/wg/ Writing General

[Anonymous No.19887398]

You should really listen to my marketing advice edition. I have reach.
Previous thread >>19872358

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
>The First Five Pages
>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

list of /wg/ authors pastebin and anonymous flash fiction anthology
https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQ

[Anonymous No.19887430]

lol

[Anonymous No.19887435]

After 3 books I’ll be able to retire and open up my gym I’ve always envisioned.
Just me, the iron, and hundreds of good buddies.

[Anonymous No.19887452]

I just wanna coom in art hoes who want my babies because they think I write well

[Anonymous No.19887457]

>google random number generator
>set the parameters from 1 to 26
>generate
>write a title starting with that letter and a brief synopsis

[Anonymous No.19887466]

>>19887457
Do it
Do it now

[Anonymous No.19887467]

Sometimes I read modern books in my genre and wonder what kind of standards exist for tradpub. How did what they wrote ever make it into the press? How come the very things most critic communities drum out are committed all the time? Is good writing just nitpicking and most readers simply don't care?

[Anonymous No.19887490]

>>19887467
>standards
>tradpub
Just because it passes as non offensive crap according to the blue haired lesbian approves the book.
What determines a good book is if its meaning carries value.
What determines a successful book is what gets sales.
Rupi Kaur for instance was successful, but published crap.

[Anonymous No.19887509]

>>19887467
I've spent more time than usual at the local bookstore this week. Looking at the pentalogies that line the shelves there and the writing within both encourages and discourages me

[Anonymous No.19887534]

anyone knows what KDP minimum length is for publishing?
I have several ideas for short non-fiction books, but they'll probably be only between 5k and 10k words

[Anonymous No.19887536]

How do I write when I’m so constantly busy and miserable? It’s just another thing to fail at. Might as well watch bad tv and dread the next day of work.

[Anonymous No.19887539]

How do these modifications sound?
>Everyone else around him had stopped what they were doing out of what resembled fear, as if what they had heard had awoken some kind of survival instinct deep within their synapses. He stared into the fog with the same confidence he did everything else, as he was aware nothing on this earth could truly defeat him. It wasn't just something he thought of himself, it was a cold hard fact, as true as the sky.
>If all of these groveling weaklings were frightened into stillness by such a noise, then it made sense as to how he was able to conquer them all so easily. Yet, no matter how hard he tried to shake it, something felt off. As if something in that fog was making direct eye contact with him, glaring past his pupils.
>He made that oh too signature grin and stared at one of them. The long one with the frill and the fangs, to be specific. His glare made the fear in it's eyes melt away, only to be replaced with stark terror. He motioned his shoulder towards the fog, as if telling his lackey to go check it out. Surely enough, it went into the fog, with the shiver down it's spine being almost palpable to the others. It didn't want to obey, but disobedience promised a far worse fate
>They waited. Every second felt like an eternity with the rain showering down upon their scales, hair, and skin. How long did they wait? How long did it last? Not even their "Leader" knew.
>Then it happened. A pair of roars echoed out from deep within the fog, faint to the point that one might've just mistook them for the rain itself. Then a much more audible sound reached their ears. It sounded like the crash from a tidal wave big enough to pierce the heavens. A mere moment after that, it gave way to the sound of rapids, more ferocious and forceful than a nuclear bomb. The noise drew closer and closer, and then something swung past them. No one else knew what it was, but as he dodged it casually, his laser-focused vision noticed that it appeared to be a massive spray of blood stained water, almost like a beam of some kind.
>The long ones body was hurled out of the fog and barreled right into the chest of the hairiest of them. Part of it was torn out, it's body was slashed up, and part of it's tail had just been blown clean off. With that, a familiar, yet distorted sound emitted from the depths of the fog. They could all feel the noise rattle up their spines and into their skulls.
URRRAHHHHHHHHH
>And with that noise, everyone else, their minds filled with nothing but calm a while ago, began to feel dread for the first time in what felt like forever. And they stepped back, away from their so-called leader.
>It was then he understood. That one that had given him so much trouble wasn't dead after all, and now he was here, perhaps to regain dominance?

[Anonymous No.19887543]

>>19887534
5-10k is fine.
See kindle short reads.
Kindle counts 250 words~ as one page.

[Anonymous No.19887544]

>>19887421
There are no robots in the story, but there are Augmented reality entities. The main one is a foil to the protagonist and the sardonic trickster (secretly Pessimist) with a background similar to Frankenstein's monster, a relic of the fallen age of Man. He was designed with others as a back-up plan to prevent the utopia that takes place. He doesn't struggle to empathize, but rather he struggles to complete his directive to prevent the protagonist from selling his soul.

I do not go the horror route where the modified characters despair over their identity fragmenting or inability to understand eachother. The utopia comes about from people accepting who they are, grateful for family, tradition and restoring boundaries in the world. While I think that is great, what's wrong is how it was accomplished.

[Anonymous No.19887547]

>>19887539
I know it's a stupid sound, but I was thinking of this sorta.
https://youtu.be/WBx0UYellXk?t=241

[Anonymous No.19887562]

>>19887534
Why not make an anthology of several short stories btw? That’s what I plan for my 2nd or 3rd book.

[Anonymous No.19887653]

>>19887467
I have no idea why anyone would ever want to traditionally publish. It’s such a scam.

[Anonymous No.19887672]

>>19887539
>>19887547
Good evening Kaijufag
I'd say it's better than the last draft fo' sho. I notice that your texts resemble mine given we both use lots of articles and adverbs to connect our sentences "...fear, as if what they had heard had awoken some kind of survival... He stared into the fog with the same confidence he did everything else, as he was aware... ". It mentally reads alright for me, but those are among the aspects of my script I expect to be picked out the most. If you're still polishing that chapter, this could be worth a thought.

Roar is good. It's got solid kaiju energy. I imagined that meme of the anime girl commie going URA when I first read it though, but that won't be a problem with normal readers

[Anonymous No.19887713]

>>19887452
where do i find these art hoes?

[Anonymous No.19887717]

>>19886712
Sorry to hear you feel that way anon. What drags it down in your opinion and how can it be improved?

[Anonymous No.19887727]

>>19887713
Step 1. Become a grad student
Step 2. Sell yourself as a genius to a professor with pretentious freshmen who don't know better
Step 3. Seduce them with your knowledge of meme books
Step 4. Convince them condoms are a function of bad literature
Step 5. Impregnate
Step 6. Quit the college, leave the town completely
Step 7. Become a grad student

[Anonymous No.19887731]

>>19887727
that doesn't work

[Anonymous No.19887732]

>>19887731
Worked just fine for me.

[Anonymous No.19887742]

My new cover. But I think I'll change the main font. I want it to be a bit "robotic" but this one doesn't seem to work too well.

[Anonymous No.19887754]

>>19887742
You're improving, but that title font DOES need changing

[Anonymous No.19887769]

Today I wrote 800 words of a short story. I imagined it all in my head by writing it well is hard. Especially scenes where two people interact, performing lots of actions.

[Anonymous No.19887773]

>>19887742
Do you have “a novel” on there because of Amazon identification? Have you tried making the main font be the same as the author font? Also reminds me of this cover kinda.

[Anonymous No.19887774]

>>19887742
Much better title. You need a better font, agreed. Go take a look on dafont. Remember to buy the license like a good goy.

Also the lips need to be changed. They are the only part that has texture compared to the rest of the minimalist model, unless for some reason her lips have a significance that is apparent throughout the story.

[Anonymous No.19887776]

>>19887742
Font doesn't stick out. Light background?
Use dark font.
Dark background?
Use light font.
Title is better.

[Anonymous No.19887789]

>>19887742
Also another thing, get rid of the glow. It actually makes it harder to read. You're best off using contrasting colours like >>19887776 said. Have the outline colour compliment or contrast with the fill.

[Anonymous No.19887818]

Since you seem to know a thing or two on covers, there's nothing stopping me using public domain Romanticist painting as part of a cover, right? Thought it'd help mark it as literary fiction.

[Anonymous No.19887823]

>>19887818
Just to be safe, you could always trace it

[Anonymous No.19887830]

>>19887818
I like your aesthetic.
Do you enjoy comedies such as Hitch Hiker's Guide to The Galaxy or Candide?

[Anonymous No.19887835]

Idk what prose is. I have no outline. I'm using MS word. I just finished my first draft, and I plan on basically re-writing it (plot and syntax and sentence structure) and reading it aloud over and over until it sounds good. Is there anything inherently wrong with this strategy?

[Anonymous No.19887839]

Still can't post pics
On the topic of covers, r8 ?
>files.catbox.moe/urhffx.png
I know it's not in a format, I just wanted to practice some ideas

[Anonymous No.19887841]

>>19887818
So copyright law gets a little murky there, because while the original work is out of the timeframe for ownership, the photo/scan of the work itself might not be which is itself a derivative work. I’d recommend finding a copy of the work from a website that has a robust Creative Commons clause. The legalities of all this get murky quickly, and in the end it only matters if you’re successful and the copyright owner is wealthy enough to litigate. There’s also international issues to take into consideration.

[Anonymous No.19887849]

Alright, I'm new to this shit so bare with me. I've been writing for a while now, and my current project, a fantasy-scifi book may be a bit bulky. I'm not sure how true this is, but from the light research I've done on the topic, it should be around 100k words in length, at most, yeah? Well mine is double that, and I'm not even halfway done. Am I being stupid with the length here, should I cut it up into smaller 'parts' or something, or work on making my sentences less complex and verbose? Need some advice frens.

[Anonymous No.19887861]

>>19887849
I'd toss it, no one reads sci-fi bro. Not unless it's funny.

[Anonymous No.19887870]

>>19887861
Sci-fi's a misnomer here, my bad. It's fantasy, pure fantasy with modern elements, not sure what category to lump that into. And I'm way too attached to toss it at this point, the very best I could do is either chop it up or rework parts of it.

[Anonymous No.19887892]

>>19887839
Broken link
>>19887870
Modern fantasy is usually called urban fantasy.
I wrote a 440k book series and I broke it into three parts. You would do best to break it into six distinct, separate books and sell them that way.

[Anonymous No.19887899]

>>19887892
When did you get published?

[Anonymous No.19887937]

>>19887835
I actually do something similar. I try never to re-read / re-write what I've just written until at least a few days to a week have past, so I can let it marinate a bit. After that, I read it aloud, and try to see how it sounds holistically, if it's alright I go back and redo individual sentences that I don't like, and if the whole thing sounds shite I'll completely redo the whole chapter.
>>19887892
Right, I'll consider that, thanks for the heads up.

