/wg/ - Writing General

[Anonymous No.20074849]

Things writers will never see edition. Money and their books.

Previous Thread
>>20068637

>[SPECIAL THREAD CHALLENGE:]
>[YOU CANNOT POST EXCERPTS FOR ANONS TO READ UNLESS YOU ADD A PIC TO SERVE AS COVER]

-------------------------------------------

Reads related to honing the craft:
>pastebin.com/krJFfUfK (old reading list)
>pastebin.com/1KA24gny (new reading list)

Aditional related reads:
>pastebin.com/dXtFsTUh

Youtube playlist on storytelling:
>youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTCv6n1whoI23GmdBZienRW0Q0nFCU_ay

Self publishing websites:
>pastebin.com/zcKB1gN9

-------------------------------------------

/wg/ author pastebin + anon flash fiction anthology
>https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQ

Previous flash fiction anthologies
>archive.org/details/@_lit_anthology

[Anonymous No.20074853]

i'm sorry for sperging out so much, to all the bystanders. it's a weakness of mine. i care too much about things over which i have no control. i'll try to do better.

[Anonymous No.20074857]

>>20074853
That's okay, it's not like anyone writes in /wg/.

[Anonymous No.20074860]

>>20074857
we do write, then get completely hammered by pseuds then cry in the corner vowing to never put their work on here again.

[Anonymous No.20074862]

>>20074857
i write for four hours every day. it's my little version of hell i drag with me everywhere to get done for the day and immediately commence sperging out over the craft.

[Anonymous No.20074867]

>>20074857
Fucking tourists. The meme is that no one in /wg/ reads. Everyone writes, but no one reads

[Anonymous No.20074872]

If I see a single sentence here that makes even the slightest sense, I'm crashing this thread with no survivors. I won't have you Patreon scammers psychically assaulting me with your brainletisms.

[Anonymous No.20074880]

>>20074857
It’s depressing isn’t it? Why even have a writing general if no one writes. It’s like having /lit/ when no one reads in /lit/.

[Anonymous No.20074886]

What words and phrases do you guys most associate with buttsex?

[Anonymous No.20074889]

>>20074857
I wrote 2000 words in an hour and then promptly never had any motivation again.

[Anonymous No.20074898]

>>20074886
Tailhole.

[Anonymous No.20074906]

>>20074889
I can't even get 100 words in a day. What the hell are you writing about?

[Anonymous No.20074922]

>>20074906
It was more-or-less a bottled up thing I'd had settled in my head for a while and then I just crapped it out late at night, asked for some feedback here, got some good, some bad, and completely hit a wall with what to do with it after because I have no sense of self-judgement.

[Anonymous No.20074924]

>>20074886
(You)

[Anonymous No.20074925]

>>20074849
Can anyone critique my writing?

[Anonymous No.20074933]

>>20074925
Post it.

[Anonymous No.20074936]

>>20074925
Stop asking questions like this. It's a waste of a post. Either post it and ask for a critique in the same thread or fuck off. It's like replying to someone asking "Can I make some suggestions?" This isn't a Reddit forum. You don't ask permission.

[Anonymous No.20074937]

>>20074898
Thanks for telling us about your gay furry fanfic reading habits

[Anonymous No.20074951]

>>20074936
>Implying he wrote anything at all
Need I reminder you where you are?

[Anonymous No.20074977]

>>20074936
>>20074933
I'm writing a fanfic and this is a scene where a major character death occurs. I changed the names so no one can identify the fandom.

https://pastebin.com/rPYm9GXS

[Anonymous No.20074985]

It's funny how these things start on accident. A serendipity led me to it, at first. I was a fan of Takehiko Inoue, who is a mangaka. Only he got burned out and stopped, and while he was on hiatus he travelled to Spain. There he went around as a tourist does, checking out the architecture of Anton Gaudi. He got interested, from the perspective of an artist, and delved a little deeper.
The outcome was a book detailing this journey of discovery. Of course I bought it. But here's the things, while looking for the book I stumbled on something else. Another Japanese person, Hiroshi Teshigahara, had gone on a similar journey of discovery. He'd made a movie about it, even. And this film I just had to see, it seemed preordained that I do so.
That was the first Criterion Collection film I ever bought, spine number 425. Did I know what Criterion was? No. I did not. But it would become my consuming passion for years to come.
Manga and anime gave way to film. I became a snob. Not right away, of course. Slowly. Over the course of a year or two. But it happened. And it could happen to you, too.
I don't even watch this shit. Black and white foreign movies? Fuck that shit. See this? This is the Ingmar Bergman box-set. It cost me $370. I can't stand the sound of Swedish. It's just here so I can unbox it, film myself doing so, then place it on display in the den.
Passion is dead. Only the desire to show off remains. Money only exists to support this obsession. The collection obsession. The highlights of my year are the sales they have. I plan everything around the sales. It's a grand game, with Criterion as an opposing player as much as my esteemed competition.
What about you, kid? Want to get started? Want to try to take on a master? You can't. Even if you had the disposable income, you'd need years to catch up with me. You could never walk the forked paths I've walked, every single film here has a story, and you've got none.
Tell you what, I'll give you 40 dollars. When the next sale at Barnes & Noble happens, you can saunter in there like you own the place and buy one. Oh how your eyes will roll to look at the choices you have to make!
That'll be your story, you understand. How the first one you bought was a mistake. Because you didn't know what you were doing, and you tried to watch it, and you didn't like it.
You'll wonder how it turned out like this. You'll watch all the special features and read the essays, hoping to find something there to justify the price. And then you'll understand: that one film has no value at all. Not by itself. It's not a collection.
And that lesson will be part of the story of that film, too. Don't believe me? Well prove me fucking wrong then, if you're so smart. Choose better. Choose a film that will change your fucking life. Choose a film you'll watch over and over, that lingers with you, with special features you actually want to see and essays that deepen your appreciations of the film. I'll wait.

[Anonymous No.20074998]

>>20074867
Every time someone posts that /wg/ doesn't write I tremble with excitement knowing that you'll post about how we never read. I haven't been disappointed once. Thank you.

[Anonymous No.20075004]

>>20074985
> But here's the things
here's the thing *
Sorry didn't proofread

[Anonymous No.20075032]

Eh, fuck it, I'll post that 2000 word thing again. It's been tweaked some, though I have a clear area I wanna rework almost entirely because it was the weakest part by far even to my own uncritical eyes. I'm thinking about how to redo the second bit, and I think I just need to generally step back and think the characterisation through a bit more.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12GTaSTXTmm6KKKgXCT7M0LPOBjxvYFzfTJFHgeD702U/edit?usp=sharing
Lemme know what any of you think, good and bad.

[Anonymous No.20075205]

>>20074977
>His cold, lifeless body
Stopped reading

[Anonymous No.20075290]

>>20074977
>expired
Fucking pastebin mods

[Anonymous No.20075341]

>>20075290
Don't blame the mods for this one

[Anonymous No.20075410]

>>20074977
>Post my work
>Zero replies
>The only reply is a witticism >>20075205


Why is /wg/ so ass?

[Anonymous No.20075417]

>>20075410
Writing a reply would require writing.

[Anonymous No.20075455]

>>20075410
It's been like an hour bro be patient

[Anonymous No.20075461]

>>20075410
It's expired for me dammit

[Anonymous No.20075462]

>>20074977
>pastebin.com refused to connect
couldn't read :(

[Anonymous No.20075519]

>>20075461
>>20075462
Forget it, I just know for a fact the only replies I'll get are trolls nitpicking things that don't even matter.

[Anonymous No.20075529]

>>20075519
no seriously bro, the link doesn't work

[Anonymous No.20075537]

Is subscribing and reading to a literary magazine a good way to improve my reading and therefore writing comprehension? I've read a lot of classics but I'm looking for more bite-sized content like short stories. Problem is I don't want to have to filter through a ton of dogshit. Are any magazines worth checking out for their literary fiction prose? I was checking out a few highly regarded ones but it seems like it's got the same trend with contemporary literary fiction where it's mostly women and minority voices (not that I mind, but I'm not looking to read about social issues).
I know we have an archive of flash fiction. Is all flash fiction submitted accepted or is there at least some form of quality control?

