/wg/ Write General

[Anonymous No.19646751]

Marketing Schemes General Edition
Previous Thread >>19642308

For Prose:
>The Art of Fiction, Gardner
>The Anatomy of Story, Truby
>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

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.19646772]

I will be a household name by December 2022.

[Anonymous No.19646776]

>>19646772
FBI should really start monitoring these threads.

[Anonymous No.19646803]

HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU? YOU JUST FINISHED THE NEXT GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL, BUT NOW YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO SELL IT?
HI, BILLY MAYS HERE FOR THE MARKETING GENERAL, A BIZARRO WORLD OF /wg/ CALLED /mg/
STOP CRITIQUING AND YELLING, START SHILLING AND SELLING

[Anonymous No.19646812]

>I don't understand why the narrator doesn't have a presence in your scene
>Did you read the foreword? Because it's like the first paragraph that explains that.
>No
>Why did you skip the first page of the book?
>I dunno

I think I should include an author note at the top of chapter 1 that the foreword is not supposed to be skipped. But maybe I'm magnifying a small issue.

I'm getting flashbacks to DMing D&D and asking a player if they remember anything at all about the setting.

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

[Anonymous No.19646848]

In this round, after completely rewriting both the manuscript and the query, I have sent 20 queries and received 7 rejections. Last round I received 11 rejections for 18 queries.

[Anonymous No.19646920]

>>19646569
>overwritten
Not that anon you replied to, but some anon told me last weekend that my sentence length and structure was readable. Decent variety in structure. My main problem is clarity, but I'm working on it. I have a toolbox of clarifying devices but gotta make sure I use them right. If I make a hasty analogy without testing the logic more in the next draft it makes zero sense.

[Anonymous No.19646928]

So should I drop my merch on twitter before or after I drop a book?

[Anonymous No.19646929]

>>19646812
I was always the one who relayed "what happened last time" during our sessions so I understand this pain. Add that author's note in for sure.

[Anonymous No.19646966]

>>19646929
Feels wrong to intrude on my story like that, but I think it's for the best.

I currently have a 50% conversion rate from chapter 1 to 2, so I figure that will go up slightly if people actually understand the type of story they're getting.

Sadly, I can't slap people through the internet who get offended by semi-omniscient narration

[Anonymous No.19646979]

>>19646920
Just read more. Read 10 times as much as you write and all those problems will fix themselves. And read actually published literature, not self-published YA schlock or fanfiction. Read what you like, but read broadly. Every time I get writer's block or find my writing starting to dull, every single time, the problem is that I'm not reading enough.

[Anonymous No.19646987]

I'm currently reading through a fourth revision I let bake for a couple months and it's making me want to rip my hair out. But that's a good thing, my errors are more evident and easier to pick out.

So to everyone out there rushing draft-after-draft with marginal improvements, just let the manuscript sit for a while. When you come back to it, it'll be with fresh eyes.

[Anonymous No.19647020]

>>19646987
>rushing draft-after-draft with marginal improvements, just let the manuscript sit for a while.
>tfw did that
>now completely rewritting and all my pretty line editing was for naught as i was only polishing turds
just write a new novel then go back to the last and edit. should always be writing, but write in cycles.

[Anonymous No.19647031]

How's your marketing going anons?

[Anonymous No.19647034]

>list of /wg/ authors pastebin and anonymous flash fiction anthology
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.19647047]

>>19646979
Yeah, Im reading consistently one ~5k word short story every morning for 90 days now, and reading a short poem. I read a chapter or two of a novel at lunch. Ive made a lot of observations and need to apply what I've learned.

[Anonymous No.19647062]

>Here, surrounded by the choicest spirits of the age, the men most renowned in literature, in science, and in the arts, she could indulge in the tastes rendered most congenial to her by her early education, and could, moreover, associate with the most learned theologians and professors of her own religion, the free exercise of which, although perfect liberty in this respect was allowed her at Madain, was not so easy of accomplishment as in a Christian country. She was, moreover, anxious that her son should from his earliest years imbibe a taste for the splendid ritual of...

seriously why does modern writing read like the production of a retarded rural 12 year old, when 1800s literature sounds like the queen herself wrote it? is humanity actually becoming stupider over time?
are agents to blame for this?

[Anonymous No.19647072]

>>19647062
journalism ruined literature.

[Anonymous No.19647082]

>>19647062
Not more dumb, but perhaps less patient. It could be a cultural shift.

[Anonymous No.19647097]

Trying to get back into writing. I did a good amount from 2014 - 2016, and then I went to graduate school and started work. I have the time to dedicate to it now, but can't get started on any projects.

My old method was just to write when inspiration struck, and this resulted in some decent short, short stories. But I'd like to do some more involved pieces, but am struggling to figure out how to plan out and execute a project. Pre-writing never worked well for me before but now I feel I need to incorporate it.

[Anonymous No.19647115]

>>19647097
you need to have a reason to write

[Anonymous No.19647130]

>>19647072
>journalism ruined literature
I read Eudora Welty's 1965 essay "Must the Novelist Crusade?" and highly recommend it. Journalists have tried to force the habits of editorials into novels for a decades and she does a great job of explaining why it doesnt make good literature. I recommend anons here read the essay, as it's relevant today. I noticed some anons on the board have become bitter, possibly because their writing is didactic. Your plot could be remarkably idiosyncratic, but if you do it right only a couple people get offended.

[Anonymous No.19647132]

>>19647097

Start warming up by writing what's on your mind for a few pages a day, then slowly transition into writing it as if someone would read it as fiction.

[Anonymous No.19647190]

>>19647130
>I noticed some anons on the board have become bitter,
I see you have read my rants on blue haired agents.

[Anonymous No.19647266]

>>19646812
If you have something the reader shouldn’t skip in the forward, I suggest putting it in a prologue instead. Forwards are often skippable, especially when you’re still deciding whether you want to commit to reading the full book.

[Anonymous No.19647400]

>>19647266
The spot I put the foreword was in place of the novel description, because I know that like 30% of readers assume prologues don't matter and skip them. I have no fucking idea why they would do that, but people tend to think that becuase it's labelled "prologue" that it doesn't matter

So I put it in the spot that I'm sure they will check before clicking on the chapter.

[Anonymous No.19647458]

>>19647400
why not just make the prologue chapter 1? idk this autism.
my main character doesn't even appear until chapter 3, and he dies 3 chapters before the end of the book. there is this childish, attention deficit, instant gratification driven obsession with a book opening to the protag doing something actiony. thats totally retarded to cling to fervently. and agents who demand this infantile format are just as to blame as the dumbed down public-school-educated smartphone-addict coomer-consoomer modern pudgy s0iboy manchild dragon-dildo-stuffing cvckhold of a reader is. literature is a reflection of a culture and what does it say about us that our most venerated novels are hunger games, 50 shades of grey, and ready player one? a bunch of arrogant, ego centric, dick-in-hand horny materialists engaging in quick baseless hedonism day in and day out while both their minds and bodies rot and the soul is assumed not to even exist for that might give a badthink to the hedonist to consider the implications of, thereby the government must ban it as an intellectual concept for the sake of public convenience.

the only conclusion to readers skipping prologues is that we live in sodom and gomorrah.

[Anonymous No.19647575]

Why is it every time I try to discuss possible romantic pairings in my stories there’s some god damn queer faggot in my writing group who gets pissy that I didn’t consider and gay pairings? Why can’t these dumbass homos respect that I won’t write gay shit?

[Anonymous No.19647702]

>>19647458
Because the framing provided by the foreword is so important to understanding the story (that is, establishing that the narrator is both unreliable and not the main character) that I want people to read it even if they jump in 50 chapters deep out of curiosity

If I were putting this into print, I would have the foreword be the first page, and the back cover blurb. Because it's a webnovel format, I have the dashboard to host this most important text, so I use it

And idiots still ignore it

[Anonymous No.19647712]

>>19647575
all homosexuals will burn in hell so it's you who will have the last laugh, yeah? let them enjoy their degeneracy in the material world, for they have paid a steep price for it.
plus the ass cancer.

