/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19852061]

How is your novel going, anon? What tips can you share to the class?

[Anonymous No.19852284]

I set a short deadline for myself and hit it. That works wonders.

[Anonymous No.19852381]

it’s done, read it.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59794391-eggplant

[Anonymous No.19852398]

>>19852061
10 chapters in on my fantasy novel. I just have to motivate myself to keep writing. Once I start and get a good flow going I can pass hours just writing but the problem is getting myself in that mood.

[Anonymous No.19852446]

>>19852061
>Terrible Writing Advice
>DUDE JUST WRITE IT, don't worry about plot or structure. Just start writing and let it flow
>Leave it in a drawer for a month and come back to it, I know I guilt tripped you into just starting to write it, but now you need to do the opposite. Just leave it. Don't think about it and come back to it
>Write for the most mass market you can. Try to eliminate anything that would be unique or different
>Don't imitate obscure but good authors, instead imitate whatever is no. 1 on the best sheller shelves right now, try to get as close to the style of what's happening today. You need to stay on trend
>Write what you know - except take it literally
>Don't listen to the critics, when someone gives you advice, don't listen to them. You do you... as long as that doesn't detract from writing something populist and middle of the road, you do you as long as it is copying bestellers

[Anonymous No.19852591]

Writing Advice that I like, but your mileage may vary
>avoid adverbs unless they modify the context of the verb: "she smiled insincerely", "he whispered loudly"
>Nouns can provide scale and can frame the environment in the reader's mind. Compare: A fruitfly on the rim of a teacup, a Airbus A380 over a metropolis... and you can mix the two but do so carefully, a fruit-fly on Everest can feel a bit muddled
>when outlining or thinking of plot, avoid using conjunctions like "and", try to use contrasting conjunctions like "however" "but" "except" and more importantly causative verbs "therefore" "consequently" "thus", as a way of ensuring that your plot stays surprising but still has continuity and cohesion
>Don't turn your back on Embodied Metaphors because they are your friends, they'll be there for you when you're outlining the plot, they'll even give you a hand when it comes to the prose style on every single page. Invite them into your process, don't run away from them, don't try to abandon them. Embodied Metaphors are generous friends that can give your writing many gifts
>Try to challenge your character's habits or fears to come up with the kind of obstacles that make good episodes or plot. Obviously you should be a little less dialectical than a character who is always the center of attention with a voice like Brian Blessed has to stay silent and keep in the shadows, but if you can observe the basic principle you'll more often find opportunities for interesting conflict

[Anonymous No.19852855]

>Have an outline. It in itself isn't all that important, but it's a good way to have an idea where you'll be or at the very least where you want to go.
> Weave exposition into the narrative. If King Ball Licker the 2nd usurped King Cunning Linguist and killed all his children, twy to allude to that purely with a characters dialog "Damn that usurping bastard Ball Licker. Bad enough to murder children, but now famished for virgin land, are we?"
> Vary the length of your sentences. Rather than each being 5-8 words, have 1 word and 3 word sentences for emphasis.
> Leave innocuous plot threads in the early game so you will look like a master story teller in the future even if you had no idea what you would do with them at the time. Hey it worked with J.K Rowling and the Horcruxes.

[Anonymous No.19852905]

>>19852591
>avoid adverbs unless they modify the context of the verb: "she smiled insincerely", "he whispered loudly
How do you avoid adverbs without sounding like a pretentious faggot? I know the standard advice is to pick some really clever verb that conveys the meaning on its own, but that leads to a lot of really obscure words. Normal people would never say something was "torrid", for example, they'd just say it was very hot.

[Anonymous No.19852958]

>>19852905
>but that leads to a lot of really obscure words.
Why?
>it was very hot.
Depending on how much exaggeration/metaphor you want then you could say the subject is:
Cooking. Boiling. Baking. Searing. Cremating. Incinerating. Scalding. Burning.
Most of those are words even a child would know

[Anonymous No.19853060]

>>19852958
>Cooking. Boiling. Baking. Searing. Cremating. Incinerating. Scalding. Burning.
>Most of those are words even a child would know
It's not that people don't know those words, but it's just not how people talk.