[Anonymous No.20075560]

>>20075519
Congratulations, you've learned the secret of /wg/. This place is for discussion and general questions, not serious feedback. In fact, you shouldn't ask for serious feedback on 4chan ever, on anything. There are far too many retards here.

[Anonymous No.20075569]

>>20075560
Where should you ask for feedback? Or should you just post to Royal Road or whatever and go from there.

[Anonymous No.20075571]

>>20075560
Where to get serious feedback? No writing groups here and leddit is a joke full of ADHD people

[Anonymous No.20075576]

>>20074857
This thread is the bucket and all the replies are the crabs

[Anonymous No.20075579]

>>20075537
>Is subscribing and reading to a literary magazine a good way to improve my reading and therefore writing comprehension?
No. If you're looking for short stories read short stories. Translated ones I'm partial to Kafka but there are a number of native speakers that wrote them. A bunch of famous authors wrote short stories, Twain, Joyce etc. Then you have others that basically only wrote short stories like Lovecraft.

A very famous short story that I'd recommend you read right now is O. Henry's Ransom of Red Chief.

[Anonymous No.20075586]

>>20074860
I'm working on book #3 but re-building my porn sites is taking priority. Being Canadian means that your fellow bug-people only respect people with money, so I'm going to use an easy way to make money while fueling my passion of writing. This country is so fucked

[Anonymous No.20075587]

>>20075579
Thanks my dude much love
Do you know about how to get meaningful writing feedback? I don't have local writing groups or beta readers

[Anonymous No.20075590]

>>20075560
I use /wg/ as my sole literary group. Having a voice and a face stapled to my writing brings bias into the equation and I don't want that in some cases. Also, /wg/ is much more grounded than boards I browse solely for entertainment value. I can effort post here and engage and not have to worry about the thread 404'ing if I have to leave for 4 hours.

[Anonymous No.20075602]

>>20075569
>>20075571
Where to get feedback depends on what you're writing
>Novel for tradpub
Find a writing group and also get an editor
>Novel for self-pub
Writing group
>Web serial
Just post it and read the comments
>Poetry
Lol, lmao
>Plays/Movies
Find a film geek and chain them in your basement
>Songs
100% impossible unless you can sing, and in that case you should just post to Youtube
>Anything else
You're shit out of luck.

[Anonymous No.20075604]

>>20075590
Have you submitted anything successfully? Did the feedback you got here come into play?

[Anonymous No.20075614]

>>20075602
Where get writing groups? Everytime I try to find them they're either doing genre fiction or get bored and fizzle out without too much passion to give adequate feedback

[Anonymous No.20075615]

>>20075579
Speaking of shorts. I'm not a huge fan of Niven, but this one is really good.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/100964572/Larry-Niven-Bordered-in-Black

[Anonymous No.20075620]

>>20075587
By posting chapters on RR I've received feedback. It's uncommon. If you're looking for feedback on a novel do it that way. If you're looking for feedback on a short story? Good luck. Basically you need to become better at objectively looking at your own work. Its a skill you can develop.
I have also received good feedback here but you can't just snap your fingers and expect to get it.

[Anonymous No.20075626]

>>20075620
How DO you become better at looking at your own work? I feel like you'll always write what you like, so you'll be biased just by liking what it should be.

[Anonymous No.20075630]

>>20075620
How does royal road work? If you get feedback are they entitled to royalties? Does the website claim copyright? Also how hard is discoverability? I can't imagine people regularly pick a random new work and start reading it without incentive.

(also curious if any author got successful from RR. I recall Andy weir published online prior to trad publish but idk what website he used or how he got a following)

[Anonymous No.20075634]

>>20074977
Nitpicking about punctuation:
- Don't put spaces before semicolons and commas.
- Don't use double and triple spaces.
- Don't put a capital letter after a semicolon.
- Use fewer semicolons. They're justifiable in your list of things heroes do, but even there I'd personally not use them. The semicolon after "re-grip" should be a period instead.
- Instead of `"Not in vain." He said simply.`, do `"Not in vain," he said simply.`
>His cold, lifeless body cradled over his arms and close to his body.
I'm not sure if "cradled" is supposed to be a verb or a participle here. I had to re-read the sentence because I thought I missed a word.
It's not really grammatical either way. I'd make it "was cradled" or "lay cradled" or something.
"His" refers to two different people, that's also confusing.
>His eyes now unfortunately caught in view of it.
Instead of "caught in view of it", "caught sight of it". I'd drop "unfortunately".
>The youth's face
I'd personally just write "His face". Writing that way felt too repetitive when I started out, but it turns out to be less distracting when reading.
>The sound of wheezing came from each shaken breath , feeling the the tightness of his throat as it happened.
I'd try to avoid "the sound of" here, because a wheeze is already a sound. You could maybe try "a wheeze came from" or "Each shaken breath wheezed".
What's the subject of "feeling"?
You duplicated "the".
>Ariel gently set the corpse on the ground and stood up gradually with his head tilted down making a shadow cast over his eyes.
This sentence is too long, cut it in two or three. That also helps to mark the setting down and the standing up as two separate actions. Right now my brain tries to parse them as a single motion.

[Anonymous No.20075639]

>>20075630
I think a few web novels have been published that were on Royal Road, to some acclaim. Nothing TOO big, but successful publications.

[Anonymous No.20075644]

>>20075604
No, I'm a self pubber. I have a finished 4th book I plan on going hard in the paint for self pubbing marketing and a 5th literary fiction book I might try for trad publishing. It will be cool if I make it, even if I can't tell anyone here.

[Anonymous No.20075648]

>>20075614
>they're ... doing genre fiction
The fact that you think that's a barrier to them being able to give feedback is the issue. Considering that genre fiction is much more popular and sells better these days, so long as you can filter out feedback which clearly doesn't apply to you they will have plenty of useful hints for making your work more approachable for a modern audience. Also, I'm sure that somewhere on the internet there is a literary fiction group, just look for it.
>or get bored and fizzle out
That's why you need to find ones that have been around for a while. New groups have a high failure rate.

[Anonymous No.20075660]

>>20075630
>If you get feedback are they entitled to royalties?
No
>Does the website claim copyright?
No
>Also how hard is discoverability?
Pretty hard if you're trying to become huge, but you're all but guaranteed to hit "Rising Stars" if you post 3 chapters a week for around 4 months.
>I can't imagine people regularly pick a random new work and start reading it without incentive
You would be wrong, people browse all the time looking for new shit.
>also curious if any author got successful from RR
There are some fags making 20k/mo from their LitRPGs, so yeah.

[Anonymous No.20075677]

>>20075660
Mother of Learning was a RR thing, right? That seemed to do weirdly well.

[Anonymous No.20075681]

>>20075677
It wasn't initially, but eventually people bitched at the author enough and he posted it to RR.

[Anonymous No.20075682]

>>20075626
Distance, by and large. More time between when you drafted it and when you edit.

[Anonymous No.20075687]

>>20075682
That's fair enough. So would a solid idea be to write a number of chapters, and then go back and look at them in the order you wrote them, see how each one stacks up looking back?

[Anonymous No.20075691]

>>20075630
>how does royalroad work
write lit-rpgs
>b-but i dont wan-
write lit-rpgs

[Anonymous No.20075701]

>>20075677
It was originally on fictionpress.
To be honest, starting there then moving isn't a bad idea. Royalroad readers enjoy fast updates, so it's better to already have multiple chapters up.
P.s. this is how shit stories get on trending

[Anonymous No.20075709]

>>20075701
Noted for the future that I should probably have a decent chunk of my story completed if I wanna publish it there. I can probably bang out a halfway decent chapter in a couple days, but I'd dislike not having a buffer, and I often just have moments of no motivation so I'd be completely radio silent for quite some time.

[Anonymous No.20075714]

>>20075687
The way you should do it is draft the novel. Minimal edits basically only on what you just worked on the day or two before or if you have to go back and retcon something for plot issues. Get your draft done or get very far in. Then edit.

[Anonymous No.20075717]

Dunno what you guys are talking about with the crab bucket mentality. If you quit writing over anonymous online criticism, that's not a reflection of anyone's pathetic attitude except your own.
The only reason I come to /wg/ is to get advice from experienced writers as I'm a complete amateur and have no patience for writing groups infested with superficial progressive types. I came here not even knowing what prose was and with each general honed my limited skills, growing relatively competent with each passing thread. You guys have genuinely helped me improve my shitty writing and perhaps soon helped me make a living so thank you bros.