[Anonymous No.19647885]

>have to write section where characters in govt administration (king+court essentially) receive report of 3 stories of what happened in the border territories
>not going to illustrate it; there is no room and i've illustrated plenty of other battles elsewhere
is there anything i can do better than a maritime trader bringing back reports he gathered on his route? i'm seriously at a loss of how to expedite this while still making it reasonably interesting to read. and yes it is necessary, i cant cut it completely.

[Anonymous No.19648026]

>mom got me a (rather expensive) leather bound moleskine for my birthday
>Still havent touched the last two notebooks I bought
Bros... Hold me...

[Anonymous No.19648100]

>>19647266
I skip the prologue too. Put it in chapter one if you really need it.

[Anonymous No.19648156]

>>19648100
Fuck you brainlet

[Anonymous No.19648176]

>>19648156
Fuck you for being overly verbose. The shit you keep putting in these prologues has so little relevance to the rest of the story. If it doesn't directly involve the main character just sorry man, I don't care, you're using the prologue as a crutch for your shit worldbuilding. I'm not reading it. I'm skipping straight to chapter one every single time. A good writer starts his story as close to the ending as possible. Well I think a good reader does the same you boring sack of shit.

[Anonymous No.19648210]

>>19648176
God damn zoomer coomer. Why are you even picking up stories if you don't want to read what was written?

[Anonymous No.19648221]

>>19648210
Write something worth reading you hack fraud.

[Anonymous No.19648233]

I've finished writing my magnum opus, clocking in at 11.2 million words after six rounds of editing.
What now?

[Anonymous No.19648245]

>>19648233
Have a go fund me to help you reach 10k dollars to print the book independently. Or a Patreon to have donators get a book after donating $500.

[Anonymous No.19648249]

>>19648176
NOOOOO YOU CANT MAKE ME READ 80K WORDS JUST GIVE IT TO ME IN A SERIES OF A FEW DOZEN TWEETS I CANT READ I HAVE TO GET BACK TO COOMING OVER TIKTOK AAAAAAAAAAAAA

holy fuck just nuke modernity. Ted Kaczynski was right about everything.

[Anonymous No.19648255]

>>19648249
I will read the 78000 words that come after the completely useless 2000 at the front of the story which has nothing to do with anything. Prologues suck. Nobody reads them.

[Anonymous No.19648283]

I'm breaking the conditioning. I'm making a meme.

[Anonymous No.19648402]

>>19646812
>foreword
I will never read your gayass foreword.

[Anonymous No.19648421]

I've been asking for advice in the wrong thread this entire time. Whoops.
Is my prose readable? Any pointers? I cut out a random excerpt to keep it as objective and non-selective as possible. Sorry if this isn't the appropriate way of asking.

[Anonymous No.19648436]

>>19648176
I’m with this guy.

>>19648210
>>19648249

It’s not about some zoomer adhd, it’s about choices. There are millions of books out there to read, why choose yours? I’ll push through a slow open for a favorite author, a classic, or one with enough trusted recommendations, because I’m confident there will be a payoff.

If I happen to stumble across anon’s magnum opus posted to his website, you bet I’m going to skim it first before deciding to spend my time reading it through.

The truth is that there are SO MANY options available to a reader today - that any (non-established) author needs to have a hook early. Not what you want to do, stylistically? Tough! Either accept that you’ll lose readers, or - like any artist - put in the time to gain credibility before breaking norms. They’re not ‘brainlets’, just busy people who don’t yet trust you to deliver.

[Anonymous No.19648451]

>>19648421
just what we need, more poorly written genrefiction schlock.

[Anonymous No.19648474]

>>19648451
>nothing has value if I don't like it!!!!

[Anonymous No.19648516]

>>19648421
The dialogue sounds like 4chan brought to life (in a good way)

[Anonymous No.19648557]

How is this as an opening.

A man holding a rod, standing beside a great, long and fat marlin, whose spear almost grazed the concrete, grinned in the framed photograph hanging from the wall of the club. Graham stooped slightly to peer at the picture. He had fished a bit as a boy, on sunny days, off a pier, but his fishing demanded only patience and a bit of care near the end. However, this photo, he thought, captured the outcome of a real contest. Over three times the height of the man, the blue and silver marlin hung like a trophy, its visible eye staring at the camera, surprised to have been caught by the small man in the shadow of its dorsal fin. Wondering at the process after the photo, how they took the fish apart, Graham realised that he had never eaten Marlin. He would like to try.

[Anonymous No.19648563]

>>19648474
>just what the world needs --- more poorly written genrefiction schlock
its pulp dude aren't we buried to our necks in pulp already. what are you doing different. what are you contributing. nothing--you're just masturbating in a jerk-off ring with other genreschlock-gargling dweebs because none of you can get laid and you think shitty poorly researched scifi/fantasy is actually a valid scholastic pursuit (it isn't. /sffg/ is something for 12 year olds to read.) you are the mcdonalds of the literature sphere.

[Anonymous No.19648606]

>>19648563
Transhumanism is the main hook.
My intention is to write something that shows people that identity is something that cannot be fully explored using today's conventions.
>tl;dr YNBAW because you shouldn't want to BAW. Bypass humanity and human standards and become an immortal mind.

[Anonymous No.19648654]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aduzco1VJZE
Threadly reminder

[Anonymous No.19648663]

where do you start if you have a lot of technical writing talent
but have never written a story and have no stories you want to tell

[Anonymous No.19648664]

>>19648563
here i wrote more, is this scholchy enough for you?

[Anonymous No.19648679]

>>19648663
you start by writing.

[Anonymous No.19648694]

>>19646751
I have well over 100 article size sports "pieces" I have never published or released in anyway. I find non fiction easy but fiction grinds me down quickly.

>>19646928
Before and remember to stock up in mens small and womens XXL

>>19646776
the poor wagecucks in the Hoover building already have enough of a backlog from /k/ /pol/ and /r9k/

[Anonymous No.19648700]

>>19648679
that sounds gay isn't there anything easier?

[Anonymous No.19648729]

>>19648700
Buy ghost stories from ghostwriters and sell them as your own

[Anonymous No.19648732]

>>19648436
>>19648436
Why do you think there isn't a story hook in the prologue/foreword?

The job of a prologue is to establish something faster than the natural start of the novel can.

>Oh yeah the novel is about a washed up military super soldier who gets framed for treason to be the fall guy
>when does that happen? Well he realizes it happens in chapter 5
>So the first four chapters are to introduce the reader to him and the world
>Hook? The hook was in the prologue wehre I showed the conspiracy people declaring war on the government
>You did read the prologue, didn't you?

[Anonymous No.19648737]

>>19648729
well I don't have any money but
I could steal stories and then rewrite them better
nice

[Anonymous No.19648784]

>>19648664
content aside the writing itself is sloppy and cheap

[Anonymous No.19648846]

>>19646979
>Read broadly

No, read deeply. There's no point reading wide ranges if you're not actually cognizant to a sufficient depth of what you're reading

[Anonymous No.19648875]

>>19648784
I seem to know my audience well then.

[Anonymous No.19648896]

>>19646751
Jeez. The GDP per capita at that place must be near Africa levels.
Enjoy your "culture", frogs.

[Anonymous No.19648916]

>>19647062
I bet you can't clearly explain what you think is wrong with that passage.

Total pseud retard

[Anonymous No.19648972]

>>19647712
How do you know who will burn in hell? Do you know the hearts of men?

[Anonymous No.19648980]

>>19648916
>I bet you can't clearly explain what you think is wrong with that passage.
>Total pseud retard
...did you even read my post properly you fucking tard?

[Anonymous No.19649028]

>>19648245
What if I just have $10K to spend already? Worth it? Or try to get a traditional publisher?

[Anonymous No.19649045]

>>19648557
Awkward use of commas.

[Anonymous No.19649075]

I Just got back from a night out and I'm ready to begin my evening writing session. To those that are lurking, the time to write is now. We're gonna make it bros.

[Anonymous No.19649084]

>>19648606
>transhumanism
Very interesting genre, and wide open for original ideas and authors. Sci-fi is a great sandbox for philosophical ideas, and transhumanism even more so.

Recommend reading Greg Egan (esp. diaspora/permutation city), Adrian Tchaikovsky (Children of Time), and Peter Watts (Blindsight) if you have not already.