[Anonymous No.19887979]

Urban fantasy, but with superheroes, what do you think?

[Anonymous No.19887990]

>>19887979
So superheroes

[Anonymous No.19887991]

>>19887979
Elaborate. DC and Marvel are arguably that already.

[Anonymous No.19888004]

>>19887990
>>19887991
I assume he means Superman fighting dragons and liches

[Anonymous No.19888006]

>>19887991
Superheros but in a more realistic world. They usually don't fight evil villains but human traffickers, narcos, demons, and other types of stuff.

[Anonymous No.19888011]

>>19887979
Shit.
Please fuck off.
Can't you fiction authors write something reading like a homeric epic, arthurian style tales, Lord of the Rings level home crafted worlds, deeply religious works such as wheel of time, something at least funny that isn't capeshit?
It's all throw away stories that will be forgotten in under 5 years, 50 if you're in the top 0.01%

[Anonymous No.19888016]

>>19888006
And the setting is a post world war 3 world, with the feeling of a decaying world, with superheros being a thing of the past that rarely are seem nowadays

[Anonymous No.19888023]

>>19887979
I wrote the bones of a superhero series for a modern inclusion. I had
>former cocky track runner turned photon-speed speedster
>laid-back surfer dude with psychic powers
>magic-power wielding alien with knees like flamingos (I wrote 80% of this in two weeks, but it's dying on my drive)
>monk who can augment his strength at the cost of his moral compass
I'm sure I'll do nothing with them someday.

[Anonymous No.19888028]

>>19888004
I gathered as much, but an alien that gains power from the sun or a guy that got mutated into a gator-man or simply Thor are already just fantasy races but the elves fly instead of having long ears.

Plus I can miss his point to make a funny joke

>>19888006
>in a more realistic world.
> narcos, demons, and other types of stuff.

[Anonymous No.19888034]

>>19887979
>>19888006
>>19888011
I think the word "superhero" carries with it the baggage of capeshit, so it might be hard to pierce that market considering the monopoly Marvel and DC have on it, especially if you're planning on it being a novel-style written book instead of a comic or what have you. I'd stay away from that word, and try to put some sort of unique spin on the whole thing.

[Anonymous No.19888040]

>>19888034
Just literally call them "Heroes" since that holds fantasy connotations to it and steers away from capeshit thoughts.

[Anonymous No.19888058]

>>19888023
Mine are:
-Jerkass protagonist that idolizes heros because it was his way to cope with the abusive childhood he had to suffer. Somehow he slowly gains super strength but it's a mystery why.
-A girl who wants to live up to her father legacy, another superhero who was basically superman but without being that powerful
-A punisher style asian girl trained by his yakuza family to be a ninja and kill all the rival mobs, but she eventually kills all people who she considers bad people

[Anonymous No.19888069]

>>19888040
>>19888034
If it's modern super powers and capeshit, it's capeshit.
Heroes are men with ordinary lives who do extraordinary things in the face of danger.
Cowards will never understand the difference.

[Anonymous No.19888072]

Ah. Finally finished my introduction :)

[Anonymous No.19888097]

>>19888072
>30k words
>only the introduction
Good lord anon. I can barely write a short story longer than 1k words. I’m never gonna make it. Keep going bruh.

[Anonymous No.19888106]

>>19888072
>skipped
Ah yes, chapter 1.

[Anonymous No.19888121]

>>19887398
Sorry if this seems like a stupid question, but what makes a work compelling? and how can one write so?
Not to say that mere ramblings can't have charm but there is something intrinsic about certain novels that just pulls you in even if they're from the most opposing authors, tales and genres.

[Anonymous No.19888162]

>>19888121
Don’t say it’s stupid, anon. You are asking the question many great philosophers and artists have asked. The entire field of aesthetics is about that very question. Many times people ask what makes something beautiful, but beauty is just one aspect of a broader effect that is compelling. These past few years there has been some art that left me with this strange and surreal feeling for the few days after I finished it. It felt like depression and meaning and beauty. This forlorn longing for a nostalgia that had yet to pass. I tried to research what it was but could never quite put a finger on it. I hope that I some day can make something that gives others that same feeling. I’ve noticed a few things that many of them had. They were long. They had a large cast of deep characters. The plot hung in the background but only happened after a character was fleshed out. They had themes of the human condition. They articulated their ideological predispositions in either eloquent or casual ways. They felt like many miniature whirlwinds culminating in one large typhoon.

I’m not sure I’m making much sense, but that feeling is the closest thing to feeling alive I’ve ever felt. No amount of sex or love or pain or physical experience has ever left me so satisfactorily unsatisfied.

[Anonymous No.19888168]

>>19887742
Why the lips so small?

[Anonymous No.19888171]

>>19888121
What always pulls me in is a character experiencing great emotion. Count of Monte Cristo, Kokoro, and Stoner are all favorites of mine for exactly that reason, so when I write my own stories I try to write a character who experiences something like that and I draw on my own experiences for the right style, emotion, etc.
Complete coherence of themes, plot, and character dynamics give me a feeling of "This is superbly crafted" as opposed to "This is truly moving", and there is something compelling about masterful craftwork too. The characters there are usually less relatable and more epic or magnificent. They're meant to be devices in themselves rather than relatable characters you can connect with. I go to the superbly crafted story for the spectacle and the power of things greater than normalcy, but I also go to the moving story to get a sense of powerful emotions and human strife, triumph, and failure (which can be in the other one too). Witnessing amazing force of will is particularly exciting for me: the drive to never quit, to endure, to keep going. See Count of Monte Cristo, again.

To write either takes experience. You can craft a larger-than-life character who matters most as an attraction and compelling force in his own story, or you could craft the emotional forces that drive a story about two relatable and human characters. Or you can blend the two and really go for something wild if you've got the chops and patience to handle something like that without losing hope.

[Anonymous No.19888172]

>>19888028
I guess what was trying to say, it's that I don't want to do a generic superhero story, it's very grimdark sometimes, and it's more about morals, internal struggle and trauma more than cool powers and super villains

[Anonymous No.19888219]

>>19888162
Thank you for this, would you happen to share any of those works that moved you?
>>19888171
I am also a fan of the Count of Monte Cristo, a wonderful tale.

to you both, how do you feel about 'developping ones voice'? I know it can lend itself , and help shade the beauty, but I also know instances where it can overshout the actual work itself, with the author becoming their own biggest problem, not their tale. Any tips for discovering and crafting with ones voice?

[Anonymous No.19888241]

>>19888121
I'm personally brought into stories that activate an emotion.
Whether it is my masculine energy that sends me to defend what is important to me, or adventure to new lands, or even laugh at a ridiculous person, it's all the same.

[Anonymous No.19888259]

You know how in movies and TV when someone's in a car crash, the bad kind where they flip over and end up facing the direction they just came from, it cuts out all the sound and you just hear a high pitch whine? Turns out that's real, so feel free to use it if you ever write one of those scenes.
Also fuck you, I'm taking the night off from writing.

[Anonymous No.19888277]

How do I deal with being overdescriptive? I fell like part of why my pacing is so atrocious is that all my sentences and character interactions are way too descriptive, but when I cut out elements like describing a particular sound, smell or sight, my writing feels flat and emotionless. How do I strike a good balance?

[Anonymous No.19888310]

>>19888277
If you wouldn't think it for the first time seeing something or meeting someone, you shouldn't write it down

[Anonymous No.19888496]

>>19888171
That’s a neat dichotomy. Vicarious catharsis vs the spectacle. Never thought about it like that. Many things have made me cry and feel joy, but few made me feel what I described before.
>>19888219
I’m not sure examples of these things that made me feel that way are applicable to other people. Infinite jest hit me very hard, but I think that has more to do with who I am than the general audience. 3.0+1 was beautiful mostly because it took a decade to nut. Catch 22 did it for me. LoGH did it for me. The wire did it for me.

I don’t really know how to find your voice. Some anon told me many threads ago that I had found my voice in my burgerpunk writing, but I don’t really understand what he meant, or at least, I’m not sure what quirks of my writing add up to make it my own, and if they were pointed out to me, would that then change that voice? Like is it when you hear a lecturer enough times you hear them repeat the same talking points the same way? Is it the inflection? The choice of words? What codifies a style?

[Anonymous No.19888611]

>>19887742
Damnit I got to change my cover again because of free use licenses. I can't take stock images to sell things even if it's free stock images. Time to open up paint and make some really shitty abstract art

[Anonymous No.19888646]

>>19888277
Your writing probably lacks hierarchy. Which details are most significant.
I think it's also helpful to imagine if you were seeing the scene unfold as a silent movie: no access to internal monologue, no dialogue, no sound. The focus now is entirely on the behaviors and gestures of the characters to communicate their intentions.
For example, here's the raw details
>Young housewife in robe walks to the pool, sheds it
>Teenage boy moves oil can. Steps on it so that he can reach top of a fence
>His eyes lock on a Balsawood airplane sits near housewife's pool
I haven't mentioned a deckchair, I haven't mentioned the hot sun, I certainly haven't mentioned just what this boy is trying to do - but it's clear he's trying to get his plane back. But if I've done this right you should be thinking that the houswife is going to mistake him for trying to leer at her sunbathing.
Now yes, mentioning the hot sun, a deckchair, I would try to mention the teenage boy is 'spotty faced' or give him some quality to help infer he might have a adolescent libido, and maybe we could describe what (if anything?) she's wearing under her robe obviously adds to the story. But that's about all the description you need to create the situation.
Does this help?

[Anonymous No.19888696]

>>19888646
Yeah, helps a ton actually. Never really saw it that way. Guess brevity really is the soul of wit. Thank you for the advice!

[Anonymous No.19888757]

>>19888696
Yes it is and artful concision is how you yoke the reader's attention.

[Anonymous No.19888774]

How do i know what themes to really write about? Sometimes i feel so passionate about crafting a good story, but when i really sit down to write something, i don't even know a theme

[Anonymous No.19888790]

>got my 7th rejection e-mail yesterday
>but also got someone who read excerpts of my text telling me he really liked them and read them multiple times
First something bad but then something good

[Anonymous No.19888829]

So what the hell is this 48 hour submission delay on Royal Road? Is that for every single chapter? That's fucking awful if it is.