[Anonymous No.20075725]

>>20075717
>if you quit over
Nobody is quitting over it, they're saying it's not useful, especially not from 4chan.

[Anonymous No.20075732]

>>20075714
That's fair enough. Better to finish the whole thing before nitpicking every thing too closely.

[Anonymous No.20075828]

>>20075691
Rpg? Like, one of those board games?

>>20075648
Good advice thank you

[Anonymous No.20075862]

>>20075828
Yeah.
The big thing on royalroad nowadays is lit-rpgs.
Like magic, but with a bunch of stats on it. Levels, skills, mana, etc.
Just think of an RPG videogame stats and you'll get what I mean
Just take a look a trending and 56% of it are lit-rpgs.

[Anonymous No.20075869]

>>20075862
Are there any actual good LitRPGs? I know a few good progression fantasy things, and LitRPGs are almost always a subset of that, but I haven't heard of any being anything other than "enjoyable but just decent" at best.

[Anonymous No.20075878]

>>20075862
Ah man. I'm not into fantasy. I only just started reading lotr for the first time last month. I looked into RR and I don't even see a literary fiction tag. I guess it would fall under contemporary?

[Anonymous No.20075884]

>>20075725
>>20075614
Funny story, I started a writing group from on here once. Got two guys on board - one who posted but refused to read/give feedback to others and another who submitted an unintelligible garbage fantasy draft (not just bad, literally incomprehensible) and declared 2 days later that he was giving it on writing forever because he posted a sample on /wg/ and they said it was irredeemable.

So yea I relate to the challenges.

[Anonymous No.20075893]

>>20075884
The chaff always gets weeded out. I got filtered from fighting games. You gotta find what you're willing to suffer over to gitgud at and do it as much as you can stand.

[Anonymous No.20075894]

>>20075884
Incomprehensible how? Like just awful typos, grammar, etc? Or more it just was incoherent.

[Anonymous No.20075897]

>>20075884
Don't ever use 4chan for social networking of any kind. The fact that boards like /soc/ even exist is a travesty. This is a discussion imageboard and nothing more.

[Anonymous No.20075909]

>It's an author promises the world but fails to deliver even 50% episode.
ISHYGDDT

[Anonymous No.20075910]

>>20075884
I'll join your writing group anon.
Although I mainly write screenplays, so my non-screenplay writing is extra bad. Unless I'm allowed to submit screenplays, kek. (my dialogue is ESL-tier too, so I guess I don't have anything good I can offer). I'm happy to review other people's writing though. But since I've only seriously began reading litfic three years ago, I'm still fairly inexperienced. (been reviewing screenplays long time tho)

[Anonymous No.20075914]

>>20075869
I'm going to save the genre.
>He is coming.

[Anonymous No.20075921]

>>20075884
How are flash fictions selected in these threads? Do all get accepted into compilations or do the shit ones get tossed?

[Anonymous No.20075930]

>>20075869
I liked Void Herald's Magik Online but he quit the story before it ended so I can't recommend it.
I can't think of one off the top off my mind. Most of them I drop cause the story just turns into pure grinding or is drawn out too long. More mistake on writer's part than genre, but still.
>>20075878
Doesn't have to be fantasy. You can pretty much make a lit-rpg about surviving the apocalypse. Which seems to be quite popular lately.
That or just update constantly and fast. You'll get unto trending if you do that no matter how shit your writing is.

I myself won't write once because I'll have to pay attention to stats. I know readers actually NEVER keep track of them, but I'd be unable to ignore my own inconsistencies. Then again there are easier ways to deal with stats than hard numbers such as quests, etc.

[Anonymous No.20075943]

>>20075869
I really like Worth the Candle, but maybe it's more of a deconstruction something something.
I've never managed to get far into any other LitRPGs, but listening to readers, it sounds like leveling is a fundamental part of the pacing and much of the reason to keep reading. Worth the Candle de-emphasizes levels and precise numbers as it goes on. They stay an important part of the plot, but they're not treated as intrinsically interesting.
Maybe this continually gamified reading experience is an essential part of LitRPGs. In that case Worth the Candle doesn't really belong in the genre. It's constantly engaging with the idea of a LitRPG, but that doesn't make it a LitRPG itself.
I would recommend it, though I don't think it's for everyone.

[Anonymous No.20075948]

>>20075930
LitRPG feels like it'd suffer from the same issues as progression fantasy in general, where the progression/systems become the focal point, leaving the fun parts like characters, plot and setting by the wayside.

[Anonymous No.20075957]

>>20075943
I might give it a go. Is it just on Royal Road or what?

[Anonymous No.20075966]

>>20075894
>Incomprehensible how?
More incoherence - just dialogue from random goblins/elves/Knights with almost no description or blocking of the scene. It was like listening to someone else's nightmare

>>20075897
This was my lesson unfortunately. Entire group lasted less than a week and just soaked up my time and goodwill like a sponge (not much to be fair but it was a total waste). You need to find FUNCTIONAL people to work with but I'm at a loss on finding them as a decently skilled hobbyist writer. There is a huge vacuum of writing groups between total pleb public tier and published authors

>>20075910
>screenplays
Thanks for the offer but that's a "nah-dog" from me

>>20075921
I'm not that anon so idk

[Anonymous No.20075982]

>>20075884
IRL writing groups go about the same in my experience.

[Anonymous No.20075983]

>>20075957
>it's bad don't.
It's just about some guy dealing with the death of a friend in a d&d campaign he made which dabbles into predestination while at the same time constantly cucking the MC.

[Anonymous No.20075990]

>>20075966
I've been looking at local writing clubs and all of them are closed because I live in nowhere land. I don't mind getting reviewed by genre fiction writers but I was hoping to find a space where people are passionate about literary fiction. Magazines are the only source I can. Although its mostly trial and error through submission rejection, I'd really like some form of feedback to prose and the themes often associated with litfic.

[Anonymous No.20075999]

>>20075634
Thank you. Grammar is my weak point as evident by your critique among other things.

[Anonymous No.20076004]

>>20075948
Yeah just don't get trapped into the Stat over story trap

[Anonymous No.20076019]

I have non-LitRPG RR recommendations, but very few LitRPG ones.
>Cosmosis
>REND
>Fodder
>Only Villains Do That
>Castle Kingside
>The Law of Averages (assuming the author doesn't totally bungle the end of volume 2)
>Valkyrie's Shadow, yes it's an Overlord fanfic but it's better written than the source material.
Honestly, the best LitRPGs are the ones where you forget there are even stats in them.

[Anonymous No.20076021]

>>20075957
Royal Road, or here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249
What >>20075983 says is not wrong, except for the cucking part (it just takes a while).
It has a lot of commentary on worldbuilding, D&D, escapism, and the author's psychological hangups.
If you can't relate to the main character it's probably very annoying to read.

[Anonymous No.20076024]

>>20076004
Yeah, it's fundamentally set dressing. You can use it to enable some goofy shit if you're going full parodic, but otherwise just keep it as a very quantifiable progression/magic system.

[Anonymous No.20076043]

>>20075884
If you start a writing group for anons who write less than a thousand words of bad erotica and cringe romance a week, I'll join it.

All my feedback is terrible, and reading it automatically removes the soul from any work it targets.

[Anonymous No.20076083]

>>20074985
It's well written, but I would lose a few of the 'of course', 'even', and hesitations in the first half. Make it crisper.
And it's not clear why anyone would want to imitate the narrator. Maybe make the process of obtaining the box sets or unboxing the DVDs feel a bit more appealing, or the status rewards clearer.

[Anonymous No.20076104]

>>20075410
You removed it after thirty minutes, dummy. If you care about this shit you're doing it wrong: post it, reap the free commentary, then see if it's applicable and learn/change things. Whatever audience you have for your fanfic will not care about the sort of corrections anons will suggest; feel free to keep feeding them swill. This is strictly for your improvement as a writer.

[Anonymous No.20076321]

>>20075966
>There is a huge vacuum of writing groups between total pleb public tier and published authors

I've also found this as I've searched for groups myself. Are you here right now? I'd like to talk to you privately about your goals with a group and with what sort of writing you do.