[Anonymous No.19649092]

>>19648980
Look, I am definitely retarded, but buddy you are on a whole new level.

You said it "reads like the production [?] of a retarded rural 12 year old"

That explains nothing you fuckwit. You are stupider than a retarded rural 10 year old

[Anonymous No.19649094]

>>19649084
Thanks senpai, I will acquire them on your recommendation. Here's some comedy parts for you.

[Anonymous No.19649096]

>>19646751
Do I have to be 30+ to make it or is that a myth

[Anonymous No.19649097]

>>19649075
Yes sirs. Happy writing

[Anonymous No.19649109]

>>19649092
>interprets the exact opposite of what i actually said
please keep embarrassing yourself though. it's already past the time limit to delete your first post, by the way, king retard.

[Anonymous No.19649129]

>>19649109
King Retard...

So your quote was an example of good prose? Wow. Be my queen?

[Anonymous No.19649145]

To those of you who write short stories, what's your typical word count?

[Anonymous No.19649189]

Opening paragraph/s for a short. Advice?

I carry an urn to the old city. The taxi drops me and recoils, speeding back to civilisation and safety, saying he will go no further. I don't begrudge him. This place is dangerous, cut from the grid and from the law, left long ago to its own vices. I'm wary but I'm not afraid. The city remembers me and will protect me. Besides, I carry nothing of worth, just my life and a dead friend. I hoist Monty underarm and cross the causeway, dipping the dry canal and entering the gloom beneath buildings. Shadows flit between deeper darknesses. Scuffles and wings puncture the silence. Hand to brow I peer through dark glass. Toppled shelves crouch like beasts in the fog and the smell of rotting carpet seems to permeate the window. Decay. Is this what you wanted, Monty? I criss-cross the streets of our youth, searching for a poignant place, some anchor to the boy I knew. Everything is in ruin. The parks are brown and dead, the backstreets laced with broken glass, the malls strewn with decades of litter – even nature is lacklustre in its reclamation. Defeated, I lie upon a concrete slab, face upturned to the tattered skyline. It rains, white streaks lancing out from a common centre. The idea strikes me like a silver raindrop to the forehead. I try to shake it but cannot. I try again but it's firmly stuck. Well. One for the road, eh Monty? Xanadu. Fifty years sober and I still know how to score. I follow charcoaled letters – "X", the eternal symbol – to the overhang, the void beneath. I know better than to enter. I loiter against a column, slack-jawed and arm turning on its yaw, glancing skittishly at various nothings. My eyes glaze over, I start to sweat. Nerves? Or have I just been hanging out all these years? A shadow breaks from the darkness, approaches, we transact wordlessly. Twenty seconds later I'm walking with a pocketful of clinking vials.

[Anonymous No.19649190]

crashing and burning. only wrote 1000 words, in note form, and some light editing and research. read over 150 pages of random crap today. brain fog all day.

[Anonymous No.19649193]

>>19649145
Between 5000 and 10,000, but I have two pieces that have stretched above the 10k mark and will probably reach 20,000.

[Anonymous No.19649226]

is it even worth trying to get a novella published as a first time author? or should it be padded into a novel

[Anonymous No.19649244]

>>19649193
Cool. I struggle to flesh out 3K words. Need to practice.

[Anonymous No.19649247]

>>19649226
i've never seen an agent looking for novellas so probably no. there's no economic reason to make one. it neither has the brevity of the short story nor the impact of a novel. no reader wants novellas, no buyer wants to pay for one, no agent wants to publish one.

[Anonymous No.19649251]

>>19649244
Nah, short fiction should be short. If you go above 10k you might as well write a novel.

[Anonymous No.19649258]

my novel is very literary and about an obscure subject. how many quotes can i get away with having? i'm wanting to start every chapter with one but i might want to have 2 at the start of each chapter to give a wider purview of the context and subject's import.

[Anonymous No.19649261]

>>19649258
One quote at the start of the chapter, one at the end. That way you still get basically two quotes back-to-back but there's a meaningful gap between them.

[Anonymous No.19649266]

>>19649261
will the agent cry in frustration? i've been gathering quotes from the source material and i've got a large collection building. all the citation style is incorrect, too, so i'll also vex the editor.

[Anonymous No.19649269]

>>19649075
Kill yourself, frogposting newfag.
You will never write anything of worth.

[Anonymous No.19649270]

Has anyone used any speech to text apps for writing? Wondering which one is decent for a fair price.

[Anonymous No.19649280]

>>19649266
>incorrect
What
Why would you do this?

[Anonymous No.19649292]

>>19649270
Specifically I’m using this speech to text to make my writing feel more incoherent

[Anonymous No.19649296]

>>19649270
i cant pronounce my characters' names

[Anonymous No.19649301]

>>19649270
>>>/reddit/

[Anonymous No.19649347]

>>19649269
That's a lot of pent up rage and projection you there. Best of luck with that.

[Anonymous No.19649359]

I'm going to write a poem now. It's going to have two speakers, one who speaks in simple AB rhymes, the other in haiku. They're supposes to be representatives of the west and the east, two men from a time when contact between their cultures didn't actually exist yet.
It's dumb and I've no understanding of poetry but I want to do this.

[Anonymous No.19649364]

>>19649359
good luck future Homer

[Anonymous No.19649371]

>>19649364
Rather than cataloging ships, future Homer would describe every car he saw on a parking lot.

[Anonymous No.19649395]

>>19646751
what are your 'writing routines' ? How'd you tackle your first wall? You prefer Outlining or Freeform?

[Anonymous No.19649468]

>>19649371
>the wine-dark Mazda
>Tesla, lord of lies
based would read

[Anonymous No.19649470]

>>19649270
I could google this, I'm more so looking for a personal review.

[Anonymous No.19649472]

should i start releasing stuff when i have two books done or should i release when i've completed the series so i can focus on meerkating?

[Anonymous No.19649487]

>>19649472
>meerkating
/wg/ -- meerkat general

[Anonymous No.19649531]

>>19649359
I'm surprised modern epics aren't popular

[Anonymous No.19649551]

>>19649472
Your marketing should have started before you put a single word to paper. How many followers do you have?

[Anonymous No.19649572]

>>19649096
Lol

>Anons under 30: Think they have nothing worth writing about yet
>Anons over 30: Think they should give up since they haven’t published yet

Just write, anon. You’ll get better. You’ll cringe looking back at your old work. But you’ll be a far better writer because you started early.

Writing isn’t just putting your genius insights onto paper, it’s the process of thinking like a writer. Look for stories. Rattle words and characters around in your head until they’re just right. Think in unexpected ways. It’s no surprise that some of the best literature came at a time when everyone wrote letters, they had years to practice their writing before attempting a novel.

Do it.

[Anonymous No.19649597]

>>19649572
Ok :-)

[Anonymous No.19649608]

>>19649261
>One quote at the start of the chapter
Can be nice, but is often just a distraction unless the quotes are well tailored to the text. Make sure this is for the reader/work, and not just for your ego

>one at the end
Oh, just fuck off and die.
Recall that one chapter typically follows another, so in effect the reader must now endure two quotes between each chapter.

In short, i strongly recommend you don’t do this.

[Anonymous No.19649609]

>>19649551
fuck off, i've browsed these threads before and have no interest in your style of meerkating campaign!

[Anonymous No.19649621]

How do I actually write narration?
I have "Show, don't tell" so ingrained into me that I can't really think about how to convey things besides characters acting and talking.

[Anonymous No.19649648]

>>19649359
As an english speaker AB rhymes are pretty cut and dry (though learn about meter, and perhaps go for iambic pentameter or something in addition to AB)

As for haiku, tread carefully. Anglicized Haiku (5-7-5 syllables) glosses over many of the nuances of morae and characters in Japanese haiku. “Tokyo” is 2 syllables (“To-Kyo”), but 4 morae (“To-U-Kyo-U”). Haiku also have more rules than just syllables.

If you insist on going down this path, go all the way and do your research first.

[Anonymous No.19649686]

>>19649621
Any way you'd like. That's your true voice.

[Anonymous No.19649701]

>>19649686
I can't think of anything. though.