[Anonymous No.19888836]

>>19888774
It's really fucking difficult, I once tried to do a free writing exercise, I wrote about random imagery, random metaphors and managed to cobble together a story of sorts. But it didn't flow organically. I tried to sort of psychoanalyze myself until I figured out what my preoccupation was.
Here's another approach and while it's screenwriting advice it's worked for me in the past. Paul Schrader says you take the biggest problem in your life, then you externalize that to a metaphor. Professions are good metaphors.
For example, a young guy in a homophobic town living a double life dying to come out. He says the metaphor is working in espionage. A spy who needs to come in from the cold.
He says the 'problem' for Shelly was the soullessness of modern technology, the metaphor was Frankenstein's Monster. Even if it's not exactly true it should start getting you thinking about your themes.
He said that Taxi Driver was about his own feelings of loneliness, and he imaged the Taxi Cab as the core metaphor, it's a fortress in this urban sewer.

[Anonymous No.19888839]

How long would it take to write 5k words on average in one sitting? I want to write a 150k word fantasy book in a month and trying to see how I'd have to schedule my writing sessions

[Anonymous No.19888843]

>>19888839
If you can write 48wpm, just under 2 hours

[Anonymous No.19888858]

>>19888839
2-3 hours if you write at what I consider an average pace, it varies based on how long you take to think about shit and doesn't include time spellchecking or editing.

[Anonymous No.19888863]

>>19888843
Thank you I think I could do that

[Anonymous No.19888868]

>>19888858
Thanks. Yeah I'm planning to spend like a month outlining so I can write as quickly as possible then a month on the first draft

[Anonymous No.19888879]

>>19888868
I'm gonna saw you're going to be absolutely exhausted writing at that pace and probably burn out. There's a limit to how much one person can meaningfully write in a single day. Once you exceed it, you just end up writing pure shit. It would be better to write that novel over the course of 100 days, writing 1.5k/day. At least that way you probably won't end up having to do huge rewrites because the flow is so bad that it reads like a wikipedia article.

[Anonymous No.19888880]

>>19888863
You can't. Okay, I'll hedge it: you're unlikely to.
Like you can hit the quota, but most of it will be meandering overdescription and plot-hole inducing aside that pours out of you to as you try to get enough words done. So then at the end of the month you find you have this "vomit draft" completed. Now, how long will you spend after doing the proofread, doing the major structural editing?
How much time will you spend staring into space as you decide which plot thread needs to be deleted, and how you can sew back up the plot holes. What happens when you write draft 2 which also takes you a month, that it ends up much much shorter because all the filler description has been removed, the story tightened?

[Anonymous No.19888897]

>>19888774
>>19888836
I think theme truly is the message you want to send and all the rest is just dressing to explain it. Every time I sit down to write I want to express how fucking awful it is to experience the human condition and how funny it is when you aren’t the one experiencing it. The more I write the more I understand Kafka, but that might just be my personal predisposition. Everyone else is motivated by something different and I know that if I were to have written for the brief period where I was in love then the overall tone and theme would be focused on the beauty of the human condition despite how awful it is. I think it depends on what you spend your time on and who you are. I couldn’t write a convincing story about 1800s whalers. You write what you know. The scenes I write are much more real and funny when inspired by something that happened to me compared to those I write out of necessity to move something forward. The virgin cannot write a convincing sex scene. In the end I think theme isn’t really something you choose, it’s who you are, reflected in writing. Most authors when you read more than one book by them keep repeating the same themes because those are the things they were obsessed with and wanted to share with the world. The kinda of things when people talk behind your back and say “oh, anon? He’s super nice, but he thinks too much and I’m pretty sure he’s a depressed alcoholic.” What other story would that kind of guy write? Tolkien knew languages, fables, and war. Hemingway knew cheese and war. Kafka knew lawyering and fucking bar maids.

[Anonymous No.19888898]

>>19887536
Wake up an hour earlier than you needed to get up for work and try to write for five minutes every day first thing

[Anonymous No.19888904]

>>19888829
It’s just the first chapter of a new book, not every chapter after.

[Anonymous No.19888919]

>>19888879
>>19888880
That's a good point. My last book I wrote mostly as a vomit draft and now it's too painful for me to even try to edit it. Thanks for the realistic advice

[Anonymous No.19888922]

>>19888904
Oh thank fucking god. Do those fags really read the whole chapter just to make sure you don't do anything they don't like? Not that my first chapter has much in it besides an opener, but I wanna know what could get me in shit with the site. It's not like I have anybody use the word nigger in my draft, but there are some situations with slurs that are only censored by them being in another (fully deterministically generated by a computer) language.

[Anonymous No.19888933]

>>19888922
I think as long as you put the right tags and it’s a dog whistle one has to put effort into looking up, you’ll be fine.

[Anonymous No.19888951]

>>19888933
It's not even a dogwhistle. Literally some people insult the main character's skin a few times during mid-later chapters because he's brown. He doesn't give a shit though, and the slur is left untranslated like most of the cursing from anyone who isn't the MC. Politics barely even plays into the plot until volume 2, and even then no sides are firmly taken besides a resounding "who fucking cares about these idiots" by the MC.
I suppose he does also beat and murder semi-innocent women multiple times during the novel, but it's not like he's portrayed as a morally good person. If anything he abuses all races and sexes equally. The setting is quite gender equal, both in the dispensation and receipt of extreme violence.

[Anonymous No.19888962]

>>19888951
And what would you describe the theme of your book to be? How did you decide on that theme?

[Anonymous No.19888965]

>>19888919
You should probably still write something, but just pick a more manageable project.

[Anonymous No.19888967]

>>19887457
Zoinks
Scooby and the gang reunite 15 years after Mystery Inc. closed its doors when Daphne was killed in a tragic accident involving one of Fred's traps. Fred disbanded the group for what seemed like the final time with a somber mumble of “Let’s split up, gang.” But when Scooby falls ill, Shaggy brings the group together again one last time for their old friend.

[Anonymous No.19888969]

>>19888790
Where/what are you submitting? The fact you are is really good. I haven't even done that. Keep it man you're doing the right thing

[Anonymous No.19888976]

>>19888897
>I think theme truly is the message you want to send and all the rest is just dressing to explain it
I recently discovered I have no messages I want to send. I'm far more interested in answering (my own) questions. Conclusions don't interest me, the prospect of using writing as a means of learning something though does.

[Anonymous No.19888981]

>>19888967
Pic not related because I just realized Daphne is in the fucking picture lol.

[Anonymous No.19888988]

>>19888976
> Conclusions don't interest me, the prospect of using writing as a means of learning something though does.
Bruh you played yourself. That’s what will be your theme even if you don’t like it. It’ll just happen as you write. The subconscious ideology comes alive.

[Anonymous No.19888995]

>>19888969
>Where
Publishers in my country
>What
Novel manuscript

[Anonymous No.19888997]

>>19888962
In the first book, the theme could probably be summed up as violence inevitably attracting and promoting greater violence. However the three planned volumes carry an overarching message about the nature of fate and how it can be shaped by sufficiently powerful or aware entities, morality and what "good" or "right" really means along different timescales, creations exceeding their creators in a self-propagating cycle of advancement, the difference between "sin" and nature, and the difference between an ordained purpose and a chosen purpose.
Sounds grandiose but it's laid out very slowly and really the plot is more about a guy who thinks he's a machine (sort of, bad summary but it's more complex and I don't want to spend 1000 words explaining it in full) warcriming a lot of people who mostly deserve it at the behest of something that absolutely might be a delusion, while others who end up following along with him have their own subplots about varying topics which are only experienced through his eyes. As his journey progresses he changes as a character, in some ways becoming a better person but in many others becoming arguably worse.

[Anonymous No.19889000]

>>19888988
Ehhh I don't think that's a theme in and of itself and any story that comes out of it would be wanky, abstract, questing bullshit that no one, not even me, would want to read. Let alone write.
>The subconscious ideology
What the hell does that even mean? Can you say it without using the word "subconscious" and "ideology"

[Anonymous No.19889001]

>google story generator
>find site https://www.plot-generator.org.uk/story-ideas/
>generate
>Benjamin is a giant fuelled by homophobia, who blows raspberries at teenagers and shaves them. DCI Massa, a stud from Wroclaw, knows she has to stop him. Eventually, the villian hands himself in, knowing it's only a matter of time before Massa closes in, and citizens are safe once again.

Would you read?

[Anonymous No.19889007]

>>19889000
>Can you say it without using the word "subconscious" and "ideology"
The comes alive.

[Anonymous No.19889017]

>>19888965
Yeah I think the 1.5k/ day over 100 days is doable. My last book was 90k so I feel like I've learned some applicable lessons for the next go around. Might try to write some poetry first as a palate cleanser

[Anonymous No.19889031]

>>19889000
The elements that make up “you” will guide your writing, independent of what the active, thinking, “you” thinks he will write. You cannot avoid the impact of your youth, the billions of unnoticed data points, or the modern zeitgeist. A person is not an island, they are a relational object to other people, thus there is stimuli that constitutes “you” that “you” don’t even know that will come out in your writing, only when perceived by another within this societal web of relations.

I hope that clears it all up.

[Anonymous No.19889056]

Is low fantasy still cool? I want to write a setting where even basic magic takes years of practice and get really into the study and practice part, but I feel like a modern audience is bored by that kind of thing.

[Anonymous No.19889058]

>>19888880
Honestly, I think the best way to write is what I call the cutting room method; I've got two files, one where I write "vomit draft", chapter by chapter, and a second one, a cutting room, where I will copy paste that draft and carve it up after a day or two. Once I have a good chunk written out say ~4 or 5 chapters, I read both variants, the cut version and the vomit version, and do a final edit where, if I find something I like, I incorporate elements from the vomit back into the cut, seal it up, and not touch it until I've at least progressed by another three or four chapters. It helps me catch mistakes and plot holes, while not letting me stack up too much shit to carve up at once. Might be time consuming, but I find it to be better than slogging through buckets of crap at once.

[Anonymous No.19889063]

>>19889000
>What the hell does that even mean?
Not him, but;
>subconscious
the mental activities just below the threshold of consciousness
>ideology
a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture
Use these dictionary definitions and figure it out.

[Anonymous No.19889071]

>>19889056
>Is low fantasy still cool?
Ask GRRM and Joe Abercrombie how they're doing

[Anonymous No.19889078]

>>19889071
I guess I'll get writing, probably just a short story. It's that or a detective noir that I think is better but I don't quite have outlined.

[Anonymous No.19889088]

>>19889056
>Is low fantasy still cool?
Is that what you want to read? Write what you want to read.