[Anonymous No.20076335]

>>20076321
I wanna join

[Anonymous No.20076349]

>>20076335
>>20076321
Okay. I have made a temporary chatroom.

Chatzy.com/57651581388862

[Anonymous No.20076468]

>spend 30+ minutes writing something out based on a prompt
>hit a snag, overthink what I'm writing and recognize imaginary (if valid) criticism of my piece
>immediately delete everything I've written on the grounds that "it's better if I just cut my losses now"
Anyone else do this?

[Anonymous No.20076508]

>>20076468
Sounds like something I would do, but no.
Instead I just add an autistic disclaimer when I post it. Not ideal but not a waste.

[Anonymous No.20076606]

I'm not a native English speaker so I sometimes just put things in Google Translate to check whether what I've written is proper English. But I'm stuck on this part of a sentence:

"While both France and Germany as a less vocal supporter of bla contend that..."

Google Translate and Grammarly tell me that it should be "as less vocal supporters", making me believe that I can't phrase it like that that Germany alone supports bla less than France. (I have talked already a lot about how much France supports bla, now I just want to add very shortly that while Germany also supports it, it is not as adamant as France is).

[Anonymous No.20076657]

For you, is there something that a character can do that makes them morally irredeemable in your eyes? Like child murder or something for example.

[Anonymous No.20076687]

>>20076657
I don't view anything as truly irredeemable (I think, given the right circumstances, anybody could be redeemed by a story, albeit with great difficulty in some extreme cases), but I think the closest thing would be a complete unwillingness to even acknowledge their own immorality. A fixed belief that their actions are righteous, an inflexible rigidity of moral code even when up against irrefutable proof of their own heinousness.

[Anonymous No.20076698]

>>20076657
No, but it requires a good redemption for truly heinous things. FFXIV had a villain bent on mass racial genocide that was so beloved he was turned into a good guy cameo in the next expansion.
But you're obviously asking this because of something in your story. Give the specifics and I'll let us decide.

[Anonymous No.20076705]

>>20076606
maybe offset it with a hyphen
While France - and Germany, to a lesser extent - support bla it is...

[Anonymous No.20076712]

>>20076698
Said villain I'd consider not really redeemed, more pitied.

[Anonymous No.20076722]

>>20076657
I'm a believer in nature over nurture. Everything you do is irredeemable.

[Anonymous No.20076735]

>>20076606
Heiko? Write what you want to say in German and I will try and translate it.

[Anonymous No.20076751]

>>20076712
It's an awkward redemption.
His people went from mustache-twirling villains who were just outright evil to people who were no worse than us. He wanted to kill us because his people are as good as dead while we live, and we killed him because our people would be literally dead if we didn't. He wasn't wrong but there was no reasonable compromise.

[Anonymous No.20076765]

>>20076751
Yeah. I'd argue he wasn't really redeemed, he just conceded. He even says "Even now I still believe in what I did but you won so you do you". But there've been weirder 'redemptions'.

[Anonymous No.20076810]

>>20076698
The antagonist semi regularly eats people. Cannibalism is so shunned in our society I'm worried this may make them seem too unhinged or insane to sympathize with their motivations. Although I suppose there are plenty of cannibals in fiction people adore.

[Anonymous No.20076824]

>>20076810
Do they KILL and eat people, or simply eat people who've died? And if the former, do they actively seek out people to kill? Is there a clear reason to it? Do they NEED to do it, is it some sort of weird ritual, or are they just doing it to be a weird antagonist?

[Anonymous No.20076833]

>>20076810
Why does he eat people? Just out cruelty? Is it an issue in upbringing? Cultural? Was he just really hungry?
How are you planning his redemption?

[Anonymous No.20076906]

>>20076824
>>20076833
Its cultural ritualistic cannibalism for the grieving process. I shouldn't have brought up redemption though, I don't want to "redeem" them, I just want to make sure the antagonist doesn't look completely batshit insane and unsympathetic for this.

[Anonymous No.20076911]

>>20076810
One of my antagonists eats people too, just only certain organs and because it makes him stronger. He's not supposed to be sympathetic though.

[Anonymous No.20076917]

>>20076906
research africa tribes and their cannibalism. It becomes to the point where it's part of their culture, and you can have the antagonist be one that practices cannibalism, but is shunned by the protagonist. Makes for a more dynamic antagonist too.

[Anonymous No.20076929]

>>20076906
That's generally fine. It's framed as a culturally important thing, it doesn't cause undue harm to the living, etc. You have to frame it being shown as something they clearly don't take lightly or do for the thrill, have them be mournful as they do it.

[Anonymous No.20076994]

>>20076735
Während Frankreich und auch Deutschland als weniger lautstarker Unterstützer beide behaupten,...

[Anonymous No.20077036]

>>20076917
That's exactly my plan. I have to do more real world research though.
>>20076929
Definitely, thanks. I want it to be something fighters do communally when a fellow soldier dies in battle, not so much a familial practice.

[Anonymous No.20077062]

finished the 2nd short horror story of my next horror collection.
the ending came out just right.

[Anonymous No.20077067]

>>20077062
please tell me it has a happy ending

[Anonymous No.20077093]

>>20077067
a good ending doesn't necessitate happiness

[Anonymous No.20077137]

let my next story be a hit baby, im deep in debt and publishing this book is the only thing that can drag me from hell

[Anonymous No.20077197]

>>20077137
If DSP can declare bankruptcy after spending $40K on a WWE mobile game, you can too.

[Anonymous No.20077198]

>>20077137
protip: It won't.

You'll get a nice 5k or so, then 0 royalties because nobody is buying it.

[Anonymous No.20077205]

Can you describe a scene from another novel/movie in that sense that your character is inspired by that? Would that be considered transformative since you aren't copying it word by word or is that still plagiarizing?

An example: my character is really into harry potter so after getting access to magic via isekai or magic coming into our world he gets a piece of wood and starts yelling HP spells.
Would that be ok?

[Anonymous No.20077215]

I want to write a fantasy novel but I’m worried it would be considered too derivative, and that it would inevitable not sell a single copy

I don’t care if I’m not the next Tolkien or Brando Sando, but what’s the point in spending so much time world building and writing if nobody will ever read my book?

[Anonymous No.20077244]

>>20077215
this is where you go on tiktok and start intermingling with a bunch of #booktok people. That's what I will need to do with my Adah story.

[Anonymous No.20077269]

So I'm writing and am completely lost on how to continue this thing.
What do you guys do when you are stuck?

[Anonymous No.20077276]

>>20077269
>What do you guys do when you are stuck?
Post here and don't write, like you're currently doing.

[Anonymous No.20077291]

>>20077276
Sounds about right.

[Anonymous No.20077368]

>realize my entire story has no plot
FUCK

[Anonymous No.20077377]

>>20077269
take a shit, or reread something from an earlier paragraph. Then you'll find a way to tie your earlier paragraph with your current paragraph, suddenly adding another subplot and close some loopholes

[Anonymous No.20077413]

>>20077269
I come here and tell other people what to do when they are stuck with their writing.

[Anonymous No.20077430]

So what got you guys into writing?
What do you hope to achieve from all of this?

[Anonymous No.20077435]

Someone here pls explain to me why there are daily Call of the Crocodile threads on /pol/ pls

>>>/pol/367630562

[Anonymous No.20077442]

>>20077435
tourists

[Anonymous No.20077445]

>>20077435
>crazy book written by crazy guy
>/pol/ reads it

Not exactly rocket science m8.

[Anonymous No.20077466]

>>20077430
i hope to start the next star wars and become a billionaire off of merchandising

[Anonymous No.20077481]

>>20077430
I can't draw for shit and instruments are all poorly designed and counterintuitive, so I decided writing was the best option for me to produce art.

[Anonymous No.20077512]

>>20074849
i want to write a sort of self-help book but it feels like i need a self-help book to learn how to write a self-help book. i find writing stories very intuitive, but figuring out how to structure something sort of in non storytelling genres is hard bros.

[Anonymous No.20077520]

>>20077435
garden variety shilling. low effort, potential reward

[Anonymous No.20077529]

>>20077520
There’s vastly easier ways to get money than writing.

[Anonymous No.20077537]

>>20076657
Not learning from their mistakes.