[Anonymous No.19649706]

>>19649621
Think of it like a tragedy's chorus. You are commenting on and perhaps interpreting the narrative.

If this is a problem for you it is because you haven't read enough, which is the cause of the majority of bad writing, I would guess.

[Anonymous No.19649716]

>>19649701
Why the fuck are you writing then? What do you even write about?

Anon, if you have nothing to write about then don't force it. You'll get nowhere. To write you have to observe life.

[Anonymous No.19649770]

>>19649716
Jesus fuck. Why are you so needlessly hostile? The dude has one complaint about narration because can't find the solution. And your opinion is that he drops it?

Post your work.

>>19649701
Short answer: Think long and hard about how you want to structure your prose.

Long answer: It's going to take awhile, but it can only be developed by working the craft. Look at the early work of famous painters. They had a generic foundation, but they iterated upon it until it became distinct.

[Anonymous No.19649813]

>>19647712
Christians are supposed to show mercy and kindness to sinners, not revel in their suffering. God will judge you accordingly

[Anonymous No.19649818]

>>19649701
Talk aloud about what's going on, then transcribe that.

[Anonymous No.19649912]

>>19649770
I'm needlessly hostile because I am retarded, anon. Try to understand this?

Also I wasn't suggesting he drop it. I said that forcing it will get him nowhere, because what is the point of putting words on a page for no reason? If he can't narrate he doesn't know what he is writing about.

[Anonymous No.19650038]

>>19649247
damn. once i'm finished with another draft i'll be around 40k words. i still want to try and traditionally publish and don't know how the hell i'm going to double this word count

[Anonymous No.19650116]

>>19648233

Post intro

[Anonymous No.19650129]

>>19648557
It reads that in the framed photograph the grinning marlin is wielding a spear next to a man holding a rod.

[Anonymous No.19650150]

>>19648664

Unintriguing and hard to follow. Very repetitious and the dialogue is all.over the place.

[Anonymous No.19650729]

>18 tabs open for how to actually market my book
>Excel spreadsheet ready to make goals for the new year
>visited my local library yesterday, got 12 leads on where I can send my work locally (some have national connections)
>plans forming for outreach
>flooded with new short story ideas to supplement my novel ideas
2022 is gonna be a great year bros

[Anonymous No.19650748]

>>19650729
Yeah, I've become more diligent in reading and should finish writing a novel during spring. Got a promotion at work and considering how life may change after that. Perhaps not too much, don't want to shake up my lit schedule now that I've got my groove.

[Anonymous No.19650767]

>>19650729
What did you do at your library? Go to a posting board? Did you talk to the librarian?

[Anonymous No.19650773]

>>19650729
Okay but how many twitter followers do you have?

[Anonymous No.19650796]

>>19649648
I'm not writing in English anyway

[Anonymous No.19650810]

>>19650767
I talked to the librarian (her assistant was this really cute tomboy) and asked her about local author events. She took my business card and gave me a ton of local art houses, hardware stores, gaming shops, book stores, and even recommended the local radio station where you can submit prose or poetry to and get the chance to read it out loud for the audience. And you can donate your own books to the library system and have them circulate. As I was leaving, I got stopped by an older male librarian who told me to never give up. He recalled once that a young lawyer came by selling and donating his books out of the back of his car, then he told me the guy's name was John Grisham. That was nice to hear.
>>19650773
That's in my outreach list to start working on next. I no longer see it as a grind (it is) after yesterday. It's just another avenue to tell people about my stories and one I'll put to good use

[Anonymous No.19650814]

I got a literary agent… I may actually make it.

[Anonymous No.19650840]

>>19650814
>a leech attached itself to me! surely now I will able to cross the river!

[Anonymous No.19651119]

>>19650814
>>19650840
I looked on Yelp for literary agents, why are they even necessary? How do I become one so I can just promote my own books to publishers? Do I need any fancy degrees or pass some stupid test?

[Anonymous No.19651173]

>>19651119
Nevermind, it's mostly 1099s, which are independent contractors.well that's dumb, it's all about who you know and who's dick I suck. We anons can fellatiate each other with our own self publishing. The only problem is being able to get out our books into stores.

[Anonymous No.19651288]

>>19651119
The 5 largest publishers in the US wont interact with you first without an agent. If you got to middlesize or small publishers, agents are less relevant.

[Anonymous No.19651416]

>a reader breezes through 200k words of your web series in 2 hours
Why pretend like you're reading it when it's fucking obvious you skipped almost everything? This is even more insulting than just calling it shit and dropping it at chapter 1.

[Anonymous No.19651722]

>>19649813
I might be an asshole but I'm less of an asshole than them.
>mercy
I'm the one trying to stop them from committing further self harm via sodomy. let me tell you, encouraging men to chop their dick off or sleep around in bathhouses sure isn't mercy.
>>19650038
just complicate the story with a few more layers.
>>19650814
fucking noice. post query.

[Anonymous No.19651735]

Hello

[Anonymous No.19651745]

I can't seem to take my writing seriously. I have no problem writing down my thoughts, but when I go to write what I would like to, I treat it like a joke and write down bullshit.

[Anonymous No.19651798]

>>19651745
While cleaning my desk drawers I found and reread some shit I wrote all the way back in middle school, complete amateur-hour bullshit, and you know what?
I felt the joy of writing it on those pages. Let go of your inhibitions. If your text doesn't make you chuckle, why did you even write it?

[Anonymous No.19652038]

>>19650814
>>19651119
>wanting someone to take the slices of a small pie
>>19650840
This anon gets it.
Trad publishing is dead and a joke. Write your own book and market it on your own, it's really not fucking hard.

[Anonymous No.19652190]

Rewrote my query letter this morning (both the one paragraph and three paragraph versions.) Going to send out another round.

[Anonymous No.19652431]

How's your social media presence growing?
Have you crossed the 100 follower mark?
Have you crossed the 1,000 follower mark?
Have you crossed the 10,000 follower mark?

[Anonymous No.19652452]

>>19652431
I crossed the E-10 mark today, actually

[Anonymous No.19652481]

>>19652431
social media is the creation of the demiurge
I hate the anti-christ

[Anonymous No.19652500]

>>19652431
No one I know uses social media, so I don't have even a foothold to start on

[Anonymous No.19652505]

>>19652500
>relying on others
>>19652481
Embrace the decline

[Anonymous No.19652510]

>>19652431
281 and growing. Faggots in the last thread can eat my cock because you’re only making me grow faster.

[Anonymous No.19652609]

>>19652510
This LARP is funny to witness. No idiot would make themselves come across like this.

[Anonymous No.19652678]

>>19652505
I HATE THE ANTICHRIST
I HATE TWITTER
I HATE TIKTOK
I HATE INSTAGRAM

[Anonymous No.19652903]

literary agents are some of the laziest, most entitled, most self centered people on the planet. Imagine if you told your boss "hey bro don't give me any more work until next year lmao happy holidays." have these people ever worked in the real world?

is there any excuse for this kind of behavior? just check your email next week you arrogant cunt.

[Anonymous No.19652917]

>>19650150
Thanks I’ll find a thesaurus later
Have you ever talked to someone irl? Be glad I didn’t pepper it with “um” and “uh” every 5 words

[Anonymous No.19652964]

>>19646751
How do you guys write your outlines? How do you generate new ideas for characters, plots, and things in general?
I'm good at the basics like spelling and grammar and I'm also good at sentence structure (not just my judgment, other people have said this). I believe I'm good at describing things and decent at stretching out an idea to fill a paragraph or a page. But I'm awful at coming up with new ideas to actually describe and lay out. I've had it suggested to me by different people to write an outline to improve my story (I'm still trying to get chapter 1 good and have little idea what I'm going to do for chapter 2), but I lack both structure and substance for an outline at present.

[Anonymous No.19652971]

>>19652431
I have 90 followers on Instagram which is my strongest presence, but I wonder how much of that can actually translate to an audience for writing or anything other than pictures.

[Anonymous No.19652981]

>>19652964
if you have nothing to write, don't. go read more books. don't bother trying to write until you've read at least 300 books, but preferably 500.