[Anonymous No.19889092]

>>19889056
>>19889071
If you want to trad publish fantasy don't do it for adult audiences. A hundred million retards cranked out an adult fantasy novel between 2020-2021 and agents are rejecting them without reading them at this point because they all blow ass. MG fantasy, though, if actually pretty easy to sell. If it's your first book and you don't want to go through the horrible demoralizing experience that is trying to get a good agent in a saturated genre, write for kids. It's a fun challenge anyways, and if you can establish yourself that way, you can start writing for older audiences and stand out from the crowd of drooling idiots pumping out unreadable grimderp.

[Anonymous No.19889096]

>>19889092
That sounds really smart, thanks for the advice. What age group is MG?

[Anonymous No.19889118]

>>19889096
Harry Potter (1-3) is the upper bound on middle grade. Anything older than that and you're in YA, and then you're suddenly writing for middle-aged women, and you have to include a romance plot and a bunch of other shit. It's a complicated shitshow; avoid YA. Look up publishing tips for middle grade books and you'll see what your target wordcount should be, how old protagonists tend to be in that genre, etc. MG is comfy because there's basically no real competition. Money's not huge but it's enough if you're good.

[Anonymous No.19889123]

>>19889056
In this day and age if you're a first time writer, I would NOT reccommend goind tradpub, especially not for "adult"/teen fantasy type material. The market is saturated to fuck, and finding your one good novel amidst a sea of mediocrity would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Of course, it's not impossible, just might be a bit fucky wucky.

[Anonymous No.19889149]

There's a movie from the 50's or 60's that I've never been able to find, I watched it once when I was a kid and have been looking for it for the past 13+ years. I've asked tons of people about it, I can't find SHIT about it.

I still remember the plot of the movie, and many events from the movie. I love the concept of it.

What I want to know is, since I've basically given up on finding it again, would it be in poor taste to write a book with a very similar premise? How much trouble could an author get in for having a plot that's sufficiently similar to another story which isn't credited? Should I add a foreword about it?

I know I'm probably worrying too much about this but I hate to make waves.

[Anonymous No.19889152]

>>19889118
>>19889118
>Harry Potter (1-3) is the upper bound on middle grade.
Yeah, I can manage that. Nothing in my fantasy plot needs to have more adult themes than that, I can just cut some of the darker elements. There wasn't really any point to it anyway.
>if you're a first time writer, I would NOT reccommend goind tradpub
What's the alternative? Everything I've read says to publish short stories in magazines and journals and hope they're popular enough to get you a book deal.

>>19889088
Yes.

[Anonymous No.19889154]

>>19889149
Tell us about it you idiot

[Anonymous No.19889158]

>>19889154
The earth is about to be destroyed. A crew of men and women is sent into space hopefully to colonize a new planet and repopulate there. It turns out, however, that the radiation of space has made them all infertile.

[Anonymous No.19889163]

>>19889158
That sounds less like a movie and more like a Twilight Zone/Outer Limits episode

[Anonymous No.19889199]

I wonder who's going to read my motorcycle club novel

[Anonymous No.19889202]

>>19887742
The background should be black

[Anonymous No.19889206]

>>19889199
Leather-fetishists

[Anonymous No.19889228]

>>19887398
I've been an ideas guy for a while when prose/poetic focus is more important.

[Anonymous No.19889254]

>>19887398
1k words an hour is my average today. Am I shitting it out too quickly? I do like to hone my voice but sometimes the action just comes easily and it falls into place.

[Anonymous No.19889329]

>>19889254
Not at all. However, be ready to read over your entire work multiple times and make revisions if you're passionate about making something very high quality. Don't let your writing be sacred to you!

[Anonymous No.19889454]

>>19889007
the what?
>>19889031
>I hope that clears it all up.
It's still clear as mud how does that describe the path towards determing the theme of a story? You've managed to say a whole lot of stuff without saying anything.
A theme is a motif, a reoccurring idea or class of observations which are presented repeatedly or embedded structurally into a story right? If you can't find a 'theme' - how do you find it? A theme by definition is at the expense of other possible themes. A story where the theme is 'revenge' cannot also have a theme of 'forgiveness', they may be similar stories with similar events and episodes - but they are mutually exclusive.
>>19889063
All I see is "I have nothing to say but if I use words that sound big to a six grader like 'ideology' or 'subconscious' or maybe even 'Enactivist discursive quasi-methodological inquiry portending to non-central executive (limbic-system) functions teleologically culminating towards non-ergodic dicursive objects' I can pretend to have contribooted something that could have been more easily said as:
>you don't know what you know until you write it bro

[Anonymous No.19889456]

what the FUCK do I even write about
is the "just start writing" meme true?

[Anonymous No.19889466]

>>19889456
see >>19888836 find a professional metaphor that represents the biggest problem in your life. Write a story involving that metaphor.
>>19889058
Not a bad idea and probably not too far from Nabokov's index card method either.
>>19889017
The sheer quota is doable. But it's a matter of knowing how long you can afford to spend editing.

[Anonymous No.19889470]

>>19889456
Or alternatively look around your room. Anything form a tea-cup that's been left too long, to a torn sock, to a sunbleached photo of a fishing trip with dad can provide the genesis of a story. You simply start trying to think of a reason why that tea-cup was left there, what dramatic situation interrupted it? Fireworks? A relative in the hospital? A robbery? A psycho ex? And then keep working backwards chronologically until you have a story.

[Anonymous No.19889475]

>>19889466
>find a professional metaphor that represents the biggest problem in your life. Write a story involving that metaphor.
That's genius, I think I could do that.
>>19889470
Also a good idea, thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.19889480]

I finally did the exercises I've had in mind, about describing love interests through the lens of certain professions. I'm not sure if I ended up developing too much. Here's the most recent one.

The Goebbels chatter while the maids serve the dinner table; I watch my beloved from the doorway, bite my nails and pray. Today's menu is based on the birthday girl: Tagliatelle in the whitest sauce Parma could provide; radishes, rhubarbs and onions, roasted and peppered; red sauerkraut; strudel cake, with a white coating and roses carved out of apples. Aryanna adores my food like no one else in the mansion, but my adoration of her is much greater. Every day, my job's security is threatened by my urge to shed this putrid uniform and spend my days entertaining her---no longer as just a chef, but a lover; even now, I keep myself from running up to kiss her. Instead, I watch her; once she takes notice, I mouth my congratulations; as noiselessly as I, she mouths back: "Thank you, Francesco."

Common eye colors among former royalty are blue, green, gray and maybe brown, but Aryanna---and only Aryanna---wears a burning red; flames to her brain-oven that, when pointed to me, warm the skin, heart and soul. More in common with other royals is her pale, pale person, camouflaged in frilly dresses; once, she was playing outside in winter and I mistook her for a snow pile, almost stepping on her---she was annoyed, and rightly so. Inside, the little meringue's heart pumped a red wine that softly stained her skin in creeks. She has yet to spill that wine---that is, in the transition of lamb to ewe---but I don't mind. Only two more years until I can, and will, marry Aryanna.

[Anonymous No.19889496]

>>19889329
Best advice anyone could give, don't be afraid to carve away even massive chunks of your earlier draftwork if you can't fit it into the later narrative. The book you start writing will never be the book you end with, you need to be ready to carve that fucker up and rework potentially entire plotlines for the sake of consitency, flow and pacing.

[Anonymous No.19889563]

>>19889456
If you don't have an "about", you don't want to write at all.

[Anonymous No.19889576]

>>19889456
What conflict or dilemma are the characters struggling with? Think of what characters might be doing, how they behave, who shows up, how conflicts change or characters take one side of a dilemma. Think of the appropriate setting for this, What can happen in the setting and where do you draw the line on what might happen there? It may become apparent where key plot shifts will happen and you can build tension to that point for a surprising but inevitable effect.
Try to tackle a different thing with a variety of scenes: maybe a character is trying to hide something, or there is a fight, or one is just trying to relax but can't. I was writing before and a lot of my scenes were A talks to B, A talks to C and back and forth. Think of A, B, or C alone. Every character but one of them. Go through a range of emotions that you need to express.

[Anonymous No.19889600]

>>19888790
You may have lost the wallet of corporate, but you won the heart of the people

[Anonymous No.19889606]

>>19888967
>>19888967
ONE LAST JOB ARTHUR

[Anonymous No.19889611]

>>19889456
"Just start writing" is a nice way of telling you to throw shit at the wall till it sticks. If you want inspiration but don't have it, you must find it first, and by trying random stuff, you might do so.
also like, play vidya or watch a movie. You just need to stimulate your imagination

[Anonymous No.19889614]

if the title of my book is clicbait enough, can I expect to sell some without any marketing?
anyone here managed to sell some books without the slightest advertisement?

[Anonymous No.19889664]

>>19889001
Does he shave the raspberries or the teenagers, I can't tell

[Anonymous No.19889711]

>>19888072
Do you think the quality is judged by how heavy a boom is?

[Anonymous No.19889736]

I love writing character interactions but I fucking HATE describing environments. I'd prefer to just limit the descriptions to "character entered the city" instead of having to think of an interesting way to describe buildings, streets their arrangement and so on

[Anonymous No.19889754]

>>19888219
>to you both, how do you feel about 'developping ones voice'? I know it can lend itself , and help shade the beauty, but I also know instances where it can overshout the actual work itself, with the author becoming their own biggest problem, not their tale. Any tips for discovering and crafting with ones voice?
I think that just comes with time too. And your voice will change. When I was younger I flooded my writing with tryhad metaphors and similes, and now I'm very minimal and simple. But I'm starting to dislike it because it's bland action-dialogue-he did-she did writing, so I'm changing it to more explanatory, adding in passages of prose, and trying new ways of writing my ideas. Finding your voice is something you can do by getting into a good flow state and writing something drawn off what you experienced because writing is an expression of who you are. When you have written enough to no longer be an amateur in the conveyance of ideas, it's kind of like suddenly being able to sing versus just talking slowly and changing pitch. It just rings different.

[Anonymous No.19889802]

>>19889736
How does the environment impinge or affect their interactions. A heated argument being jostled about by bumper cars, the colored festival lights streaking over their faces as they spin around will make the same argument about the same issues play very differently in a China Shop where their voices may reverberate off the glass, to a Library where they have to keep hushed tones and perhaps use the bookshelves as emotional barriers, to just outside of the President's Oval Office on a tour

[Anonymous No.19889886]

>>19889802
Yeah this and setting also gives context to what is happening.
>girl holding a cup seen walking through a forest
Perhaps she is hiking and following a trail to some destination
>girl standing on a street corner with a cup
Is she begging or maybe waiting for a bus ? Even if she's not a beggar you might give the impression for just a moment, intentionally.
>girl holding a cup walking down an office area
She might just want to clean out her cup, or maybe the POV character realizes she's headed to the coffee maker so he rehearses some lines and paces forward.
Eudora Welty wrote an essay on the importance of setting, I can draw up some quotes later today if I have time to open it up.