[Anonymous No.20077569]

>>20077529
if you enjoy writing and already have a couple books written why not shill them to make some extra dosh? there's no downside to having more people reading your book

[Anonymous No.20077591]

>>20077569
but what if they think it's shit and tell you so, that's my biggest fear

[Anonymous No.20077672]

>>20077591
Post your writing. I'll tell you it's good, I promise.

[Anonymous No.20077759]

>>20077591
Think about it like this. In over 5000 years of WRITTEN History and fiction, there's less than 100 books that are must reads.

Think of all the failed authors, forgotten books, unwritten prose, and even those that were great such as Edgar Allen Poe, died years before being recognized.

So who gives a shit and dump it. It will live in Jeff Beezo's servers long after you're dead unlike some random nobody living before the year 2000.

[Anonymous No.20077762]

>>20077430
My brother wrote explicit gay fanfiction about L and Light. I wanted to emulate him so I tried my hand, then branched out into Gohan/Kaio Shin, Pikkon and Goku, and then when I got bored of fanfiction I wrote a gay love story about two runaways one of whom has tuberculosis and both of whom have impediments that don't let them communicate with words. Then I wrote more gay fiction, like actual gay fiction, and one time I read Homestuck and started writing a knockoff that became a 3 book series. And now I've written 5 books.

[Anonymous No.20077781]

I just want to write a masterpiece that encompasses all emotions and themes like Madoka Magica.

[Anonymous No.20077893]

>>20076657
have you seen the film "i care a lot"?

[Anonymous No.20077902]

>>20077591
I found I got enough satisfaction from reading something I had written years back to use that as the sole motivation for writing. You're not writing for other people, just your future self.

[Anonymous No.20077915]

Is this too short to be a kids' story?

Once upon a time there was a girl who loved animals. All her friends had a pet. It could be a dog, a cat, or even a bird. Alas, the poor had a problem. She was allergic to every furry animal in the world. She sneezed and coughed whenever she held an animal. The girl was so distraught she cursed the heavens. One night she went to bed crying in anger and sadness. “Why can’t I have my own pet?” she said before finally succumbing to the night.
The clock struck midnight. A fairy came down to the bedside of the girl. It woke her up. The girl's eyes widened at the sight. The fairy said to the girl, "If you work hard you too can have a pet. A pet made of magic.". "I do! I do!" cried the girl, "please teach me how to make a magical pet." "Very well,'' said the fairy, "I will teach you." The fairy showed the girl the basics of summoning magic then disappeared into the night.
The girl practiced for many moons. Then one day, she gathered all her mana and pushed her hands into the pentagram. A huge light appeared and faded soon after. In its place, a small magical being materialized. The little girl was so happy. She finally had a pet all to herself!
The next day she showed all her friends. None have ever seen a magical pet before. It did all sorts of tricks and played with all the other pets. Now the little girl can fit in with the rest never to be left out in any games.

[editard No.20078162]

>>20077915
childrens books are mostly shit
well done

[Anonymous No.20078233]

>>20077759
>>20077902
ok guys, thank you. i'm going to go for it. we'll see what happens

[Anonymous No.20078234]

>>20077915
>cursed the heaves
>"fairy" appeared
>learns how to summon something
>uses a pentagram to summon it
It's a demon isn't it? This is not going to sell to any religious parent and they are the ones who buy the books.

[Anonymous No.20078241]

>>20078234
>>20077915
kek this, unless you can find a way to market it to troons and freaks on r*ddit, they'd love to buy this to own the christians or whatever

[Anonymous No.20078279]

>up to 230k today
>tying out the arcs characters threads
>itching to start the next one
BUT I HAVE TO FUCKING EDIT!

[Anonymous No.20078284]

>>20078279
Numbers looking a little high there, buddy.

[Anonymous No.20078299]

So it turns out that the synopsis feedback I got a while ago was actually really good. I basically just cut one paragraph from what I had posted, then made the last few sentences easier to follow and incorporated the title into the synopsis and bam, looks great.
Gonna partially credit that with 5 follows and ~200 views in the first 24 hours of starting to post my shit. No I'm not gonna say which story it is or where, but thanks to the guys I talked to either way.

[Anonymous No.20078302]

>>20078284
>first arc is 115k
>second arc is looking like about 125k when finito
nah i'm fine.

[Anonymous No.20078375]

>>20077205
Completely legal. (Potentially cringe, but don't worry about that too much.)
Outright Harry Potter fanfiction is also legal as long as you don't sell it. So if it's not commercial you have even less to worry about.

[Anonymous No.20078381]

>>20078375
Is Patreon considered commercial if they buy advanced chapters?

[Anonymous No.20078403]

>>20074849
Two pottery pieces of mine got accepted for publication!

[A suitably autistic story for (...) No.20078414]

Off the train at the right station. Three blocks from home on a sunny evening, and there is no food in the house. The cat is hungry and waiting, and the traffic lights take a long time to change while all the cars heading home can barely make room for other cars heading home. There are a few fewer windows on the buildings that are reflecting sunset-light by the time it is right to cross, and the cars have stopped. There are a few people in the shop. Their conversations, about someone in hospital, some overtime work, and where penises go, leave each time the doors open. They are louder than the street, and the sound that doesn't exist anywhere except the machine that transfers electronic money. The cat food is still the same price. The cat will be happy. A voice says goodbye. The door opens. A plane passes between the buildings, not following the street, and I think it could be full of bombs

[A suitably autistic story for (...) No.20078422]

>>20078403
Where? I have a few things read to go, but am not prepared to send them into places I have found because most of them, although occasionally publishing amazing poems, do so among identity politics

[Anonymous No.20078462]

>coming up with the isekai'd ancestors of my main characters
>they are actually more interesting than my main characters
I'm dumb.

[Anonymous No.20078476]

>>20078422
A literary magazine in Austin, TX. tbqf I just applied to every single place that was open lol. There's like 30-40 rejections for acceptance, so I stopped being too picky.

Yeah, I'm not into the identity politics nonsense, despite being what Amerifags would call a PoC. I don't often write about that so I didn't really consider applying to the mags that have a focus on PoC/Queer/Women stuff

[Anonymous No.20078500]

>>20078476
Good on ya, anon. Glad to see there is still some soul on /lit/. Congrats. I hope you were happy with the work you submitted

Come to aus, and I'll introduce you to my racist mates

[Anonymous No.20078512]

>>20077430
Mindless autism. I liked reading more than talking people, which naturally lead to writing because I started wanting to write stories to give me what other stories I read couldn’t. This of course lead to profound autism.

[Anonymous No.20078521]

>>20078381
I don't know, might be a grey area. But mentioning Harry Potter the way you described is OK either way.

[Anonymous No.20078590]

>>20077430
I read a long, bad, popular Undertale fanfic, followed by one that was actually really well done.
The first convinced me writing fan fiction was something I could do, the second that it was worth doing.

[Anonymous No.20078628]

>>20078234
Yes
>>20078241
It's a story in a story. The main character picks up a children's book and later finds out some dude took these stories figured out they're legit and started to summon demons and ghouls . MC stops him

[Anonymous No.20078630]

I spent yesterday from 10 in the morning till 2 at night compiling and applying fixes to my print book. Is this the literary lifestyle?

[Anonymous No.20078714]

>>20078500
ya mate let's skull down some beers and catch the cricket on the plasma

[Anonymous No.20078717]

>>20077430
I want to write a long fictionalized book about the history of my country which would be a compilation of our cultural achievements, our cultural failures and our general folklore. Like what Mahabharata is to India though I don't claim I'm capable of writing an epic poem on that level lol I just want to have fun. I want to show people what I see as our visual and spiritual identity.
What got me into writing was the idea of dedicating myself to a very long and all-encompassing story/work of art

[Anonymous No.20078748]

>>20078717
that's beautiful anon. I wish you all the luck in the world.

which country btw?

[Anonymous No.20078804]

>>20078748
Thank you!

>which country btw?
Russia...

[Anonymous No.20078809]

>>20078804
How are you even on the internet?

[Anonymous No.20078823]

>>20078809
I'm not in Russia as of now. However, they didn't ban 4chan and general internet usage in Russia (not saying they can't/won't). They banned facebook and instagram, but everyone uses VPN, so people still post on instagram although it is "banned".