[Anonymous No.19653007]

>>19652971
Oh man, 90 followers will translate to maybe 1-2 sales if you're lucky. I HIGHLY recommend expanding with the thought in mind that about 2-5% of your following will purchase a book in the first place. Of course you'll have sales from amazon itself, but you need to boost that with sheer numbers. If you can't add 100-200 sales to your initial sale, it's not going to help much.

[Anonymous No.19653050]

How do you come up with fresh takes on stuff? I can’t say unique bc everything has been done but a lot of stories in the genre I want to write blur together

[Anonymous No.19653071]

>>19652964
Consider something you think about too much or you have the potential to dive deep into. Ask a question, then answer. Ask more questions and keep going until you end up on ideas that you just have to share. It could be some truth, a worry, I dont know but you will recognize it.
Now ask these in no particular otder: what elements are in the story, is it tragic, suspense, is it wonder? What could represent your ideas, does a character crystallize? What must they be like to be in this story? What happened to make them that way? What happens to get to the major story beats?
You'll naturally answer more as blank spaces show in your outline, but dont be too detailed. It's a resource to stay on track but feel free to explore as you learn more about your characters. The first draft, for me, riffs off this outline. Then you remove errors from your sketch, and color it and shade it. Eventually you will take care of all the literary devices, pacing and other things. Just do not treat an outline like a blue print because that's like assuming you know how you feel before youve fully considered a matter. Writing it may make you feel something new.

[Anonymous No.19653133]

>>19653050
It's simple: familiar idea + unfamiliar idea. Unfamiliar can be relative to the context. Subvert a trope that almost never gets subverted. Go to a location, write in a subgenre that it's not seen this way. Don't be unfamiliar just because it makes the story fresh, but because it matches your plot and voice.

[Anonymous No.19653151]

>stealing nice turns of phrase from books written in the late 1800s and early 1900s back before society became devolved and retarded
Yes.

[Anonymous No.19653253]

>don't write about dialogue
>don't write about the weather
How the fuck am I supposed to... start the fucking story?

[Anonymous No.19653292]

>>19653253
In media res

[Anonymous No.19653306]

>>19653253
What image or feeling do you want to convey to the reader? The intro is your scene to show what the story is about. At the beginning of Crime and Punishment, Rodya is walking around obsessing over murder. Its a rich portrayal and shows us we'll be dealing with this madman's struggles. It doesnt get at every detail, but helps us ask "Why does he want to kill?"

[Anonymous No.19653384]

I posted this last thread but it got archived:

To train classically as a painter there are several stages you must go through before you actually begin painting in earnest, namely charcoal studies, still-lifes, and cast drawings etc.

What is the equivalent for a writer? Short stories I guess, but is there a more detailed way to train oneself?

[Anonymous No.19653428]

geez i managed to actually write something
starting to realize that lore is fucking hard though

[Anonymous No.19653478]

>>19653306
>What image or feeling do you want to convey to the reader?
How nice the day is before it all goes to hell.

[Anonymous No.19653601]

>>19653384
There is but it's wasted on faggots like you, so there's no point in sharing it.

[Anonymous No.19653610]

I have gotten so many conflicting responses on what is "wrong" with my opening chapter that I'm going to fucking seppuku. The sheer quantity of people that can't handle being told X people are in Y city in Z region is boggling my mind.

[Anonymous No.19653644]

>>19653384
read moar
>>19653610
>can't handle being told X people are in Y city in Z region is boggling my mind.
what? like that a certain ethnicity lives there? lmao dumb libtards.

[Anonymous No.19653689]

>>19653644
>The Vassermark army is occupying Puerto Faro in Giordana.

That sentence makes people put the story down. (paraphrased for the sake of posting)

[Anonymous No.19653716]

I'm sick of hearing about China. China this China that. China China China. If you're so big and powerful China then DO SOMETHING. Invade a country. Declare a war. Something. Even the Chinese are all about China. Acting as though it's the only country in the world. If every a country could be solipsistic this would be it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDZAhAOqroY

[Anonymous No.19653729]

>>19653601
What's the point in commenting that? Everyone begins somewhere, not knowing anything

[Anonymous No.19653741]

>>19653716
?

[Anonymous No.19653852]

How's the comedy novel scene these days?

[Anonymous No.19653912]

>>19653689
you're introducing three different things in one sentence, limit it to one or two per sentence, preferably per paragraph

[Anonymous No.19653919]

>>19653912
Why

[Anonymous No.19653995]

>>19653071
>Consider something you think about too much or you have the potential to dive deep into.
The only things I think too much about are gaming and shitty people I used to be close to, and sometimes the prospect of having power, like being president. None of these are relevant to my story. I know how I want to start it because I've already written that and I know roughly the first half of how I want to end it, but I don't know the very end or much about the middle. Also the setting is a zombie apocalypse, I know it's been done a bunch but a twist on it came to me in a dream and I've since twisted it a bit more, although I'm trying to think how I can make that work without supernatural or soft sci-fi elements, I want it to be very "hard" fiction.

[Anonymous No.19654017]

>>19653919
because any term your audience has never heard before might as well be Greek
you've gotta explain things, either directly or through context, before you introduce another new thing
also that's a very dry sentence, I would suggest starting with something pithier

[Anonymous No.19654025]

>>19654017
This. being conceited and having scorn for your reader isn't the way to get a book published. You are their servant. check your ego at the door and cater to the reader's experience.

[Anonymous No.19654070]

>>19654017
>>19654025
Sounds stupid. If they get filtered that's their problem, not mine

[Anonymous No.19654136]

>>19654070
arrogant. you wont have success with that attitude, so why do you not reconsider?

[Anonymous No.19654156]

Last edits + continuation. If anon thinks there's potential this will be the last version I post.

[Anonymous No.19654302]

>>19654156
I keep happening on this thread right when you post lol

Are you listening to any of the advice you are given? Why are you still posting excerpts if you aren't changing anything according to our comments? Like I have tried to tell you the last couple times: it is unreadable. You use too many disparate images, and you need to cut the colloquialisms. I do not want to read this.

Fall out of love with yourself and your story, lest you completely ruin what I think is a great opportunity for an interesting novel.

[Anonymous No.19654323]

>>19654156
not unreadable to me but it gets banal whenever you shift out of the interesting language

[Anonymous No.19654332]

>>19646772
have any of you boys built up a base of patreon followers to your writings?

[Anonymous No.19654354]

>>19654332
all meerkats are banished from /wg/
get the fuck out of here, simone.

[Anonymous No.19654369]

>>19653912
>>19654017
Anon, I did. Some people can't function with context clues such as "Canta's crew" and "those Vassish bastards" to deduce that I'm referring to two groups of people in conflict with each other.

I spread the words over the first five pages, reusing them in relation to one another to, in my opinion at least, establish that the locals are about to revolt against the empire that conquered their city

[Anonymous No.19654620]

>>19654369
That said, I shouldn't be bitching. It's coming across that I can't stand criticism, rather than I can't stand not understanding the issue and I don't like that the obvious solution (to have started the story earlier in the timeline, to introduce MC by his personality rather than his role) can't be implemented because I've already started releasing chapters

[Anonymous No.19654628]

I'm writing a YA book, which means my audience is composed primarily of gay twitter users and 30 year old plantmoms.

[Anonymous No.19654637]

>>19654620
You can't edit chapters you've published in RR?

[Anonymous No.19654669]

>>19654637
I can, but I can't stop the story I've already started to do a flashback that I put at the start of the story. That seems like an awful idea unless there's a natural breaking point

[Anonymous No.19654674]

>>19654669
I mean who really gives a shit? It's not like your audience is paying you. Why shouldn't you change it to a way that satisfies you? Are you that much of a cuck?

[Anonymous No.19654684]

>>19654674
Well ideally my audience will be paying me next month, when I release my other novel on Amazon and then go to royalroad and say "Hey if you want to support me, you can buy my other book that is complete and edited and polished and stuff"

Also, I haven't written the flash back yet, and I have 29 chapters of this arc written, ready to be released

[Anonymous No.19654799]

research and reading day. collected notes for a scene and some small amount of writing for it. i think the slow-down is because i haven't been drinking the past few days.
historical is a bitch to write

[Anonymous No.19654813]

>>19646812
>reader needs forward to understand what's going on
that's even more retarded than just starting a book with a bunch of exposition

[Anonymous No.19654863]

>>19646812
i just read the first chapter and it’s overwhelmingly self evident what you’re doing, i suspect you got feedback from a retard

[Anonymous No.19654878]

Can anyone tell me why I can't open my dropbox word documents on my laptop?