[Anonymous No.19889902]

>>19889886
That's a great point, how you describe the environment can actually give economy to your storytelling. You've taken the exact same 'atom' of a scene and given it three different possible contexts, and like your begging example even if you don't use that interpretation you can probably use that to foreshadow and implant ideas in the reader's mind (will she metaphorically 'beg' her elderly Aunt for a loan later?).
However my current autism is all about Gibsonian Affordances and Embodied Cognition. Yes I could wax lyrical on the Pathetic Fallacy and Anthropomorphize environments or objects within, the door that seems to fight the will of the character pushing against it, the coin that seems to be running away... but what interests me is how when you start thinking about the space, and I'm not sure if this is what some Meisner actors do, you can start finding little 'opportunities' for plot points or drama. A warped bookshelf means that instead of being flush there's a gap between it and the wall it just thin enough to stuff an envelope of candid photos...
In the China shop, perhaps the sun shines through a glass which because of the parabolic effect singes a character on their skin... and I don't know... if you wanted to get all Greek Tragedian then maybe it becomes a recognizable mark?
I just like the idea that the space can open up opportunities for drama

[Anonymous No.19889927]

>>19887892
Fixed, how's it look?

[Anonymous No.19889942]

>>19889927
Looks good. Pretty wide though. Is this for the flash fiction anthology?

[Anonymous No.19889963]

>>19889942
I was fucking around in Illustrator and decided to try something. The actual cover will have to be redesigned to fix the 2500x1600 px size of most books

>flash fiction anthology
oh?

[Anonymous No.19889973]

>>19889963
The guy hardly comes around because no one contributes. Here's the list as I remember it. Green lines are finished or being worked on

[Anonymous No.19890032]

>>19889973
Oh, that's a shame. Was he compiling the works from anons here?

[Anonymous No.19890056]

>>19890032
Yeah he was. But like anything else if you don't shill it enough people forget. Cranking out a good flash fiction only takes half a day, really. This list could be done in a weekend if every individual poster contributed.

[Anonymous No.19890064]

>>19889454
But that’s not what I meant. I meant what I said and i said what I meant.

[Anonymous No.19890073]

>>19890064
What did you say?

[Anonymous No.19890097]

>>19890056
Well, that's what he gets for asking anonymous posters to work together for an extended period, I suppose.
An alternative would be to make it like a contest instead:
Shill it once a thread - that you're gonna compile an anthology on X genre, you send the final draft to X email and the deadline is X date. Maybe put in some basic rules of length and content, a maximum number of entries, and see how that rolls

[Anonymous No.19890124]

>I've taken more inspiration from Lynch and experimental film than I have from any literature
>nobody has anything to teach me about writing itself, because writing can't be taught
>only structures built up around the writing can be taught
>adherence to these structures is oversaturated, fomenting a preponderance of dogmatic, structurally sound, yet artistically bereft authors whose adherence to the "rules" drowns out any dissent on every level, from enthusiast up to academic critic
>i hate niggers

[Anonymous No.19890216]

>>19889973
It's difficult enough writing what I am. I'd love to contribute but I'm just not prolific enough at the moment. I did write yesterday so gonna try to turn that around.

[Anonymous No.19890299]

>>19890216
In the words of the sailor song, If we all come together we'll know what to do

How many anons here would actually want to participate in something like this?

[Anonymous No.19890309]

>>19890124
>>i hate niggers
racist authors tend to write good fiction with terrible prose

[Anonymous No.19890316]

>>19889454
>>you don't know what you know until you write it bro
If this is what you got from those two definitions you might want to try writing in your native language instead of english.

[Anonymous No.19890322]

>>19890299
I've put in two flash fictions for the anthology at this point and I try to do at least one for my website every weekend. On a free weekday evening, I could probably be assed to crank one out.

[Anonymous No.19890332]

>>19889973
>A closet full of skin suits
neat concept but you'd have to make sure the metaphor for society isnt too cliche

[Anonymous No.19890360]

>>19890309
I write pointless fiction with excellent prose. I write fiction to have a vehicle for my prose. Plus, I just don't like em.

[Anonymous No.19890364]

How can I improve my prose?

I want to be capable of writing as much nonsense as I possibly can as long as the prose is all right.

[Anonymous No.19890375]

https://pastebin.com/MmAfbTgF
Anybody got some feedback? I’m trying to get into how these characters come from a nation without women (they were reproduced magically) and so are uncomfortable with having to work with females, but aren’t complete strangers to the concept. I’m afraid they read more as homosexual or even misogynistic instead of more like asexual.

[Anonymous No.19890387]

How do you constantly ratchet up tension. Does EVERY chapter need to be a life-or-death situation? Whenever I have some semblance of “calm before the storm” my writing group complains that things are too slow.

[Anonymous No.19890610]

>>19890364
How does one walk eerily like good fellows?

[Anonymous No.19890624]

>>19890364
Pay attention to the way the words feel, taste, and smell. They should have a rhythm to them which makes sense according to their sound. There should be a purpose behind the precise way in which they flow into and out of one another. This should happen on a level below analysis, and should be purely intuitive.

[Anonymous No.19890637]

>>19890387
Nest your story, big conflict in first out last, small conflicts in late out early. The conflicts that go unresolved the longest build up more tension. If you solve a problem but dont make something worse, it sucks all the tension out so keep something going. Using scene/sequel format and "yes, but"/"no, and" to describe how your scene handles a conflict.
>yes we cross the bridge, but the antagonist is on the other side
>no we dont cross it, and the bridge falls and we're even further away from the goal

Thats advice for genre fiction but in literary fiction you have more unorthodox ways of keeping reader engagement. Sometimes the conflict of what is at stake doesnt have to be a bigger bomb. It can be a character who is increasingly desperate to solve a problem, or new, more intense or more frequent perspective. It could be theme building, foreshadowing to drive speculation in the reader to imagine the disaster looms closer.

[Anonymous No.19890692]

I need to write a horror story in a big closed building, any ideas for themes or the story?

[Anonymous No.19890709]

>>19890692
An abandoned building is being demolished
Men of low character sneak in to steal copper at night

[Anonymous No.19890711]

>>19890692
maybe watch Laplace's Demon, it has great ideas tbdesu

[Anonymous No.19890773]

>>19890387
Treat it like eating pizza. Set the table, open the box, cut the slices and share them. Rub garlic sauce on the slice, and dig in. Between bites, pause to drink when your throat calls for it, and at the end drink again to let it all go down.
I love pepperoni. Treat your tension releases like pepperoni.

I don't know if this taints my credibility as an onlooker, but I'd rather take another slice before eating the breading at the end of my pizza

[Anonymous No.19890778]

>>19890692
Kids stay in school after closing hours for shits and giggles. Cash in on the liminal space meme

[Anonymous No.19890780]

>>19890692
lol, you actually work as a fiction writer?

[Anonymous No.19890805]

Ignore the message of the picture.
You may think your prose is bad, but at least your writing isnt this pretentious.
>this hollow, false, hideous thing
Yes I too can pretend I'm a great writer by picking evil sounding words without thinking of what ought to be going into a sentence. Fuck off tryhard.

[Anonymous No.19890808]

>>19890805
Anon, have you ever read Joseph Conrad?

[Anonymous No.19890829]

>>19890299
I noted a few of the prompts but I'm gonna try to start with the object under the sea. I was going to do "not listening" but it was taken and theme was big enough that I wanted to write more than 1k words anyways.
I want to do a flash in the setting of the novel I'm working on so I won't have to stray to stray too far. A flash gives me a chance to reflect on the sentiment I have of the future in one broad stroke.

[Anonymous No.19890900]

After much soul-searching, I realised I need to do an historical novel rather than anything speculative. If I'm grounded by research, I can split my time writing and developing a novel from scratch.

[Anonymous No.19890932]

>>19890375
You could describe them as indifferent instead. I'd think that if they were asexual, seeing women would produce nothing in them beyond indifference and maybe passing curiosity

[Anonymous No.19891008]

>>19890805
>@swordsjew

[Anonymous No.19891106]

>>19890124
all sound points except i'm indifferent to niggers since they live far away

[Anonymous No.19891235]

>>19891008
I don't even have to look at their names or handles, I can tell just by what they say.

[Anonymous No.19891314]

>>19889118
What's the $ for MG? What's the money like for other genres?

[Anonymous No.19891354]

I got my physical proof in the mail today. Tomorrow, I begin advertising.

[Anonymous No.19891612]

when do you guys write usually?
I'm struggling to choose when to write while also learning a language, studying scripture, other study, and casual reading.

[Anonymous No.19891637]

>>19891612
on impulse
I have no planning, and I write when I manage to find enough motivation, just like everything else I do (translation, reading, making music, playing,...)
probably not optimal since I end up spending way too much time on 4c, but at least I don't force myself to do shit that feels half-baked afterwards

[Anonymous No.19891714]

>>19891612
When free time and inspiration share an empty schedule slot

[Anonymous No.19891742]

>>19891612
I try to have the page before me a little bit every day, usually before I go to bed even on busy weeknights. Work takes up a lot of time in the day. I've let some of my other hobbies slip as I pick up new ones, but this year I mandated my writing takes highest priority. So it's fine if other things slip. But not my writing.

[Anonymous No.19891971]

>>19887769
Keep working anon.

[Anonymous No.19892096]

>>19889480
No one?

[Anonymous No.19892175]

>>19889480
I wanna fuck Francesco while he calls me a cheeky meringue.

Although your way of using punctuation is uncommon to me, I can understand everything that you're saying. The brain-oven comparison is dumb, but the rest fit nicely.

In general, if you didn't tell me that you're doing profession themed descriptions I would've guessed that the comparisons were made instead with the food at the party, perhaps this is my fault as I only knew Francesco's job at the end of the first paragraph.
Overall good job, but if you want to hone the profession lenses further, I think you have to use more than just ingredients. The relationship between Aryanna and Francesco may not lend itself to passion, but I can see him internally fantasizing about molding the soft dough of her thighs into a nest for his love...or glazing

[Anonymous No.19892467]

Tell me about your setting or premise.

[Anonymous No.19892538]

>>19892467
https://youtu.be/H1YIgwPsX5Q

About to start slapping the keyboard and make names out of the soup for my characters.