[Anonymous No.20078849]

>>20078823
Where do you even start? Huns? Tar Tars? Goths?

[Anonymous No.20078858]

>>20078849
The Kievan Rus, surely.

[Anonymous No.20078880]

>>20078849
(I'm the anon you're talking to)
It is a very tough choice to make and for a number of reasons I chose to start my story from the establishment of the Tsardom of Russia, so from 1547, starting with Ivan IV. 1/3 of my story is specifically about Ivan IV. I refer very frequently to everything that happened on the territory of Russia before Ivan IV, but not through direct narration/characters.

[Anonymous No.20078888]

>>20078849
History of Russia? Honestly, you can go very far into the past since Russian language roots might be with sanskrit. Then there are Scythians and rumored Tartaria, then there are slavic city states and Svyatoslav wanting to conquer Constantinopole, so he made a previously non-important city, Kiev, into his supply base. And that city eventually became the gates for Christianity.

[Anonymous No.20078895]

>>20078888
>since Russian language roots might be with sanskrit
Like the "slavic paganism is tied to the vedas" meme, that is charlatinism from silver age and soviet era slavophiles...

[Anonymous No.20078905]

>>20078895
*charlatanism

[Anonymous No.20078906]

>>20078714
fuckin oath, cunt. i'll grab the coal for the barbie and a case of VB

[Anonymous No.20078909]

>>20078895
Eh, Russia's history is certainly harder to research after Peter the Great decided to overhaul the country as he saw fit. As for Vedas, who knows, with Ice age funneling people to south, then dust storms funneling people to north and west, it's not impossible that slavic people migrated from somewhere south.

[Anonymous No.20078922]

>>20078909
>after Peter the Great decided to overhaul the country as he saw fit
And even harder after the communists decided to do the same, destroying the very little that was left of our history and identity in the process. ;) We have a great predisposition for self-destruction.

I will fix myself and say that Russian is a indo-european language, so it does have Sanskrit roots from a very long time ago, but not more so than other such languages (English, French...). It has also underwent many changes and other linguistic influences since then. So it's not like "sanskrit ------> russian" and "russians are indian", although neo-pagans love to claim that.

[Anonymous No.20078933]

>>20078922
Well, yeah, Russian went through a lot of changes to make it more european, from greeks that changed the alphabet. to infuence from french, germans and now anglos. I just thought that it was important to say that, unlike those euro nations, Russian language roots lie beyond Roman empire.

[Anonymous No.20078952]

>>20078933
>unlike those euro nations, Russian language roots lie beyond Roman empire
I'm not a linguist so I would be happy if a linguistics anon could provide more exact information, but as far as I know all these European languages that we speak of have Sanskrit roots as well, not less so than Russian.

[Anonymous No.20078957]

Approaching 50 rejections, and I just noticed a logical inconsistency in my opening paragraphs that none of my beta readers caught, and neither have I after reading it 300 times. Whoops.

[Anonymous No.20079012]

>>20078630
I love those marathon days. I like to spend the days after them slacking off and watching old internet bloodsports streams while I play vidya.
>GAY8G

[Anonymous No.20079029]

>>20078952
Not him but I'm Currently reading The Horse, The Wheel, The Language and it breaks this topic down really well. Indo-european is thought to have originated in Russia/Ukraine steppes but also genetically a huge proportion of modern male lines are traced to that one group. Survive the Jive on YouTube also has some videos you may find interesting on this (horse sacrifice one is wild)

t. Researching for my historical fiction set in bronze age Europe

[Anonymous No.20079192]

>>20079029
Fellow historical bro I kneel to you. t. Writing historical fantasy, but slowly realizing I don't have any magic or other worldly creatures like dragons in it barring one MacGuffin

[Anonymous No.20079227]

Anyone here self-pubbed successfully?
How do you go about getting reviews from people? I released my book to basically crickets because I’m shithouse at social media, and have zero presence.
I figured I’d keep cranking out the rest of the series and whatnot, then maybe pay for some Amazon or Facebook ads for the first one, but I’m curious as to how people generally gain an audience in the first place?

[Anonymous No.20079230]

>>20078630
I did the same thing!
My first book had a bunch of shot to change from proof to release, but my upcoming second book had comparatively few.
Feels good, but at the same time sad cos nobody bought my first one anyway! Lol

[Anonymous No.20079418]

>>20079227
I've heard that getting advance reviewers helps a lot. From there you need to tell everyone you know that you published a book. Also, marketing goes on forever. I made this mistake. Once your book is out there, you don't go two weeks and then stop. You market it for at least a year and then keep it up as an occasional discount book while you push forth new books you've finished.

[Anonymous No.20079447]

>>20079418
Thanks man
Yeah I figured it was a long haul. I think my issue was even finding advance reviewers in the first place!

[Anonymous No.20079453]

You've had your break.
You will get back to the page.
You will write startling good prose.
You will post your writing, accept critique, and fine tune your work.
You will never quit.
You will make it.

[Anonymous No.20079472]

>>20079227
>>20079418
Basically this. You ask your real life friends to get the ball rolling. When randos see reviews posted, the bar to join in is greatly lowered.

Of course, I have no friends online or offline, or any success worth mentioning, so I can only speak based on general observations.

[Anonymous No.20079486]

>>20079192
You don't really need to make up fantasy, just mythologize history, I mean, since we started talking about Russia, their military built a church dedicated to a millenium of protecting the nation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KOCkjEjFhw..
From Nevsky who fought templar, to Ivan IV who overthrew mongols, to Peter who defeated Sweden, to Suvorov who fought France, etc.

[Anonymous No.20079502]

>>20079486
And each episode is unique enough to create its own faction.

[Anonymous No.20079527]

>>20079486
That's the right route. My story takes place in a fictionalized part of history in a clearly Anglo-centric part of the world, similar to King Arthur stories and set in the same period, but I don't have any of the magic or myth that those ones have. It's just about kings and drama. The more I think about it, the more I sort of want to lean into a soft magic style like Gawaine and the Green Knight and the Holy Grail quests from Le Morte d'Arthur, but somehow it tonally doesn't seem to fit.

[Anonymous No.20079583]

https://pastebin.com/jxAEud1T

[Anonymous No.20079621]

>>20079453
I will never post my work because it's not in English, but I agree with the rest

[Anonymous No.20079623]

>>20079583
Gets better but the first paragraph of the boys burning the dude alive was bad. It's the prose and very boring delivery. They just did something. Set up the scenario of them burning the guy not just they light match, they kill guy with wicked sense of humor

[Anonymous No.20079664]

>>20079583
>Mid afternoon after they left
Your first sentence and it isn't even a sentence?
>They were trying to pick a lock out of fun
Out of fun? You didn't phrase this correctly.
>Next they played with fire matches
Fire matches? Why fire? Are there any other kind of matches?
>next to a beautiful hay garden
What even is a hay garden? How can it be beautiful?
>the gardener was sleeping under a yellow pillow of strands
He was sleeping *under* a pillow? Or he was sleeping *upon* a pillow?
>He had been incapacitated. Completely!
Jesus Christ. Word of advice - just forget the exclamation mark even exists.
>It sparked a dose of dopamine and oxytocin every time they did something they weren’t supposed to.
Come on now.

You need to be asking yourself questions as you write. Why use this particular word, does this make sense, am I accurately describing the situation, and so on.

[Anonymous No.20079935]

>>20079192
Cheers fellow historichad. I had a similar experience, planned some elements of fate/manifestations of spiritualism but the more I learned about the era the more amazing content I wanted to fit in (head shaping, horse cock religious fetishism, very divergent cultures in contact, climate change) that the "magic" doesn't seem relevant although spiritual practices do.

[Anonymous No.20079938]

>>20076349
Chatbro what happened...

[Anonymous No.20079974]

>>20077215
Royalroad + litrpg

[Anonymous No.20079984]

>>20078462
That's how things usually are. Doesn't mean it's good but it's the norm

[Anonymous No.20080110]

>>20079935
That's where I'm landing. The MacGuffin I have is more of an excuse for the two main characters to go around their two nations (after securing peace) talking to each other, building relationships, witnessing culture differences and change, and for the main character to have a romance arc with the main girl. I thought I'd make the MacGuffin actually magical, maybe the MC has a Moses and the burning bush moment with it, but I decided it would be better characterization to have him steal it out of greed and jealousy, then feel bad he cheated his friend out of a fair discovery and have it hidden somewhere.
I'm struggling with religion, though. Right now the religion is loosely Catholic, but not named, and they read from "the Holy Book" and talk about God. What did you do with yours?

