can. (Obviously I love this kind of passage, myself. I could read, or write, this all day.)

The section takes place over about 10,000 words. So 1/10th of the book, about halfway through.

[Anonymous No.19601255]

Sex and Faith

“When you piss in your pants, first it’s warm, then it’s cold”. His mother used to say that, before her dementia got worse and she became a human vegetable. Later he learned that the caretakers of the place she was were sexually abusing her and other patients. It was a huge scandal, the clinic declared bankruptcy shortly after and then his mother went to live with him.
He had to waste a lot of his money on her. He began to despise her, hate her. It wasn’t her fault that she had a rotted brain, that she had to use diapers and that she couldn’t even eat by herself. But still it drained his time, his money, his future. It was around that time that he started having his first homosexual experiences.
The first cock he sucked was from a married man, late 40s. A couple of months later he was already giving ass and fucking strangers in the most unusual places. Men have higher libido than women, and soon he realized how easy he could get off by being part of the homosexual world. Any time he wanted he would forget his worries by being dominated and used by other men.
He loved the public bathrooms. Some in his city were gay points, and so much sex came from them. It was easy, you would wait outside until someone came, and then you would follow them inside. The man would get to his urinal and he would get to the urinal right next to it. Both would unzip their pants, exchange glances, touches, and go to a stall to have some fun.
His mother died on a sunday. He had forgotten her, to give her water and food. He was charged with negligent homicide and killed himself shortly after going to jail.

[Anonymous No.19601271]

>>19601255
This was funny

[Anonymous No.19601273]

What else are stars but unblemished
and ill-fated souls’ plaintive curses
that wing to burn on heaven’s brow?

[Anonymous No.19601301]

>>19601255
Is this still part of the paraphilia councillor story that was posted above? If so I have to agree with the structure complaint. The person relaying this story has to give some of her own emotion to it rather than just relaying yours. She needs to show some disgust with these acts so we can witness her transformation. Corruption is fun because of the journey, not the destination.

[Anonymous No.19601304]

Wasn't able to write at all yesterday (busy). Did 2500 words today, plus 3 hours of research. I have notes for the next section and then I'll be done with the most major corrections for the draft. I set some nice things up and now everything else should be easier to write as everything falls into place.

[Anonymous No.19601313]

>>19601301
No, this was a short story.

[Anonymous No.19601414]

>>19588699
The third paragraph is very unnatural. No one thinks oh, Im supposed to be in a residential zone! Not the commercial zone. Especially not someone as young as Im assuming your main character is. Find a different way to write this paragraph. Maybe she is recalling different landmarks that arent there. A statue or a store that is normally on the way to the bakery is not there so she knows she took a wrong turn.

The description of Mystery 's appearance is confusing. When you talked about his chin pointed to his labcoat, I had to read that over several times to understand what you were trying to convey, and its still unclear. I would edit out the part of his chin pointing to his labcoat all together. Seems like unnecisary information that doesnt add to the story and does nothing to describe the scene

[Anonymous No.19601537]

So I'm trying to write this scene where the protagonist, which is stuck both physically and mentally inside a castle, gets visited by a talking bird midway through migration. I want this scene to be a clash between world views that tells the MC that freedom is beautiful, better than confinement, but it also hard. I don't know how to proceed but to make an aristotelian dialogue where the bird will induce the protag into this conclusion, but I'm having a hard time coming up with a good argument to base this.

[Anonymous No.19601650]

>>19601304
>Did 2500 words today
Good god man what did you eat to shit out that much alphabet soup?

[Anonymous No.19601719]

>>19601650
Not him but I did 1500+ words effortlessly. Try to meditate and have breaks, then you'll be able to concentrate a lot. I think you're the retarded one here.

[Anonymous No.19601958]

[Anonymous No.19601962]

[Anonymous No.19602066]

>beta read a friend's book
>prose is good but the characters aren't relatable and the plot feels purposeless

>Yeah Anon I think it's great!

[Anonymous No.19602143]

>>19601962
>>19601958
What is this empty pseud garbage and why are you posting it?

>>19602066
Don’t coddle him. Beta readers are there to give hard feedback. Better he hear it from you now than when he’s 10 chapters deep into posting it on RR and has to cobble together a fix in editing.

[Anonymous No.19602144]

>>19602066
You should be honest so they can improve. Don’t forget to mention what they did right too so it’s not as devastating to their pride

[Anonymous No.19602351]

Now what, il/lit/erates?

[Anonymous No.19602355]

>>19602143
>>19602144
she's had the book read by other people who are more knowledgeable than I, and even edited by a publisher author. I know for a fact that she won't compromise on her characters.

also complicated by the fact that we're currently dating.

[Anonymous No.19602361]

I'm finally ready to start my book. Chapter one...