[Anonymous No.19892547]

>>19892538
Inshallah

[Anonymous No.19892868]

>>19887398
Are there any non-fiction chads in /wg/?

[Anonymous No.19892911]

>>19892868
Yes, I am, fiction is very situational and broadly not nearly as important as non fiction.

[Anonymous No.19893021]

>>19891612
After work and dinner so usually 6:00 and then try to go to 11. If I reach a wordcount goal for the day I switch to reading.
My studying or reading has multiple time slots. A couple hours before work, an hour at lunch, before writing potentially. Weekends and days off I spend more time to study but also another writing session might be okay if I dont have too many other tasks. If you dont have convenient timeslots, redeem your time by writing one paragraph at a time in bursts. There's no one right way to schedule writing. Put in the time and focus on the writing.

[Anonymous No.19893033]

>want to find-replace words in a bunch of odt files for webnovel chapters
>turns out you can't do that because odt is a fucking retarded format that's basically a zip file with text and metadata
>write program to unzip the file, change the xml text, then rezip it
>works perfectly
>saves me literal days of manually hunting down and changing instances of words
I knew I did that software engineering degree for a reason.

[Anonymous No.19893071]

>book is so good I'm afraid to continue to not mess it up
Do you know this feel?

[Anonymous No.19893117]

>>19893071
It's probably not as good as you think

[Anonymous No.19893127]

>>19893071
No because I'm not delusional
JUST DO IT . You can always edit it later if it's shit

[Anonymous No.19893239]

>>19893033
lol, I know that feel. Much more retarded but I use python code to fix text patterns in visual novel scripts. Works good enough for me and saves me tons of time I'd spend doing it manually.

[Anonymous No.19893246]

>>19890364
Cut out ALL your similes. Every last one of them.
No "akin" no "gave the appearance of" no "in some way similar".
>They were gnawing at times upon ground pests that surrounded them
This is a very clunky sentence because 'they were gnawing' suggests one period of time, which you then subvert with 'at times'. Also what are these 'ground pests' are they rodents, insects... be more specific. If it's all of the above, then give us a brief list to show how they will eat anything. Maybe try something like
>Mice, rats, beetles, and frogs occasionally crossed their path to be quickly devoured

[Anonymous No.19893251]

>>19889480
>flames to her brain-oven
stopped reading there. but the semi-colon use is obnoxious as well.

[Anonymous No.19893303]

>>19889202
I'm honestly thinking of making the font red, and the background black. The spine black, and the back red. Red is an eye catching color so it seems to fit better

[Anonymous No.19893309]

I want to write a mystery. But I don't know what the mystery is. I don't want to solve a murder or a theft. It has to be something rarely done. Like who built Stonehedge or some other strange monolith

[Anonymous No.19893316]

>>19893309
Citizen Kane was about trying to uncover who was 'Rosebud'. Some guy made a whole documentary about trying to track down where Tommy Wiseau came from.
Paternity stories are a common trope.
Your real question is: what is the 'detective', I use that term metaphorically, what is their relationship to the mystery. A reporter who at first has no personal investment and gets further drawn in, or a descendant/child searching for the missing piece of their family?

[Anonymous No.19893337]

>>19890364
Very sentence length. Tempo.

[Anonymous No.19893392]

I got a commission to write this:
>guy wakes up
>locked castle, no idea where he is
>finds some weird girl, she's like the guy
>they walk through the castle and find weird shit
>everything becomes uncanny, scary, weird
Do you have any ideas what scary, weird things I can add? I genuinely have no idea.

[Anonymous No.19893398]

>>19893392
Where's this castle, and when? I'll give you plenty of ideas if you tell me where you can get comissioned to write.

[Anonymous No.19893399]

>>19893392
It's a castle so ghosts are the obvious choice.

[Anonymous No.19893403]

>>19893316
I'm thinking the reader himself is the detective. The story is a easy self insert meeting a Hermit who tells a nonsensical story that slowly hints at the solution to a mystery. And by finishing reading the book you're able to figure it out.

[Anonymous No.19893410]

>>19893392
Sexy cute maid that wants to have sex with the guy every night. Another guest that is locked in with her wearwolf brother having an incestual relationship. A forlorn ghost that is still waiting for her lover to return, an alcoholic that betrayed his daughter, a painter that can't accept he's shit, etc.

[Anonymous No.19893414]

>>19893403
The story takes place across a six-hour timespan. Each chapter is a character's perspective, cutting in and out at certain moments. The people in the story don't solve the mystery, but (you) do

[Anonymous No.19893420]

>>19893414
that's my idea. I would also like to collaborate with 5 different writers, that all write one clue to the solution, so the prose, styles, stories are all different. But when the reader gathers all 6 stories, only then they can break it apart to figure out the mystery.

[Anonymous No.19893443]

>>19893420
6 is a lot of cooks for one soup, how do you plan for it to work?

[Anonymous No.19893445]

I want to self-pub but am not tech savvy. What do? Just trad pub?

[Anonymous No.19893460]

>>19893398
Place and time don't matter, I can choose whatever later if it's needed. But the atmosphere has to be scary and mysterious but with gradual weirdness and scary shit. The girl has to be important. For some reason it's one of these stories I just don't know how to start and finish.
>where
It's a website in my language, I get commissions there all the time, sometimes to ghostwrite something, sometimes something else. I don't write in English. But maybe you could try Fiverr or something.

>>19893410
anon i need serious answers

[Anonymous No.19893469]

>>19893445
Yeah just tradpub

[Anonymous No.19893487]

>>19893443
We all agree to a solution of a mystery, and 6 different hints.
Each writer writes about each hint.

So for example, let's solve the mystery of "Where is the Holy Grail"

Hint 1 - A group of pirates fight off a kraken in the middle of the Atlantic
(Pirates find a gem only found in the Caspian Sea)
Hint 2 - Napoleon's exile to St. Helena
(His talks about his time fighting against the Russians near the Caucasus Mountains)
Hint 3 - A group of knights fighting off the Muslims
(Defending a sacred keep near Constantinople)
Hint 4 - Aztec warriors kill an alien and find gold in his head only for Hernan Cortez to come and wipe them out
(The Alien is actually a Romania Slave brought over by Christopher Columbus)
Hint 5 - Confucius talks to his students about Shangri-La
(Shangri-La is in the Caucuses Mountains)
Hint 6 - Teddy Roosevelt's adventures in Africa
(Finds trade from the Middle East, with tribal men having Christian symbolism even though Christianity never touched these areas in the jungle)

And each story hints that the Holy Grail is tucked away on the Smallest Mountain in the Caucasus Mountains

[Anonymous No.19893490]

>>19893445
It takes about 2 youtube videos to learn how to self publish.
Don’t be lazy

[Anonymous No.19893491]

>>19893460
Right. Would that native language of yours happen to be spanish? I'll give you some more ideas for that tidbit

> Girl is important because she is the last living female relative of the castle's big bad guy, a woman from XXth century about her age that died horribly somehow.

> Part of the castle is literally alive. Long tunnels and halls and sewer systems that shift and change as they try to digest the couple

> Ghost in the garden that pinches the girl and makes her fall into a deep sleep. Boy has to find the bush under wich the ghost is buried and revive her with the flowers

> In the castle dungeons the person that killed the girl's ancestor is kept as a spirit in pain. They ask for help but they're a hellraiser fiend by now so it's gruesome

> Iron maiden doors

> They find a fancy banquet but they realize it's a bunch of ghosts that havent moved on

[Anonymous No.19893493]

>>19893460
They are serious answers. You never played Nocturnal Illusion? The scary part is that each person is a real person never being able to reconcile their problems, and they're forever locked in regret, torment, and defeat.

The maid will never be a proper woman
The brother/sister will never have a proper relationship
The Ghost will never meet her husband again
The Alcoholic will never protect his daughter
The Painter will never achieve his dream

[Anonymous No.19893495]

>>19892467
In the 26th century. Terra experienced several high-level regional conflicts wars that overlapped and essentially ended with a global nuclear war that turned everything save for NZ, Australia, and SEA into permanent glassed deserts. What's left of Asiatic and Aussie society agrees to reform SEAT, which Australia takes the helm of.

By the mid-2600s', several programs were underway to colonize space. In 2672, a young man named Horatio Galland is elected as prime minister of Australia. By 2684, and with record-breaking public ratings enacts a law that reforms SEATO as one entity—Federation of Sol, coinciding with the scramble to colonize space, which began by earnst in 2688 with the adoption of the Universal Calendar(UC), beginning year one and his 4th overall term as the PM of Sol (which is something like 12-16 years into his cumulative term)

Humanity spends the next century and a half colonizing the Orion Arm which it manages to accomplish more or less by the year 180. And as humanity prospers, so too does piracy in the outer colonial systems. Syndey's efforts to ease the agony of the colonies comes to fruition in the year 213 which oversees the creation of a naval force tasked with anti-piracy.

Some years later, a young. starry-eyed Victoria Happ-Scwhnarzenberger follows her father's tradition and attends a naval academy. In 219 she and her friends are hastily graduated and being stationed with one fleet to a space zone. Her friend and rival Alexandra Descartes-Dolz is stationed in another to sweep the galaxy of piracy, both unaware of the historical feats that fate will thrust onto them.

[Anonymous No.19893510]

>>19893487
I still don't see why multiple writers are necessary for that, outside of it being a challenge. Diference in writing?

[Anonymous No.19893534]

>>19893510
Yes. my vision is to have the prose and style so radically different that it becomes incredibly jarring.

It could even be possible each writer doesn't even know what is going on. You really don't need multiple writers, but the changing styles and difference in writing is perfect since if a person hears 6 different stories from 6 different people, who the hell can actually piece something together that ties up all 6 stories?

Imagine if you were traveling around and hearing a story from 6 random people, would you honestly think these 6 stories are connected?

[Anonymous No.19893542]

>>19893534
Only the most paranoid an schizo will find something

[Anonymous No.19893581]

How do y'all usually come up with names/unique terms?

[Anonymous No.19893582]

>>19893491
>>19893493
Thank you anons.
>>19893491
It's not Spanish, unfortunately. I'd gladly help you make an account and advertise on some websites but I don't even know Spanish. Look up words like "freelancer for hire website" in Spanish, maybe you'll find something and make a profile. After a few commissions it's fairly easy to get messages even daily if there aren't many writers and you're cheap.

>>19893493
Sorry, I stopped reading after the sexy maid who wants to have sex, but your ideas are really good and I'll consider using something like eternal torment and despair.