[Anonymous No.20080190]

How am I supposed to write in 1st person without the mc appearing as some conceited guy.
Like example in 3rd: His words were filled with arrogance, hands clenched in anger.

Im not sure how I could transfer that into 1st person.

[Anonymous No.20080205]

>>20080190
If he IS conceited, then make him so. If he's not, but just coming across that way, have his words contrast with his own narrative.

[Anonymous No.20080209]

>>20080190
>without the mc appearing as some conceited guy
why contain it? make the mc interesting

[Anonymous No.20080234]

>>20080190
Write words that show his arrogance and anger.
>I knew exactly what I was talking about. What the hell was he thinking, going against me like that? I kept my fists tight. I didn't want to give this bastard the chance to calm me down. He didn't know anything.
Something like this.

[Anonymous No.20080247]

>>20080234
>What the fuck did he just say about me, the little bitch?

[Anonymous No.20080262]

>>20080209
Oh well, I guess he is. But I don't wanna SHOW it. Yeah that's a better way to phrase it.
I'm just switching over to 1st person writing for a bit, tellings a lot to easier in 3rd person.
>>20080234
>>20080205
Thanks guys. Ready to go ahead and pump out 500 words now.

[Anonymous No.20080722]

>>20080262
Good for you. Share it if you want.

[Anonymous No.20080799]

>>20075660
does everyone do fucking litRPGS now or do some just do regular genre fiction?

[Anonymous No.20080823]

>>20080799
Two guys (one including me) here are doing historical fiction. I'm also working on a lit fiction that happens to be in a historical era and I've finished my farce comedy which is a genre

[Anonymous No.20080861]

>>20080799
I've not seen one person post a litrpg excerpt here yet. I think it's just a meme.

[Anonymous No.20081103]

>Moby-Dick took "nearly" a year and a half to write
>tfw slaved away longer for less results
How do I manage my expectations

[Anonymous No.20081170]

>>20081103
More than half of Moby Dick is filler in the form of Cetology copy pasta so don’t lose heart

[Anonymous No.20081189]

My head is fucking empty

Fuck

[Anonymous No.20081324]

If you do not take to your page with words of weight and meaning, and think back of what you have written with a jubilant smile or aching heart, you are doing it wrong.

[Anonymous No.20081330]

>>20080799
I just posted some genre fiction on Tuesday. I mean, the main character can see a heads-up display in his vision when he wants to, but it has no numbers, is functionally worthless to a normal human, and is probably a hallucination. No idea how well I'll do, but I'm not really motivated by fame or money for writing either way because I also have a real job.

[Anonymous No.20081338]

>>20081330
So he has a gratuitous HUD that does nothing at all? What's even the point?

[Anonymous No.20081348]

>>20081330
*On RR on Tuesday
Fug D:
>>20081338
He thinks he's a robot and it gives him information about things like whether or not he's starving or dying that he wouldn't otherwise know how to intuit from a human body. Also it may or may not be bait to make the audience think it's a LitRPG at first to get them invested before they realize it isn't.

[Anonymous No.20081356]

>>20081348
Fair enough. Is he just crazy or are you playing up the ambiguity of it all? Or is it just for goofs, like he'll refer to his hunger value and people will just look at him like "What the fuck are you talking about".

[Anonymous No.20081369]

>>20081356
It's all from his perspective, so as far as he's concerned he's perfectly sane. However, his opinions don't always coincide with reality, which he begins to learn as the plot progresses. Also he's used to hiding among human-like beings so he knows enough to keep his mouth shut.

[Anonymous No.20081379]

no one here has any talent. not one drop.

[Anonymous No.20081384]

>>20081369
Sounds dumb, but sure.

[Anonymous No.20081399]

>>20081384
I'm probably not doing it just this by explaining it in short form. Essentially, that particular aspect of the character is developed as he goes through a series of increasingly more irrational rationalizations about the nature of his body and existence. His own mental distance from human beings is a core part of the identity that he doesn't even really understand that he has, and as he begins to realize that he is now not what he thinks he is it changes his conscious thought patterns in subtle ways which match the unconscious changes that he also goes through. It's all done quite slowly, and it's kind of a background plot point, but it does help flesh out the character and make him more comprehensible.

[Anonymous No.20081408]

>>20081399
>just this
>*justice
For fuck's sake voice to text can you just not fuck up? I just wanna shitpost and cook at the same time.

[Anonymous No.20081412]

>>20081399
I have no idea what you mean by that to be honest. So he's inherently not like other humans, but he doesn't quite know why, but changes over time to be more and more inhuman?

[Anonymous No.20081416]

>>20081408
You sound like prime bf material

[Anonymous No.20081423]

>>20081412
As far as he's concerned, he is and has always been an AI which was made to operate human-like bodies for the purposes of infiltrating human settlements and killing people. Essentially a terminator, but with a more westworld-style intellect that is aware of what it is. However, at the start of the story, he is placed into a new body which greatly resembles a human body in ways that are shockingly accurate (as far as he's concerned) and inconvenient. As time goes on it turns out that it doesn't just resemble one.
Technically this is a small spoiler for the story if you ever figured out which one it was and cared enough to read it, but it's pretty obvious to anyone paying attention so whatever. I don't even really think most people in this general would like it anyway which is why I haven't linked it.
>>20081416
I can assure you I'm not.

[Anonymous No.20081449]

Is there a /wg/ equivalent to the /ic/ sticky?

[Anonymous No.20081573]

>>20081449
Just the pastebins.

Anyone got recs for finding themes? I'm working on a story idea but all I have is half a blurb and a few documentaries/movies I've torrented to watch for historical context.

[Anonymous No.20081585]

>>20081573
Well, think broadly on the story idea, what themes does it already encompass, whether subtly or overtly? If nothing there, think on the characters. If nothing else, just think of a theme that sounds interesting to tackle.

[Anonymous No.20081660]

>>20081573
>i had really better research this book i'm writing
>let's watch a movie!

[Anonymous No.20081693]

>>20081660
Good point anon. Off to Wikipedia!

[Anonymous No.20081783]

>>20080861
I got you senpai.

I just need a pdf hosting site

[Anonymous No.20081980]

How do I use possessive apostrophes in abbreviations that technically end with an s but not actually?
For example, I am using the abbreviation "CEEC" for "Central and Eastern European countries". As such, having "countries" end with an s, would something like "CEEC' economies" be correct?

[Anonymous No.20082005]

>>20081980
In that case, it'd just be "CEEC's", regardless. But if it was the possessive for countries, it'd be countries'.

[Anonymous No.20082028]

>>20082005
So I add the 's even if it would technically be wrong, since - if you write the full acronym - it would be "Central and Eastern European countries's"?

[Anonymous No.20082043]

>>20082028
Acronyms are treated as their own words.

[Anonymous No.20082051]

>>20082043
Thank you very much!

[Anonymous No.20082120]

Any of you ever written an eccentric old British man before? Tips?

[Anonymous No.20082125]

>>20082120
Eccentric how?

[Anonymous No.20082142]

>>20082120
That's me. Just be me.

[Anonymous No.20082291]

>>20080110
I think it varies depending on your setting and level of historical detail available. In the case of medieval Christians I think you should go more detailed because 1. It permeated the culture linguistically and and in terms of daily life habits/holidays. 2. We know more about it from written records so you have a lot to pull from in terms of saying "it's xyz saint's day" or specifics of morality/quotablr parables

Not to say it needs to dominate the conversation, and nobody needs to care who the pope is - but why not just pick a horse (medieval catholicism) and stick with it for contextual details like feast days, naming conventions, etc? Just my opinion though don't let me backseat write on you.

My period is in an area without written language so the wiggle room is HUGE. Too big if anything. Even so I'm trying to error on the side of what is provable regarding things like animal sacrifice and specific indo-european myths (twin brothers creating world, sky god) that logically would carry on to what is basically the tail end of the indo-european western expansion. My biggest ass-pull so far is that one clan does not take thralls/slaves as a plot point even though historically everyone probably did but it's really convenient for me and not THAT implausible.