"How's the water?"
"Cremating!"

Sounds odd, doesn't it? Unless the second character is supposed to be a poet or something.

[Anonymous No.19853086]

>>19852061
I’m writing a screenplay for the Oscars screenwriting competition. I think you guys will really like it.

[Anonymous No.19853114]

So I'm writing a Low Fantasy story and i was wondering what advice I could get on the time period I should study to make it more accurate.

Basically I want a late medieval society with the King and his forces having access to trains, gunpowder, and things long those lines. These technology is unbeknowest to the nobels and stuff but they do know that the King has access to "strange" technology.

Was playing Kingdom Come Deliverance and it seems like how I want my setting to be.

[Anonymous No.19853123]

>>19852061
I actually write for a living (marketing job). It's kind of cool, but I find myself unable to do much creative writing because that part of my brain is exhausted when I'm done with work

[Anonymous No.19853147]

>>19853114
I'm kind of curious as to how you would keep trains a secret, they require huge effort to set up and you can't exactly hide them

[Anonymous No.19853156]

>>19853114
>Basically I want a late medieval society with the King and his forces having access to trains, gunpowder, and things long those lines. These technology is unbeknowest to the nobels and stuff but they do know that the King has access to "strange" technology.
You know they had gunpowder in the actual late medieval period, right? Eg: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilic_(cannon)

[Anonymous No.19853166]

>>19853147
Was thinking that they would be underground, some even going into the ocean.

In my setting the King is some Magic entity ( haven't really decided the details), but basically he's some immortal magical being who keeps it a secret from everyone and "dies" every few decades so no one ask any questions.

[Anonymous No.19853171]

>>19853060
Aside from the fact the advice clearly is for narration and not dialogue your point is still moot because real people do exaggerate and would say that the water is "boiling" or "I'm cooking in this weather" very frequently. Why did you choose the least appropriate word? Maybe you're just a bad writer?

[Anonymous No.19853175]

>>19853156
Isn't that more of a case of some societies were further ahead than the others? Or was it readily available everywhere?

[Anonymous No.19853209]

>>19853114
Kingdom Come’s timeframe (early 15th century) is actually pretty good for that. You have a period where blacksmithing is advanced enough to conceivably manufacture some higher tech like muskets or simple trains, but like a century before arquebuses were a thing.

Politically you can mash a few things together from that timeframe to make it more interesting. Like dragging in the Golden Horde and maybe some light crusading, Constantinople gets TURKED a few decades later. Very comfy era desu

[Anonymous No.19853220]

>>19853171
>Aside from the fact the advice clearly is for narration and not dialogue
So adverbs are ok in dialogue but not in narration? Why?

>your point is still moot because real people do exaggerate and would say that the water is "boiling" or "I'm cooking in this weather" very frequently. Why did you choose the least appropriate word? Maybe you're just a bad writer?
I was exaggerating to make a point. Yeah you could say the water was boiling, but you could also say it's very hot. Why is one better than the other? And 'hot' has a lot of synonyms so it's easy, but sometimes there just isn't an easy substitute. That's why we invented adverbs!

[Anonymous No.19853242]

>>19853209

How knowledgeable about politics were medieval peasants? I'm specifically making my protagonists medieval peasants so I myself can go in just as blind as they are at least a bit, but I still want them to know stuff that they should obviously know.

I'm sure they would know basic geography., about their Lord and his family, basic arithmetic, and their craft, but they wouldn't really know anything about their king besides maybe his name?

[Anonymous No.19853291]

>>19853242
They would have basic knowledge of history and other kingdoms, both more as myth the further away they are. They would know their local feudal lord, their current king and his predecessor. But any interior knowledge of court gossip wouldn't be likely. Think more that they saw an illustration of the French king fucking a pig, laughed at it, and that's the only impression your Germanic peasant has of France beyond "walk west for a few months and they talk like fags".