[Anonymous No.19602536]

>>19602351
Give us some context
>>19601537
From what I know about Aristotle, you should base it on what internally is keeping the MC in confinement and unfold his whole reasoning in all three of Aristotle's argument types. It can start with a simple justification: I'm scared, the outside is dangerous, this is my home. And then by fully exploring why he asserts that claim, you can pretty easily find compelling reasons that draw the contrast you're looking for.

[Anonymous No.19602545]

>>19602536

agent didnt like my query

[Anonymous No.19602682]

>>19602355
Lol dump her, baby.

[Anonymous No.19602701]

how do people write this much of an outline without it spinning in circles or rotting in the process?
I'm outlining some projects of mine and simply cannot picture them going beyond 400 pages.

[Anonymous No.19602924]

>>19602545
How the fuck are you getting actual feedback on your queries? Good lord If I could get an ounce of feedback instead of just form replies, I'd be in heaven.

[Anonymous No.19602929]

>>19602924
If the work is good but flawed, you will get feedback. They only give you stock-bot replies if your work is unsalvageable and they wish you'd stop bothering them.

[Anonymous No.19602931]

>>19602924

She forgot to turn off "send message" after rejection and shes only received my query in like a week

[Anonymous No.19602939]

>>19602351
Tell us your pitch.

[Anonymous No.19602957]

>>19602929
I know my work is fine. I have going on 10 beta readers on cycle and an editor friend who looks over things.

Its my fucking queries man...

[Anonymous No.19602959]

>>19602957
>friend
That's where your flaw is. Your "friend" is just being nice to you to get you off his hair.

[Anonymous No.19602962]

How do I research for a novel/story? I tend to let my imagination run wild and I usually stop reading/researching halfway through.

[Anonymous No.19602965]

>>19602959
What about the anonymous beta readers? They are all wrong too?

[Anonymous No.19602970]

>>19602959
>>19602929
Care to provide any evidence for your claims that they give personalised feedback to middling work? I get feedback like “it’s on the cusp but not good enough” for submittable submissions but not queries, because people just say “I’m not the right agent for this” even though I follow their guidelines and interests to a tee

[Anonymous No.19602984]

>>19602939

https://pastebin.com/ZCvvxw2S

[Anonymous No.19602999]

>>19602984
Jesus christ, I'm writing in the wrong fucking genre if this garbage is getting replies.

[Anonymous No.19603033]

R8 H8 Masturb8

https://pastebin.com/pQNnS2vu

[Anonymous No.19603067]

>>19602984
I agree with the agent. You're basically just stating the theme and then saying, "It's really good, trust me." There's no hook in your description that makes it feel memorable or interesting.

[Anonymous No.19603154]

>>19603033
>https://pastebin.com/pQNnS2vu
>his, her, he, she, etc
All a bit tiresome after a few paragraphs. Learn how to change up the flow without relying on the same constructions.

[Anonymous No.19603167]

>>19603154
No. It works just fine. You are the type of person to use said bookisms aren't you?

[Anonymous No.19603189]

>>19603167
I don’t reply on anything but that anon is just using the same sentence structures over and again. It has no rhyme or reason to it.

[Anonymous No.19603235]

>>19603154

I'm revoking your access to pronouns. Rewrite the entire thing without using a single pronoun

[Anonymous No.19603245]

>>19603235
Literally just giving them names would solve the issue and saying “the man” or “the woman”. That’s what I meant by changing it up, and not to merely have every second sentence start with “He” or “She”.

[Anonymous No.19603281]

>>19603245
They are named in the previous chapter. The book is about two people. It works fine.

[Anonymous No.19603295]

>>19603281
Whatever works for you. Seems janky and lazy to me.

[Anonymous No.19603303]

>>19603295
Post your writing. Don't know why I decided to take criticism from people who probably haven't even finished a book.

The stylistic back-and-forth choice between the man and the woman literally ends after the first few paragraphs. Read the rest.

[Anonymous No.19603307]

>>19603303

My favorite part of these threads is when a writer gets salty and starts sperging

[Anonymous No.19603312]

>>19603307
Post writing.

[Anonymous No.19603313]

>>19603312

I already did

[Anonymous No.19603315]

>>19603313
Where? Link it.

[Anonymous No.19603318]

>>19603315

Previous threads

[Anonymous No.19603319]

>>19603318
Link it again.

[Anonymous No.19603326]

>>19603319

I dont want your opinion.

[Anonymous No.19603328]

>>19603326
And yet you gave yours, without really even reading the chapter.