Because I need to connect the guy to the castle somehow, I'll make him a story similar to the girl's one and make the castle his purgatory where he washes away his sins or some other shit.

[Anonymous No.19893598]

>>19893582
Why not make the "Girl" the "Queen" of the castle, obligated to take care of her subjects, which all have shitty unresolved problems.

The hero has to solve each person's problem since he just woke up in the castle, he doesn't know why he's there. He can be jesus.

[Anonymous No.19893610]

>>19887398
What do you think of elements of style?

[Anonymous No.19893613]

>>19893581
I use historical people, so the names are set in stone. McCarthy used 10,257 individual unique words; it was likely by reading a lot and using references.

[Anonymous No.19893649]

>>19893490
But I also have to make my own cover and do the type setting

[Anonymous No.19893652]

>>19893649
pay someone to do it

[Anonymous No.19893678]

>>19893652
Why would I do that if I can traditionally publish?

[Anonymous No.19893713]

What magazines still pay for short stories? I need some quick cash and a potential start to a career.

[Anonymous No.19893758]

>>19893610
I've been told it has reasonable thumb rules but most of it is poorly taught, taken out of context, followed too seriously, or just poorly given in general

[Anonymous No.19893768]

Is Historical Fiction the hardest genre to write?

[Anonymous No.19893776]

>>19893768
The hardest genre to write is good LitRPGs because nobody has ever done written one successfully.

[Anonymous No.19893778]

>>19887398
Test

[Anonymous No.19893781]

>>19893776
Ready Player One

[Anonymous No.19893789]

>99% publishers in your country won't even consider the work if it's not fantasy, crime shit or erotica
>if you write literary fiction you can as well just kill yourself
aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

[Anonymous No.19893799]

>>19893789
write a fantasy erotica criminal mystery. Title it
"The Harlot's Murder"

[Anonymous No.19893847]

>>19893799
It's pure pain. You literally cannot publish anything if you're not a fantasynigger. Everyone in my country reads fantasy only. No, you don't get it. If someone reads, it's ALWAYS FANTASY. People here read fantasy only. If you ask 100 people on the street what the Iliad is they won't know, but if you ask about some fucking assassin murders dragons 7 of the assassin series, everyone will reply.

[Anonymous No.19893879]

>>19893847
where the fuck do you live? Neckbeardvile japan?

[Anonymous No.19894091]

I was going to sit on dickflop today.
Instead I reached 72k in to second book today.
not a single meerkater in sight.

[Anonymous No.19894113]

>>19893847
Your only option is to become so popular as a fantasy author that the publishers will be forced to let you publish your literary masterpiece

[Anonymous No.19894116]

>>19893847
Everyone wants controlled escapism. Anything too strange and it’s nerd shit. Anything too serious and it’s literature shit. Anything too close to home and it’s not escapism.

People don’t want to grow or think or learn, they want comfort and familiarity in a cold and bitter world. AND ITS OUR JOB TO WAKE THEM UP. SHAKE THEM WITH OUR PAINFUL LITERARY PROWIS. WE SHOW THE DREGS OF REALITY. UNMASK MISERY. WRITE CHAOS INTO EXISTENCE. SOW SUFFERING INTO THE MUNDANE.

[Anonymous No.19894123]

>>19894116
>chaos is the only true answer

[Anonymous No.19894137]

>>19894116
NOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST HAVE FUN AND ENJOY THINGS

[Anonymous No.19894149]

>>19894137
Having fun and enjoying things is a cope for the true human condition.

[Anonymous No.19894332]

>>19893847
Poland? I know they have that Witcher shit. In America nobody reads fantasy, only YA/romance.

[Anonymous No.19894381]

>>19887467
Cattle will read anything that has been stamped with a seal of quality (like awards). I think the major problem with the rare sapient human beings is they think all other human beings are also sapient. They're not, they are literally braindead. They just gobble everything you astroturf to them. No sense of quality or judgment, literally just herd dynamics. 90% of people literally act like animals, without a clear sense of why they're doing things. They just do or say things out of an animal instinct, including what appears to be complex thought, which is actually just memorized formulas and behaviors like when a monkey uses a stick to dig for ants.

[Anonymous No.19894501]

>>19893847
For many years I've been torn between my love for creating fantasy and my hate for the genre as a reader. I like old folk tales and mythology and this is what I feel driven to make, but I see none of that mysticism in most current fantasy literature and art. It's just pulp in the current year's dress. Pulp has always the same across the last century: it could be a spy story, it could be a space opera, it could be fantasy, it could be noir, doesn't matter, it's all just packaging for a checklist of sex scenes and the same fucking tropes every time. If you switch the private eye protagonist in a pulp novel with a fantasy swordsman and the Soviet agents with demons, you get the same shit. Ideally genre fiction should not be called fantasy or sci-fi or what have you but just pulp. But one thing I have learned is that you cannot hope to get your foot in the door anywhere unless you appreciate what the place has to offer. I don't think it's possible to get anywhere today if you don't like the current media. I can't find an example across various media formats of people who made something they truly felt was missing. If they're directors, they love the current popular movies; if they're writers, the current books; if they make videogames, the current videogame trends and titles; if they're musicians, the current music. If your tastes are anachronistic you can only speak to the past which is why nobody will care. Progress progress progress, everything must advance at all times, even when something is "revived" it's not merely modernized but rebuilt with brand new fabric until nothing of its former essence is left.

[Anonymous No.19894575]

>>19893789
Sounds like we should swap countries. Here most publishers have a special note on their website saying "do not submit fantasy/scifi", they focus on literary fiction.

[Anonymous No.19894583]

>>19893776
>nobody has ever done written one successfully
Except that guy who makes $50k/month on patreon with his litrpg drivel. I'd say he's pretty successful

[Anonymous No.19894597]

>>19894583
The writer of https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/36049/the-primal-hunter earns $19k a month, or $230k a year, and can barely write English.

[Anonymous No.19894638]

>>19894597
The second review captures the essence of web novels:
>"On the other hand it is popular and it has relatively high rating so maybe I'm the problem."
When the flock gets the collective impression that something is "popular", then that illusory popularity feeds itself and keeps on growing, even if the author posted nothing but pages full of lorem ipsum. Nobody has the guts to say the emperor is naked and be left out. Humans really are pathetic

[Anonymous No.19894653]

>>19894638
Yeah to make something popular you simply need to give the impression that it's popular. As long as you have a like/subscriber count on social media this will be the state of things.

[Anonymous No.19894706]

>>19887398
Out of the recommended reading list for prose, what's the one most liked here?

[Anonymous No.19895125]

>before my protagonist is forced to fight the homeless woman who was previously giving him a lapdance, he attempts to stall for time
>the way he does this is by launching into a long diatribe about how the Jews are obsessed with circumcision because they use foreskins blessed in holy water as heat shielding for the pyramidal space ship they're building in a cavern below Jerusalem
>the arena, which my narrator previously thought was a pentacle, is now correctly realized to be in the shape of the star of David
>now they fight
Am I writing the Great American Novel, bros?

[Anonymous No.19895143]

>>19894706
I'd go with something like Suttree or Mason & Dixon. Good prose is, in my opinion, the intersection between talent and taste. Neither of these things can be taught. The first is arguably immutable, but the second you can work on by reading actual authors with great prose. Read them and enjoy them. If you don't enjoy the experience of reading amazing prose, you're never going to really care enough to write it yourself.

[Anonymous No.19895344]

>>19894597
Seriously? Fuck I need to get into Patreon

[Anonymous No.19895373]

>>19894149
>bro like wouldn't you like to read a book that reminds you of how miserable human life can be
Nah man, I'll just write another nonsensical comedy

[Anonymous No.19895383]

>>19894706
How Fiction Works is the one I've seen most recommended

[Anonymous No.19895603]

everything i write is very ugly

[Anonymous No.19895640]

>>19895603
You write everything ugly.

[Anonymous No.19895653]

>>19895603
Make a business out of it. You could write grotesque horrors.

[Anonymous No.19895658]

>>19895603
Have you tried writing in extremely dense prose? It's impossible to go wrong that way.

[Anonymous No.19895670]

>NOOO YOU HAVE TO WRITE SIMPLE SENTENCES EASY TO UNDERSTAND!! YOU CAN'T WRITE BEAUTIFUL PROSE!
I hate this shit.

[Anonymous No.19895678]

>>19895670
Just do a mix of both. I figure to give a reader sprawling, beautiful sentences and then give them a breather with a couple of terse declarative sentences that moves the scene forward.

[Anonymous No.19895684]

>>19895678
No mixing. Miscegenate prose is an abomination, especially when done for rank utility. Brevity has its place as required by the flow of the prose itself, not to satisfy puerile notions of "plot movement," or "breathing room." I'm gonna fuckin sneed you into oblivion.

[Anonymous No.19895686]

>beta readers think my book would be amazing as a radio play/podcast or miniseries
God dammit. When do I just learn to embrace this and change directions? I want to write books but they're a nearly dead medium, but podcasts and radio are oversaturated and lmao good luck getting anything on TV that isn't raped to hell.
What do?

[Anonymous No.19895690]

I want to write a stand-alone monologue. While I can write short stories and even film scripts, writing a monologue in isolation just isn't happening for me. I can't contrive or invent of a situation for my character where he would be going on a monologue. Doesn't help that while I have his character type down, I don't know where he works.
Any suggestions?

[Anonymous No.19895694]

>>19895690
You should read books with autistic main characters talking to themselves in monologues. Something like the first part of the notes from underground by dostoevsky. There was a book where a character went for 70 pages long monologue during a random conversation and it was kino, I don't remember its title.

[Anonymous No.19895700]

>>19895686
Books aren't dead. They're just less and less appealing to people who aren't interested in the medium as it exists in and of itself. Unironically, consider JewTube if your content wouldn't be completely smothered for being Bad Speak. While people constantly complain about how oversaturated YouTube is, there's a genuine dearth of actual high-quality content. Even well-researched offerings are often poorly presented, presented by a nasally nerd. The rest are pretty bad. If you're at all interested in that, the channel I'd suggest looking at would be the Fall of Empires guy. Extremely high-quality content all around, and if I were interested in any of that myself, I would probably apply a bunch of dedicated study to him alone, on every possible level. He's got a podcast too.

[Anonymous No.19895706]

>>19895694
>talking to themselves
Ahh that explains why it's so difficult: I want there to be someone else in the room listening. It can't be an unhinged rant into the aether, it has to be directed at someone with a motive.