[Anonymous No.19654885]

>>19654878
>cloudtoddlers
you deserve what you get.

[Anonymous No.19654886]

>>19647031
pretty bad; twitter is unbearable, facebook is not much better, im currently working out a plan to properly turn ARCs into reviews before release but it’s no fun

[Anonymous No.19654905]

>working on a second draft
>novel is a big "fuck you" to the heroes journey narrative
>MC was hit by a shooting star as a kid and left permanently disabled
>after years of secretly hoping and dreading that he was destined for a magical journey, he's grown into a cynical, bitter cripple
>part of this is because after the accident a childhood friend turned on him and started bullying him mercilessly over it because it conflicted with his own main character syndrome

how do I show the bullying in a way that won't seem like a ham-fisted delivery of the theme?

[Anonymous No.19654908]

>>19654885
It's working now, I think I had to open it on browser first then open it in my folder. Also, having a cloud is better than a hard drive. Prove me wrong.

[Anonymous No.19654922]

>>19654905
Make it social and emotional rather than physical and verbal. Kokoro actually does the "Why aren't I the main character?" thing really well, though in a different form

[Anonymous No.19654924]

>>19654905
I hope you're not playing this straight because this would be a great parody novel. If it is a parody then the solution is simple, just go super-overboard with the bullying, like de Sade levels. It is after all a staple of the bildungsroman/hero's journey structure.

[Anonymous No.19654942]

How do you realistically write an adult turning a kid who has a crush on them down? I want them to be flattered without entering pedo territory.

[Anonymous No.19654948]

>>19654942
Say:
>When I was your age, I had a thing for an older person but they turned me down all the same. I guess that's how the cookie crumbles. Thank you, but no.

[Anonymous No.19654949]

>>19654863
Thank you anon. I wish I could datamine the previous reading history of the people who respond to me and my writing.

100% of people I know who have read classic literature like Count of Monte Cristo have found my writing trivial to understand, I know that as a data point

[Anonymous No.19654954]

>>19654942
>without entering pedo territory.
BOOOOO

[Anonymous No.19654955]

>>19654942
I'm current working on a story that revolves around this exact trope. I figured out a solution but it's very specific to my story. Probably, yours will have to be the same.

[Anonymous No.19654960]

>>19654908
>google does a pajeet-code moment
>4 years of effort wiped
you are a tremendous homosexual and deserve everything you get.

[Anonymous No.19654963]

>>19654960
>leaves hard drive in the sun or drops it
>4 years of effort destroyed
you are living in the past, brohaim

[Anonymous No.19654967]

>>19654960
You know some of us can't save our elf girl self-insert erotica on our family computers

[Anonymous No.19654970]

>>19654908
Don't have to zoomie.

[Anonymous No.19654971]

>>19654967
This.

[Anonymous No.19654975]

>>19654954
Well, I want to get published.

[Anonymous No.19654977]

>>19654963
>leaves hard drive in the sun or drops it
This may be hard for you to believe, but you're not supposed to take the hard-drive out of the computer and walk around with it or let it tan

[Anonymous No.19654983]

>>19654977
You use a native hard drive? What happens when you drop your computer or it gets a virus? Dropbox is encrypted and safer than any PC that can get malware.

[Anonymous No.19654985]

>>19654922
what does emotional abuse look like in this case if there's no verbal component?

>>19654924
it's comedic fantasy but I'm not sure I'd call it a parody

[Anonymous No.19654993]

>>19654983
>What happens when you drop your computer
I have a desk
>it gets a virus
The only ones who get viruses are literal tech-illiterates or just flat retards

[Anonymous No.19655002]

>>19654985
I guess, clarifying, emotional abuse is verbal but not "Hey you dumb cripple, go to a restaurant where there isn't a cripple ramp, ugly" levels of abuse. It's making the person feel bad for being a burden, less of a person, that kind of shit.

[Anonymous No.19655018]

>>19654949
well i read that so long ago that ive almost forgotten it but it gives off an unreliable narrator pretty clearly to me (you pretty much say as much), my first impression was kinda akin to gene wolfe although it’s obviously stylistically very different

[Anonymous No.19655025]

>>19654369
I thought you said you opened with the sentence you quoted before, that's why I said it was too much. If you explained stuff before that then you're good. If you explain it afterwards, maybe slow down and introduce the city and region first, then the occupying force, or vice versa.

[Anonymous No.19655032]

>>19654905
it's already a ham-fisted takedown of the idea of a chosen one so don't worry about the details
I mean seriously, hit by a meteor? either change that or lean into the absurdity

[Anonymous No.19655040]

>>19655018
My hypothesis strengthens

I need to read more. Gotta slow down on the writing and read more. I still have Le Guin sitting on my shelf even though everyone and their mother says they're the best of sci-fi

[Anonymous No.19655067]

>>19646751
Any tips on keeping books entertaining when not much is happening in the plot? Currently writing a weird fiction/cosmic horror story and I want to make sure the build up is engaging.

[Anonymous No.19655074]

>>19655067
Anecdotes have been used since antiquity.

[Anonymous No.19655081]

>>19655067
Character banter is the go-to solution, but why is not much happening in the plot? Why aren't your characters doing anything?

[Anonymous No.19655094]

>>19655081
it's just near the beginning, it's not that nothing is happening, it's just fairly mundane

[Anonymous No.19655137]

>>19654942
How would (You) react to a kid proclaiming they crushed on you?

[Anonymous No.19655139]

>>19649818
That's exactly my issue. I think I'm too used to news articles, because my style is extremely dry. I'm so used to reading advice where people say "let the events speak for themselves" that I have no idea how to conceptualize it the way I read it. Here's an example I whipped up.

>He grabbed his sword and stared down the wolf in front of him.
>"This'll be tough, but I have to do it. If I don't take care of him, I can't get home."
It's all action and dialogue all the way down. Anything that I might think of putting into narration is shoved into dialogue instead and it looks like hot garbage to me.

[Anonymous No.19655154]

>>19655094
If it's the beginning, you should be impressing the reader with the perspective of the character. Show the mundane through the character's lense.

[Anonymous No.19655158]

So here are the themes of my gay horror YA;

Kids who are bullied are usually bullied for a reason, the victim narratives that dominate gay media are inherently destructive and rooted in envy and are a cope for frustrated vindictiveness.
People who are powerful, who have status, the "dumb jocks" are good, actually.
Communities that worship victims are inherently detrimental to society.

Sound interesting?

Well it doesn't matter anyway cause there's no way in hell I can sell that to an agent so it's *wink wink nudge nudge* actually about the burgeoning attraction between two guys who come from opposite familial backgrounds.

[Anonymous No.19655166]

>>19655158

[Anonymous No.19655167]

>>19655139
Frankly, read at least one, preferably two to four, narrative heavy books. It will shock you out of this like it did me. I used to have the same problems.

[Anonymous No.19655174]

>>19655139
Try something that captures the character's thought processes. Same guy by the way, just happened to be scrolling by 24 hours later and noticed a (you) so thank you for the (you) my good friend.
>[CHARACTER'S] fingers wrapped around the handle of his blade, eyes locking on the lupine beast before him. Anxiety and hope burgeoned in his mind as he spoke.
>"Words words words."
Just lengthen out the innards of the character, don't be afraid to know more than he does about what's going on.

[Anonymous No.19655195]

I'm just so happy to be at work on my story, bros.

I'm editing the second book of it right now, and I am overcome by a sense of peace and happiness. I think this story is what I was meant to tell. I feel at home doing this. This is what I was meant to do. I have found my purpose in life: to be a writer and a poet, working on this story of mine. Every writing or editing session brings me pleasure. I feel so happy inhabiting this world, encountering these characters. I hope I can get the story published, so I can actually make a living off of telling it for years to come.