[Anonymous No.19603336]

>>19603303
>"Pardon moi," I say, stretching my legs across her own. "To the philosophy section, I go!"
>"But, anon, w-wait!"
What's this, I wonder to myself, has this little vixen got something in store for me? I swivel round on my heels, flashing an exuberant grin at her.
>"A-anon, it's just... I've seen you around and you always read such weighty texts such as Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses. I'm so surprised that anyone could fini-"
Before she speaks another word, I put a finger upon her lips.
>"Hush now, those are not tomes for fair to middling maidens such as thee."
My trembling hand draws away, but I slowly brush her blushing cheeks.
>"What... do you think I should read?" she queries with curiosity sparking in her eyes.
>"Come, come..." I wave her over towards the classics section. "B... B... Baudelaire, no. Oh! Balzac, ahah! I found it."
>"Bal-sack..." she attempts.
I giggle, cherishing in her naivety.
>"Balzac," I correct her. "He had an honorific 'de' but it was a complete forgery of his own design. You will enjoy, uh, this one!"
I produce a slim novella, one of those stupendous translations from Clara Bell. When I place it down in her opened palms, she seems as though an antediluvian Scale of Ma'at weighing the heart of a dead man, a dead white male, to be exact.
>"What is it?"
>"A hilarious, shocking, and ribald story about passion, deceit, and love."
>"Why do you give it to me."
A smile appears upon my face once more, like a marble statue that has been undone by a sudden crack in the pale perfection.
>"Because, my darling... You are much like the woman, that object of desire, in the story."
She nods humbly, almost appreciating what she takes to be a compliment. We end our tete a tete and go our separate ways; I watch as she purchases the Balzac volume and saunter off to the Fiction section where I take a copy of Artemis Fowl and shove it into my trench-coat, leaving without paying.
The next day, I went to the bookstore. I found that the maiden was not in her usual spot, sipping upon her XL white coffee, strewn across the floor almost mannishly. I cracked a smile again, thinking about how I must have offended her. But as I left, with another copy of Artemis Fowl in my pocket, unpaid for, she was stood in the doorway of the book store. She pointed a long finger at me and her face turned into that of a Gorgon.
>"You! You spiteful imp, you little Underground Man! I should have known you would cross me," she caterwauls as she throws the copy of At the Sign of the Cat and Racket at me.
The whole bookstore turn to watch. I look around, sweating profusely, and I hear a bunch of footsteps walking towards me. I panic. I vault out the door and push the Gorgon aside. She topples to the floor, at which point I see in my peripherals a piece of her head fall off. By Gad, what have I done? I look over and see that the woman's (was she a woman?) hair has toppled off.
Alas, it was a man wearing a wig all along.

[Anonymous No.19603337]

>>19603328

I didn't comment on your pastebin, I just posted about how badly you were taking feedback.

[Anonymous No.19603340]

>>19603245
They trade names on line 28. Did you throw ignorant judgment out like that without even reading that far?

[Anonymous No.19603350]

>>19603336

An il/lit/erate masterpiece

[Anonymous No.19603351]

>>19603337
Feedback from people that clearly hadn't even read past the first few paragraphs.

[Anonymous No.19603354]

>>19603340
Yeah, I didn’t really wanna read his vacuous bullshit. Now you can rate my prose. It’s next to the fine lady sitting on the ground.

[Anonymous No.19603358]

>>19603336
I kneel.

[Anonymous No.19603359]

>>19603351

The fact that people didn't read past the first few paragraphs should be feedback in of itself, though.

[Anonymous No.19603370]

>>19603359
It's really not when they try to throw out criticisms remedied in the lines after they stopped.

[Anonymous No.19603378]

>>19603370

Can you throw a tantrum about your mediocre writing elsewhere? I'm trying to shitpost

[Anonymous No.19603385]

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

Got my chapter 4 up. I'm really hoping that I can find a timeslot that gets some traction. I've tried 4 am, 4 pm, 8pm and now noon.

I started extending my backlog as well, so I'm more comfortable about doing 3 releases this week again.

[Anonymous No.19603387]

>>19603378
And I'm trying to get legitimate feedback from my writing, not jealous shitposting. Go somewhere else.

[Anonymous No.19603393]

>>19603387

>jealous

lol

[Anonymous No.19603400]

>>19603370
He spake: R8, H8, or MASTURB8!
B-but when I sent him hate, he didn’t rate it 8 out of 8, so now I’ll sate mine desires like a reprobate. Sorry, anon, this is the part where I have to use my ha-

[Anonymous No.19603407]

>>19603400
Just read it before throwing judgement out in the first few sentences.
>>19603393
Did I strike a nerve?

[Anonymous No.19603422]

>>19603407
>Just read it before throwing judgement out in the first few sentences.
But that’s what agents do.
https://youtu.be/aduzco1VJZE

[Anonymous No.19603430]

>>19603424
Fresh bread is baked

[Anonymous No.19603486]

>>19603422
And this isn't even talking about manuscripts, he's rejecting purely based on query letters.

[Anonymous No.19604610]

>>19603486
>Want to write a novel with cultivation elements
>mfw when I have to name chinese shit
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
You'd think it'd be easy with all the cultivation content I consume but it's so fucking hard without me resorting to just looking at a map and china and taking shit I see

[Anonymous No.19604614]

>>19604610
shit, didn't mean to reply to you anon