[Anonymous No.19895709]

>>19895690
Start writing. Monologues are supposed to be fluid and flowing, and very much spur-of-the-moment. Naturally, as writers we get to refine that down, but the best way to capture that feel is to feel it yourself while writing. I'm sure there exist people who painstakingly assemble monologues piece by piece, as if playing with Legos, but I'm more attached to the "channel it, then refine" philosophy.

[Anonymous No.19895721]

>>19895709
>Start writing.
But what? Where do I start? Who are they talking to for starters?

[Anonymous No.19895722]

>>19895709
Seconding this idea. Some of my favorite monologues I've written just appeared in the middle of a conversation as a spur of the moment on part of me channeling a character.

[Anonymous No.19895723]

>>19895721
*But where?

[Anonymous No.19895737]

>>19895721
I dunno man. I can't actually write it for you. Anything I could otherwise say here would be purely arbitrary.

[Anonymous No.19895758]

>>19895737
I would invite even arbitrary suggestions at this point, it certainly wouldn't hurt.

[Anonymous No.19895888]

>>19895721
What's your idea for a monologue? You gotta find the theme and topic.
You can also send the topic here and we'll think about something together

[Anonymous No.19895893]

>>19895758
Monologues I've found happen when characters get excited about something. Associate that with any secondary emotion: anger, happiness, anxiety, confusion, frustration, and you're good to go. I just wrote one where my major character gets agitated thinking about how he lost a duel and spends paragraphs talking about how he'll absolutely kill the man the next time he sees him.

[Anonymous No.19895903]

>>19895706
Iirc the notes from underground guy talks to the reader so it's the same thing.

[Anonymous No.19896370]

>>19895125
>the great american novel
>criticizing jewish blood rituals
you're going to jail for doing a heckin antisemitism, you evil nazi

[Anonymous No.19896579]

I am guest from /mu/ and wrote those stories using one of our posters as reference. I would like to ask your opinion on the stories as a whole and as stand alones. I'm new to writing and want to become better at it.
They are about a couple living a cute life together mixed with things I wanted to experiment with.
https://pastebin.com/cH7hi7mB

[Anonymous No.19896600]

>>19894597
>On just another normal Monday, the world changed. The universe had reached a threshold humanity didn’t even know existed, and it was time to finally be integrated into the vast multiverse. A world where power is the only thing that one can truly rely on.
>Jake, a seemingly average office worker, finds himself thrust into this new world. Into a tutorial filled with dangers and opportunities. In a world that should breed fear and concern, an environment that makes his fellow coworkers falter, Jake instead finds himself thriving.
>Perhaps… Jake was born for this kind of world, to begin with.

The author's name is Jake, I'm sure of it.

[Anonymous No.19896632]

Does anyone have the post of anon who wrote the bitter truth about the grief of writers who aren't destined to become writers?

[Anonymous No.19896703]

>>19894597
Let's not exaggerate. He can write English just fine, but what he can't do is make a single compelling character to save his life or drive a plot with anything besides "le bigger numbers". The fact that he makes so much off of that totally fucking average LitRPG is a travesty fueled entirely by popularity inertia and getting into the genre at the right time. Also, the author flips out and acts like a histrionic child about criticism, behavior which somehow leads to retarded fans defending him and donating more to him.

[Anonymous No.19896732]

>>19896579
There's a lot of inconsistency in tone and tense. Make sure all your verbs and nouns agree with each other. Example:
>You grab the two cups of tea and smilingly brings it out towards the table while you can still hear the rustle of the gifts being open
>There I could see a dress who modestly hugged her body with her slender arms and shoulders for all to see.
Dresses aren't people. "Who" should be "which".
You like using adverbs to set tone but some of the verbs you use set the tone already. "Eyed suspiciously" is better as "eyed", since that verb implies suspicion on its own. Adverbs are not evil except when they're redundant.
Split your dialogue tags into separate paragraphs and close each with a punctuation mark.
As a general rule, second person POV isn't what you want to write in. Try first person for this specific topic.
This is the important part here. For impressions on singles and the whole, I wasn't drawn in. The prose reads like a simple dictation. There's no energy or love like I should be feeling given the topic. It reminds me of those pulp anime novels: "My Life with a Dark-haired Beauty in Another World Begins... Now!" and similar lines that are just as uninteresting. You want to better convey the emotions and sensations of having a loving wife than the way they are now. The story rushes past parts that should be drawn out and lacks punch in the sequences that matter. In musical terminology your style lacks rubato and must be done con espressivo. But it's common in new writers and is fixable. And I'd even say it's expected since you wrote this not from your own experience but from reference of another's life. The best advice you can get is find a book that sucks you in, read it, and allow yourself imitation of style. Then do it again until you find you don't need new books to get more into your own style. This will take some time. The conveyance of the ideas here are difficult for a new writer, especially if you aren't married and are writing from the outside looking in.
That's all I can think to say right now. Critiquing writing is hard to do and catch everything at once. It's better to engage in specific questions if you have them.

[Anonymous No.19896909]

>>19895700
>Fall of Empires
who are you referring to? googling this turns up nothing relevant.

[Anonymous No.19896973]

>>19894597
>$230k a year
>litrpg
I don't even want to give it a click to see how shit it is. This is a fucking injustice. It's like the shittier something is, the more love it gets. Giving literacy to normies was a mistake.

[Anonymous No.19897046]

>>19896973
The MC is a blank slate psychopath who gets super duper powers and talks to god who talks exactly like a 25 year old californian and spends tons of time explaining "skills" he never takes and spends endless chapters just flexing his combat prowess against local wildlife.

[Anonymous No.19897082]

>>19892175
>>19893251
Thank you for reading. I'll tone down my punctuation. I usually do short sentences, but I've been shifting towards longer ones in these exercises to experiment; I'll sine my way into a comfortable middle ground, I hope.
Should the brain-oven comparison be cut entirely? Can it be fixed?
The point about only using ingredients opened my eyes, I feel dumb for only thinking about that. I like the dough suggestion a lot, I'll see if I can incorporate something similar in the next one.

[Anonymous No.19897103]

>>19895603
Make it your style and become BIllie Eilish in author form

[Anonymous No.19897122]

>>19896370
> “The Fighting Crone of… Schenectady, wasn’t it? No, that’d be Nantucket. Terrible what happened in Issaquah in the spring of ah, eighteen seventy, ahm no twenty five. Dreadful, simply dreadful, that one doctor could botch so many circumcisions. So many lives unalterably changed, so much suffering inflicted… and why? because one doctor suffered a lapse in attention? Of course, a doctor may reasonably have been expected possession of sufficient expertise, or even familiarity, to tell boy from girl… but infants are queer, sexless little pupae, so perhaps some understanding is in order… suffice it to say that rabbinical orders worldwide, whether they practice on streetcorners, with grand synagogues or in basements incognito, brothels, and so forth, they look back still on that day with some reproach… the Jews are building a spaceship, I’ve heard… in a cavern beneath the Holy City Jerusalem, if you read between the lines of the Torah, you know Moses discovered this cavern preformed, well… the Jews are building a final Ark, within which they’ll travel to Zion… it is, for all intents and purposes, a space-ship, and while the ancient scrawling upon the cavern walls provided plans, they required materials the Jews have never been able to replicate fully… suffice to say… have you ever wondered why, exactly, they’re so preoccupied with circumcision?”

[Anonymous No.19897130]

>>19897082
Brains aren't sexy. Cut it out completely and say her red eyes burn with anticipation like the fireplace beckons the pot or something

[Anonymous No.19897144]

>>19897122
I would read it, I like your writing style.

[Anonymous No.19897172]

Went to a used bookstore today
Jesus christ the fiction genre cannot do anything without turning into a pentalogy

Is it so hard to make a story that exists for just one book?

[Anonymous No.19897194]

>>19897172
This but I'm doing seven books for historical fiction instead. My last book is just one though.

[Anonymous No.19897198]

>>19897172
>Is it so hard to make a story that exists for just one book?
>write one book
>big success
>fans want more
>you want more money
The problem isn't the genre, it's the lack of integrity. No one says no to easy money.

[Anonymous No.19897212]

>>19897122
>suffice to say
hate this phrase, its literally just filler and it sounds autistic

[Anonymous No.19897224]

>>19897198
>>19897172
I do not read anything new, but the worst thing is that they don't even start with a single book and then expand anymore. They're making a 12 book series from day one. You will never get something like Dune where you can read the first book and get enough closure by the end of it to call it a day. The next step will probably be subscriptions and getting stuck in a perennial, rolling narrative until you fucking die.

[Anonymous No.19897238]

>>19897046
What I don't understand is how are children funding this shit? How is it possible for a 14 year old to give money to shit over the internet? Isn't it supposed to be hard for minors to pay for shit online?

[Anonymous No.19897244]

>>19897198
Money is the obvious answer, but you could always just tell a different story on the same world rather than make your middle school girly romance last 6 million words

Sure, the main story about self insert kun saving the waifu sold well, should I maybe go and tell the story of wise teacher san when he was young, or do the same thing again and again?

>remembers FIFA

>>19897238
Mom's credit card

[Anonymous No.19897525]

>>19896909
sorry, fall of civilizations

[Anonymous No.19897543]

>>19897144
thank you fren
>>19897212
i try not to defend myself too often and go MUH CONTEXT, but... MUH CONTEXT. the narrator (speaker of greentexted rant) is running his mouth to stall for time in a dangerous situation. i actually totally agree and think that it's filler and usually pointless "flavor" text whose flavor is of unwashed man ass and smegma. but in this case i did it with a specific reason and in explicit response to a situation.

[Anonymous No.19897551]

>>19897543
>>19897212
and yeah, i'm pretty heavily autistic, and so too is my narrator. probably.

[Anonymous No.19897660]

>>19897244
>Mom's credit card
is this just it? does every problem on Planet Earth point back to white women and Jews?

[Anonymous No.19897698]

>>19897660
Just jews. Woman operate as intended by design

[Anonymous No.19898312]

>>19898310
bread

[Anonymous No.19898777]

>>19895888
I don't have a theme. I have a character, vaguely, but not theme. I know I'm ass backwards. I'm letting the format dictate the content.
I know that the character is a smooth talker, but he never gets too hung up on facts or specifics. He's the kind of guy who will make you a promise which sounds ridiculous or impossible. You'll keep badgering him about it. The date he promised will lapse. You think that he was bullshiting you. And then out of nowhere he delivers.
That's all I really know about him. I don't know what industry he works in.
>>19895893
Maybe it could be a 'victory' speech after he smooth talked someone into something?