This wasn't exactly a cosmopolitan demographic. They'd know whose face is on the coins, they'd have an opinion on the local count, and then a pretty solid take on church saints.

Just start with the church thing where they obviously know the Pope exists and Rome exists, but you're making charcoal like a months travel away so its not going to be something you think much about.

[Anonymous No.19853306]

>>19853220
>So adverbs are ok in dialogue but not in narration? Why?
Anon, if you don't understand why dialogue may operate under different conventions than narration in certain circumstances, then your clearly fail to understand the entire concept of "stylization vs. realism" and I advice you to do some homework.
>Why is one better than the other?
Why isn't this immediately obvious?
>I'm feeling very hot!
>I'm am boiling!
Which one has more impact?
>And 'hot' has a lot of synonyms so it's easy, but sometimes there just isn't an easy substitute.
I think that's the wrong attitude to have, it's not about having an 'easy' substitute, no reader gives a shit how much effort something took to write: only how easy it is to read.
It's not mathematics, don't show your working.
>That's why we invented adverbs!
To modify the meaning of the verb, not to agree with it.

[Anonymous No.19853422]

>>19853306
>I think that's the wrong attitude to have, it's not about having an 'easy' substitute, no reader gives a shit how much effort something took to write: only how easy it is to read.
I thought of a better example. Let's say I want to describe a person as "very charismatic". That sounds fine to me, but according to the no-adverb rule, I should find a substitute. So uh... He was a good public speaker? He was an effective leader? People listened to what he had to say? I don't want a whole phrase, just a word, but there isn't a good fit. "Magnetic", "captivating", "beguiling" etc have unpleasant conotions I don't want, and other words sound like I pulled them from an HP Lovecraft story (ie, purple prose)

[Anonymous No.19853447]

>>19853291
Thanks anon.
Speaking of which I need to come up with some kind of religion. Damn it.

Will probably save that for when I get deeper in.

[Anonymous No.19853464]

>>19853422
>but according to the no-adverb rule,
You would just say he's charismatic under that rule. "very" is the adverb, "charismatic" is the adjective.
>He was a good public speaker
You describe with verbs what made his speaking charismatic, describe the means not the effect. This is what they mean by "show don't tell".

[Anonymous No.19853467]

>>19852061
My "original setting" is more or less a ripoff of Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar ._.

[Anonymous No.19853468]

>>19853464
>>19853422
Okay I'm a retard, 'very' isn't an adverb. But the second point still stands: describe what was it about his speech that was charismatic rather than just saying "trust me dude he was charismatic, he spoke in a way that was so charsismatic, like the way he spoke had charisma"

[Anonymous No.19853539]

>>19853468
Ok, but then you're taking several sentences to replace a single word. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. If it's just a minor character, I probably don't want to spend that much time describing him.

I dunno, I get the point of "no adverbs" advice, I just think it goes too far sometimes. The only ones I really want to use are the intensifiers like very, really, highly, etc.

[Anonymous No.19853554]

I'm writing a ridiculous story based on VN tropes from 20 years ago. It's fun.

[Anonymous No.19853653]

>>19853539
>Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.
there's exceptions to any rule if you look for them, it's good advice the vast majority of the time. I don't know why it
>very, really, highly, etc.
If you need an intensifier, your verb isn't strong enough

[Anonymous No.19853723]

>[word count] 'practice' per day
If you aren't under contract to meet a publisher's deadline on a book deal, you're wasting your time doing this. 'Practice' here will consist primarily in the editing and staring at the thing until certain things become too salient, or others missing. Measuring twice and cutting once applies to all construction.
And always be grazing. 'Comfort Food' equivalents in media and art are useful tools after expending effort -- chew toys for the mind to stay occupied while the Work ruminates along in the background.

>>19853114
>what advice I could get on the time period I should study to make it more accurate.
Frank Herbert took massive plot inspiration from middle eastern histories he was reading. Can you pitch it in real world events/persons? Small details sell it, but they have to be relevant. Check out HEMA content on historical European arms and armor, or historical food recipe reconstruction.