[Anonymous No.19655205]

>>19655195
We hope niggas now. The cope of "I'll never be the next Nabokov" and "BRO YOUR TWITTER" is gone. This is the new world now

[Anonymous No.19655221]

>>19655137
beat if boy
molest if girl

[Anonymous No.19655273]

>>19655137
I don't really know. That's why I asked for advice.

[Anonymous No.19655277]

>>19653253
Just be a chad and start with "It was a dark and stormy night", that'll show 'em.

[Anonymous No.19655280]

>>19655273
>I don't really know
How do you expect to write a fiction story when you can't even put yourself in a speculative scenario

[Anonymous No.19655284]

>>19655280
No one in these threads should write.

[Anonymous No.19655315]

>>19655195
Very good, sir.

[Anonymous No.19655316]

>>19655284
I have good news for you then.

[Anonymous No.19655355]

>>19649189
i like it

[Anonymous No.19655364]

>>19649189
The “one for the road, eh monty” seems out of place. The narrator is seemingly describing what’s happening as it’s happening, so the dialogue is awkward. Maybe instead have them hold Monty tight or some other kind of familiar, reassuring gesture.

[Anonymous No.19655385]

>>19655273
>>19655364
Thanks. I might have to reconsider the tense.

[Anonymous No.19655397]

>>19655385
No way, I really liked the tense. It felt skittish, like it was a prey animal. But I guess if that’s not what you’re going for then fair enough.

[Anonymous No.19655420]

I read in a writing guide the Stephen King one that you should pick an "ideal reader" and write for that person. I tried this out with my mom and it worked out pretty good. Now I'm going to write about a lawyer for my brother, who's a John Grisham fan.
Only this isn't the heroic young Grisham protagonist. This is a real scum-of-the-earth kind of lawyer.
He created a company that exists only on paper (in Germany for the price of only one euro!) and for that company obtained the digital distribution rights of various films/series (porn too)
He put them up on torrent websites, then got a court order for the ISPs to hand his law firm the contact information attached to the IP-addresses that participated in those torrents
To these he then starts sending letters demanding payment or they'll be taken to court.
Based on a true story (many such cases!)

[Anonymous No.19655476]

>>19655195
Salute, sirs.

Never forget what you are now feeling.

[Anonymous No.19655477]

>writer’s block
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

[Anonymous No.19655488]

>>19655477
Close your browser.

[Anonymous No.19655492]

Taking a massive shit and thinking about my legacy: a clogged toilet, at best.

[Anonymous No.19655541]

Why not just write visual novels?

[Anonymous No.19655549]

>>19655541
I'm not Japanese

[Anonymous No.19655633]

I have too many notecards.

[Anonymous No.19655638]

*Ka-chink!
Tesuo vanished with a click of his sword and reappeared right behind Musa.
*Clang!
Mizuho and Ohmahaw clashed together as sparks burned into the faces of the two swordsmen.
"You're good"
"You haven't seen anything yet!"
With a push, Musa parried Tesuo's strike and readied his sword. His arms lifted, and his hands grasped the handle of his familial heirloom.
"With this final move, I will strike you down"
"Try and hit me first".
A swirl of sand began to react to the gathering of power from Musa's feet. His aura burned brightly astonishing even Tesuo.
"You're serious huh?"
"Mmmm," Musa answered.
"Very well, I too shall show you my final attack"
Tesuo sheathed his sword preparing the final attack passed down to him as the final master of the Mawauzu Sword Style, founded over 2000 years ago.

"Here we go!"
A blur of bodies rushed toward each other.. Leaving nothing but sand, dust, and dirt where the two men stood. Suddenly a loud crack sounded, and Musa stood coughing blood out on top of Tesuo's shoulder.
"You dirty cheat"
"I'm alive."

Tesuo stepped back, revealing a dagger gutted into Musa's stomach. Mizuho lodged itself in Ohmahaw's edge. Breaking both swords.

"At least a dirty cheat like you won't be using your sword ever again."
"Oh I bought that last week."
"T-then... the real weapon is..."

Mizuho looked at the dagger still lodged in Musa's stomach.

"Meet Seihakyun."

[Anonymous No.19655641]

>>19655638
I love anime writing. It's so stupidly fun.

[Anonymous No.19655650]

>>19655638
This made me audibly laugh. I'm not the target audience, but whoever this is for is gonna love it. Good shit anon.

[Anonymous No.19655665]

>>19655638
I was confused by all the names. Also, wouldn't he feel the blade in his stomach before realising it?

[Anonymous No.19655683]

>>19655665
he did, thats why he called him a "dirty cheat".

[Anonymous No.19655735]

>>19655638
Hey, it's you again. I still say should rethink the whole "named weapons" thing you got going on.

[Anonymous No.19655820]

Boys, I’m exploding in growth. I believe by this time next month I’ll be over 600ish followers.
We’re going to bring hard memes to books

[Anonymous No.19655905]

>>19655735
I'm the robot anon. I just wrote that piece for silly fun in like 2 minutes.

[Anonymous No.19656055]

>>19655638
>Ohmahaw
I see what you did there

[Anonymous No.19656156]

>>19654302

Ma mayn, I am hard at work trying to change according to comment but as previously said I'm not sure I understand what you're getting it. You said that I should achieve balance between my natural energetic prose, and something more controlled and straightforward. You'll see a red line in the middle of the text, and I believe I've achieved this balance particularly well in that section. Have a looksy if you're still invested, and a practical example would do me wonders as I find it easier to comprehend crit if shown the how-to's.

>>19654323
Kek. I'm beginning to suspect that all my crit is a samefag giving conflicting advice. Could you give examples of interesting and bland sections?

[Anonymous No.19656197]

Is it me or has the quality of the board gone down. There are too many off-topic low effort threads.

[Anonymous No.19656211]

>>19656197

I never look at other /lit/ threads cause it's all just pseuds reading philosophy and fantasy

[Anonymous No.19656212]

>>19656197
Final exam season has passed so all the college students are back to shitposting.

[Anonymous No.19656247]

Fuck, I'm so tired and foggy, I keep repeating things all the time. Like,
>"Anyway, we should keep going south," he said.
>Everyone nodded, but then turned to leave north anyway.
Goddamn, I must be retarded. I have to slowly subvocalize every line to catch these.

[Anonymous No.19656250]

I just finished the first section of my narrative horror/tragedy poem, and it went a lot better than expected. But it was also more labor intensive than I imagined. I'm actually really excited to see where this goes.

Epic length poems are coming back bros, I can sense it.

[Anonymous No.19656264]

>>19656247
You'll catch them in the edit senpai

[Anonymous No.19657087]

>>19656211
>that’s why I write about my hentai/sci-fi book. God people will think I’m an intellectual when I reveal my cuck fetish
You got filtered by a very easy philosophy book, didn’t you?

[Anonymous No.19657132]

>got home early yesterday
>spent 3 hours organizing my plans for development in Trello
>watched a movie, took notes
>spent the next 2 hours writing the piss out of my story in an inspired fervor
>tfw we're all gonna make it next year
Also as it turns out, Trello is actually decent for organizing outreach and development ideas. Now I don't have to trawl through a difficult Excel document every time I want to remember what I had planned.
>>19656197
Make the threads you want to see

[Anonymous No.19657175]

>>19655284
true

[Anonymous No.19657283]

how do I learn to write more memorable and snappy dialogue?
I don't wanna become some second rate pulp writer but I want to be able to write some stuff that's as punchy as sailor slang or a quentin tarantino movie
I'm already halfway good at it but I have no clue how I can learn it better

[Anonymous No.19657291]

>>19647575
Where do you find a writing group? I'm not sure if these are common near me.

Also, just tell them you don't have experience with non-hetero relationships and didn't want to tivialise the movement by writing one.

[Anonymous No.19657311]

>>19648026
I have so many I don't use. I might just start smearing shit on the pages to get over it.

[Anonymous No.19657340]

To the people talking about social media presence for book marketing, let's say you've got me interested. What kind of things do you put on a twitter or instagram to get a following? Do you post about books? What do you even say?

[Anonymous No.19657350]

>>19657340
You don't "post" things, you follow people to get them to follow you back.
You're NGMI with that kind of understanding of market forces.

[Anonymous No.19657377]

>>19657350
>You're NGMI with that kind of understanding of market forces.
Care to educate me on the strategy?

[Anonymous No.19657388]

>>19657377
I just told you all there is to it. Collect twitter followers. It's all about the twitter followers. You need more of them.

[Anonymous No.19657396]

>>19657388
My guess is the people who follow-for-follow aren't the kind of people who will read any of what's on their feed and will only care about their own posts. Why exactly do I want any of these people to follow me?

[Anonymous No.19657412]

>>19657396
Collecting twitter followers is just phase 1.
Phase 1: collect twitter followers.

[Anonymous No.19657418]

>>19657412
But you said phase one is all there is to it? You sound like a pretender.

[Anonymous No.19657421]

>>19657418
Phase 3 is profit. Get it?

[Anonymous No.19657425]

>>19657421
I get that you're really invested in this dumb joke.

[Anonymous No.19657428]

>>19657425
It's a South Park joke, yes. You ought to feel silly for ever thinking about using social media for marketing.

[Anonymous No.19657435]

>>19657340
Here's what I've come to understand, given to you in brevity.
>It's not just "collect followers"; it's engage followers. A tight loyal community is more valuable in money and involvement than a conglomerate of uninterested faces
>Pick a social media site or two based on where your audience hangs out and stick with it
>Share content people would want to see. Behind the scenes drafting and editing, how-to writing tips and theories, short stories and flash fiction especially are useful for fiction
>Schedule posts for when you know you'll be busy
>Live streams, guest events and guest articles, cold calls to podcasters and book stores and local areas can all help get the word out
>Make an maintain an author website; it's the first portfolio any reader will find when they search for you, so it must present a good author page that showcases you effectively
>Don't sleep on email marketing, gathered mainly from your website. Don't spam
>Design a stellar book cover with a professional. Many books go unread because of bad or weak covers. Stick to genre expectations
>Get advance reviewers to agree to post reviews of your book day 1; this will help with visibility and the algorithm
>Encourage a call to action at the end of your book asking for reviews. It's not begging, even if you think it is

[Anonymous No.19657462]

>>19657435
This all seems like things to do when you're ready to market a book. Is it too far in advance to even think about this if I'm not very good at writing yet?

[Anonymous No.19657468]

>>19654942
Read Kodomo No Jikan

[Anonymous No.19657481]

>>19657462
Are you telling me that you, a person who has never had anything published, are not willing to give a community of adoring fans writing advice?

[Anonymous No.19657500]

>>19657481
Crazy, innit?

[Anonymous No.19657536]

>>19657462
I don't think it is. They're ideas to keep in mind. But you are right, all the best marketing in the world won't sell a book that's not ready to become a product. Focus on that first.

[Anonymous No.19657542]

>>19657536
I guess it's probably worth pushing out some tweets that might get some casual interest. Just vague exposition about writing, etc. but not focusing on it at all.

[Anonymous No.19657800]

>>19657283
thanks for all the help, bros

[Anonymous No.19657813]

I'm looking for creative writing exercises - any recommendations?

[Anonymous No.19657867]

If I write most of my scenes and dialogue as clusterfucks with 10 layers of narrative unfolding simultaneously though subtext and unspoken details will that come across as obnoxious or endearing in a schizophrenic way?

[Anonymous No.19657901]

>>19657800
>>19657283
Try devices for emphasis every now and then. Here are some: chiasmus, diacope, enthymeme, hyperbole, paralipsis, situational irony, sibilance. Those are my favorites to use. There are many other ways to emphasize with literary devices. If you want wit, high wit includes conceit, analogy, metaphor, and catachresis.

[Anonymous No.19658163]

>>19657813
http://www.timclarepoet.co.uk/couchto80kwritingbootcamp/
Each day is a 10 minute writing exercise.

[Anonymous No.19658167]

>>19657867
You need to post an example or you won't get any useful advice beyond guesses.

[Anonymous No.19658319]

>>19654983
computer viruses are about as real as 'rona: only boomers and retards catch it.

[Anonymous No.19658571]

>>19657813
Yeah, I'll give you a writing prompt right now.
1500 words.

[Anonymous No.19658575]

>>19658571
I bought this movie for Christmas. I wish we'd gotten to see more of the play.

[Anonymous No.19658593]

The book I'm writing has no arbitrary heroes and villains. I'm not doing it on purpose it just comes out that way
a pleb reading it would come out with the impression that all three "villains" "win" in the end
they "win" mostly by accident

[Anonymous No.19658605]

>>19658575
Have you read Kaufman's book yet? It almost feels like a retread of Synecdoche in parts.
It's about a movie critic that discovers a 3 month long film made by an outsider artist that was obsessive enough to animate what was happening outside of the frame.

[Anonymous No.19658623]

>>19658605
Antkind? No, I haven't read it yet.

[Anonymous No.19658643]

I want to create a sci-fi story where asexual reproduction becomes the dominant form of reproducing for humans and only tribes of barbarians sexually reproduce but this sounds like a couple other sci-fi stories I've read already, wondering if it's cliche at all

[Anonymous No.19658733]

>>19658643
I'm sure the Asexual High Society trope has been done before, yes. But it's not as bad as the Noble Savage trope.

[Anonymous No.19658775]

>>19658643
Then do it. Write what you want to read.

[Anonymous No.19658857]

Any fantasy writers/readers here? I'm working on seafaring fantasy book and I'm having trouble deciding on something. Most fantasy books I've seen tend to just have one type of 'magic' or at best there's good and bad magic. But I wanted to make it so each nation or whatever uses their own kind of magic, like wizards from the UK use strict Vancian magic with spellbooks, voodoo from the Carribbean, pacts with spirits/fairies from the Irish. Is there a reason more authors don't do that? Is that unappealing as a reader for some reason? The magic isn't a main focus, just a flavor - akin to shit like, 'well our ship is a schooner, but when it's captained by a post-captain instead of a commander, we call it a frigate.'

[Anonymous No.19658867]

>>19658857
can't help you dude. My fantasy setting has no magic beyond the magic we have in our world

[Anonymous No.19658879]

>>19658857
most fantasy writers are hack frauds so if you come up with an idea no one else is doing, it's probably good.

[Anonymous No.19658901]

>>19658857
That's a lot of effort spent for something that isn't even the main focus. The less you distract the reader with unnecessary details and convoluted systems, the better

[Anonymous No.19658914]

>>19658857
I would think it would add a lot of character to the story and make each nation have a distinct flavor and feel, rather than "Farm Land", "Mountain Land", "Ice Land", "Big City", etc.

[Anonymous No.19658950]

>>19658901
ngmi

[Anonymous No.19658958]

>>19658857
Depends on what the focus of your story is. If you're going for an exploration of the magical systems then you could create a common origin for all of them. Spirits would then be one version of the underlying principle. What is important with a magical system, if you are going for a hard setting with lots of rules, is for consistency and clarity. Seek out Sanderson's rules of magic to start.

Then again, if magic is just a flavor, then there's no reason to think to dwell too deeply on it. Have the magic be fantastical and wonderous, not reducible to any kind of rational exploration.

[Anonymous No.19658981]

>>19658976

Bread baked

[Anonymous No.19660043]

>>19655158
>People who are powerful, who have status, the "dumb jocks" are good, actually.
get fucked bougie swine, your shop and your home will burn just like all the others

[Anonymous No.19660165]

>>19658857
I've read a decent amount of fantasy and yeah most things I've come across don't detail their magic, and when they do they don't differentiate it.
I have a fantasy setting I wrote up that I was going to use for some video games that defines all magic into types such as physical, thermal, electric, magnetic, emotional, etc. I haven't decided on a casting method.
More relevant to your question, I had intended to have different cultures use different subsets of magic (at least until the age of exploration) and view them differently. Maybe Europeans believe manipulating someone's emotions is wrong but in east Asia it's accepted and used by doctors and priests (and scammers). Maybe people in the Old World discovered thermal magic long ago but Native Americans never did before they were conquered.
Do what you feel, have fun. Just don't focus on the fluff to the point you lose the plot. (Or maybe do. Sci-fi authors get away with it time to time, writing autistic diatribes on how their fake FTL drive works and how this alien society is, I don't see why fantasy authors shouldn't be able to get away with it too.)