[Anonymous No.19854994]

5 years in the making alongside uni studies. I think i'm never gonna make it

[Anonymous No.19855004]

>>19852381
Is it in any brick and mortar stores anon? I want a hard copy but I don’t wanna hand over any cash to Lord Bezos

[Anonymous No.19856235]

>>19852381
How hard was it to publish?

[Anonymous No.19856253]

>>19853467
Why would you ever want to ripoff age of shitmar.

[Anonymous No.19856397]

Willie Wancour woke, with a stain on his briefs. Fuckin' nocturnal emissions. His sister, Daia Reea, did not have those issues, though she had had anal fissure.

[Anonymous No.19856526]

>>19852061
I don't write books, I write FANFICTION.

[Anonymous No.19856654]

>>19852061
The first draft is done and although the prose is sloppy, the ideas are on the page to fill in, organize and edit after a few iterations. That's better than eternal chapter 1 or eternal outliner because as much as you plan ahead some parts are emergent as you write so accept that you will have more ideas come (dont shove in every single idea unless youre a maximalist).
>>19852381
I was thinking of picking this up, heard good things about it, but being rural myself the artsy setting was off-putting so I'm hesitant.

[Anonymous No.19857642]

>>19852061
been daydreaming about it for a year now, i think i want too much in it for the setting to not feel artificial. instead of writing I just repeat the bigger emotional scenes in my head again and again without having a clue how the characters actually get there in the first place. Don't make the same mistake as me anons.

[Anonymous No.19857671]

>>19852061
anyone catch the thread where anon posted a section from the novel he said was afraid to publish? pretty good desu

[Anonymous No.19857680]

>>19852398
What was outlining like or are you drafting blind? What's your drafting process?

[Anonymous No.19857745]

>>19857642
> I just repeat the bigger emotional scenes in my head again and again without having a clue how the characters actually get there in the first place
what's this called and how to avoid it

[Anonymous No.19857796]

>>19855004
ha, no I wish.
>>19856235
publishing wasn't the hard part; getting people to read and leave positive reviews has been tougher, but ultimately things are going well.
>>19856654
sorry bud. for what it's worth the setting quickly moves to an island in micronesia, if you like islands?

[Anonymous No.19857833]

>>19852061
What novel?
Don't suck

[Anonymous No.19858165]

>>19856526
Iused to, but nowadays it seems like a waste of time unless someone was paying you for it.

Even ignoring money, why write something that you can't call your own?

[Anonymous No.19858349]

>>19853653
>If you need an intensifier, your verb isn't strong enough
yeah this. sometimes just quantifiers in general seem to insist too much
>>19853468
this is more of a problem with showing and not telling and not adjectives.
>>19853539
those arent adverbs. adverbs do sound bad
>>19856397
>Fuckin'
instant turnoff. the 3rd person shouldnt interject like this
>>19857642
this, especially when listening to music

[Anonymous No.19858526]

>>19856253
I like Skaven. And Seraphon.

[Anonymous No.19858613]

>>19857745
Maybe try writing the "emotional scene" and then writing the events around it. Say forinstance a character has an epiphany about something during a battle. Maybe write their thoughts or feelings an hour or a day before. Details can be filled in later. (In fact, my protagonist is literally called Hold for Placeholder)

[Anonymous No.19859137]

>>19858349
>the 3rd person shouldnt interject like this
Lmao

[Anonymous No.19859142]

>>19857745
When an author falls into this trap and writes a piece where the emotional scene isn't justified by the rest of his work then it is called melodrama

[Anonymous No.19859230]

>>19857642
>without having a clue how the characters actually get there in the first place
Start asking the obvious questions: where are they? Where's the door, what's outside the door? How did they get there? Did they drive, bike, walk? From where? What did they have for breakfast? Why did they choose that? Were they in a hurry? Did they get much sleep last night - is that why they are emotional? Are they cranky? How long have they been cranky, what was running through their mind as they stared up at the ceiling ready for this inevitable burst of emotion? Did they not have breakfast because they didn't have an appetite? Or did they eat to the point of feeling sick because they were so anxious?