[Anonymous No.20082423]

>>20082291
Should I give the religion a name and start bringing real-world elements into the story? So far I've avoided that and just placed the story realistically within medieval times, but with made up names of nations and geography.

[Anonymous No.20082463]

>>20082423
If you've got a holy war brewing between a couple religions you may have to. If you don't, if they're monotheistic, there's no real reason. Even if they're polytheistic you don't have to. Just refer to them as Believers or somesuch, maybe even without the capital b.

[Anonymous No.20082516]

>>20082423
Hard to say without seeing it/knowing the future plans as well as you do so trust your own gut (i'm also happy to check out a sample if you'd like to post anything) but I think it really depends on your final decision - are you making a low magic fantasy story or historical fiction? If you're going with the first option you are probably already in good shape just keeping it somewhat vague (similar to the main church in A Song of Ice and Fire were we get the gist it's "Christian-like" and don't sweat the small stuff) but if you want to go historical like some of my earlier advice implied (I thought you already were so sorry if that's confusing) then you should probably plausibly put it within certain countries.

It's probably an unnecessary pain in the dick to "historicalize" a low fantasy setting though.

[Anonymous No.20082636]

>>20082463
I do have a secondary character who I plan to have leave the church and start a civil war over the perceived evil ambitions of the king (his childhood friend). And he happens to start a schism in the church sometime before then. Might mandate a naming convention.
>>20082516
It's historical fiction. The only magic I thought I might have is contained in an amulet supposed to bring immortality. The other nations should also have their own religions, since there are several. But then it might get hairy and turn into a religious mess. If I use it as an underline and a means as prejudice against other nations, it could lead to some interesting wars.

[Anonymous No.20082687]

>>20082636
>a schism in the church sometime before then. Might mandate a naming convention
Not necessarily. They'll refer to him as a heretic, or an apostate, and he'll refer to them as corrupt. He'll call himself a true believer, or a reformer, and they'll call themselves the true way or something.
Giving the religion a name may end up making the message of the story less universally applicable.

[Anonymous No.20082720]

not exactly writing but im compiling information for a guide to life. what are some topics you'd like to see? this is the list already, anything missing?

loser's Outline - realised that everyone has gaps in their knowledge, meant to be a coverall
basic Outline - outline of a basic well-rounded life
optimised Outline - outline in accordance with 'success'
How to Learn/Excel
Health, Exercise & Diet
Finance & Economics
Socialisation, Partnership & Procreation
Language
Mathematics
Logistics & Problem Solving
Science & Further Education
IQ, Talent & Ability
Emotional & Psychological Skills
Medicine
News & Politics
Creative & Self-Expression
Hobbies & Recreation
Organisation & Domestic Duties
Productivity
Real Estate & Geo-Spatial Awareness
Environment & Sustainability
Handy Life-Skills
Bureaucracy (Personal Documentation etc.)
*Hygiene
*Mental & Physical Illness
Required Books, Movies, Music & Art
Collective Goals of Humanity

[Anonymous No.20082736]

>>20082720
Poop.

[Anonymous No.20082742]

>>20082736
oh the whole thing is poop? or how to poop, ill be including it in health

[Anonymous No.20082746]

Is it safe to insert political allegories on my Royal Road stories?

[Anonymous No.20082752]

>>20082720
There's already so much self help shit out there that this seems a little redundant. Unless you bring a truly unique perspective to the table that is also entertaining I would say don't bother.
Though, that could be my own bias as I generally despise the self help shit that I see. Most of it's either basic or just down-right bad advice.

[Anonymous No.20082761]

>>20082720
Seems a little absurd to include so many topics, though that is kind of intriguing. Give us an excerpt.

[Anonymous No.20082764]

>>20082752
agreed. im personally not the most qualified to make something like it but im tackling the task as best i can in accordance with my life and the lives that i know of.
it's not meant to be sold, it's meant to be free for anyone looking for standards and secrets and for someone who isnt a retard or more than just average, the aim is to provide optimisation in life including fundamental or effective principles like sales/leadership or deep problem solving

is there anything you would like personally want to see if you were to ever pick up a book like that again? something that you havent seen yet.
>might i suggest The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance Book by Joshua Waitzkin (book by a consistent winner, theory of smaller circles is profound)
>Waitzkin uses the concept of “smaller circles” to get at this essential idea:
>“Over time expansiveness decreases while potency increases. I call this method ‘Making Smaller Circles.’” (p. 120)

[Anonymous No.20082779]

>>20082761
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XN49hP4FZn48cLIpbAENNYnOGGxYKAVW/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=117781667344423949182&rtpof=true&sd=true
it's a little sparce and just covers keywords or topics within topics.
but something like this (i post in /adv/ and am compiling a guide for literally everything)
>he needs to understand the utility of emotional intelligence and being empathetic to your partner in a relationship
emotional ""management"" to have a more stable relationship, better communication to explore boundaries or comfort zones and succeed as partners
>just two huge benefits from learning all the nuances of what it means to better understand someone. he would provide that kind of empathy to his dog if he's at least a kind person, the irony is that he sees you as self-sufficient and not realising the support that women need from their relationships. convey that to him in the sense that emotional satiety is akin to sexual satiety for him if youre willing to exchange relationship obligations like that. it's not the healthiest but its part of understanding the business of the other genders and the reality of relationships
im just saying. tell him to watch these videos
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjOowWxOXCg [Embed]
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVg2bfqblGI [Embed]
>tell him to read about the "reid technique" and find the book on libgen or something. these are hard skills as opposed to the soft skill approach that women have and he may find these things better to engage with as learning material for emotional intelligence and better involve himself in your relationship

just the kind of information i understand and want to regurgitate for people. just copy paste so far until i refine them into articles. im not exactly worldly so i wanted others to help but as far as i can tell, the information is just scattered across the internet. just takes time to find

[Anonymous No.20082783]

>>20082779
there's a few missing lines of greentext, formatting is difficult in this little box
>emotional ""management"" to have a more stable relationship, better communication to explore boundaries or comfort zones and succeed as partners
>im just saying. tell him to watch these videos

[Anonymous No.20082785]

>>20082764
The only stuff that I enjoy that could be considered self help, though it really isn't, is philosophy and psychology. I have never learned anything from general self help type stuff, but philosophy and psychology have both helped me immensely. I'm reminded of the quote
>great art disturbs the comfort and comforts the disturbed
I think this applies to philosophy and psychology (and self help). I've found comfort in reading people who dive deep into their own psyche, but have found little to no value in the generic
>do x, y and z so you can get b
Again, this could just be how my own brain works. I am not one for overly defined and rigid lines.
It depends on who you're writing this book for. For people like me who operate in the schizo realm it sounds uninteresting, but for the more autistically inclined it could be of value.
If you want to appeal to the schizophrenically inclined I suggest Laing and Jung to be included in the mental health/psychology section.

[Anonymous No.20082787]

>>20082742
Poop for health, Poop for nutrition, Types of Poop, Poop Color, Poop everything. 80% related to health has to do with your poop.

[Anonymous No.20082805]

>>20074849
You all bashed on anime writing and anime writers, but Brandon Sanderson just became one himself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFGDcvtRdz0

[Anonymous No.20082807]

>>20082785
my approach to understanding people has been largely understanding animals like i explain in this post >>>/adv/26041588
>dog training videos underpin the fundamentals of reinforcement theory so watching ceaser milan stuff is good. but in general you should vary your sources.
>attachment and trauma theory is actually, similar to what cat psychology is about.
>https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=my+cat+from+hell
>try to find full episodes or full streams, my links are currently all down but this hsould be sufficient to understand the concept of environment on psychology and relationships that arent based on dominance

of course theres fundamentals between all social and intelligent creatures so thats what im striving to explain. like anthropology

[Anonymous No.20082812]

>>20081423
I know the book. You only update it duringNaNoWriMo right?

[Anonymous No.20082815]

>>20082805
i need to learn how to write like Sanderson.

[Anonymous No.20082821]

>>20082785
damnit my post got deleted or i didnt post it or something.
i was saying philosophy and psychology are top tier self help guides. understanding and rationalising reality and understanding yourself and others. how better to guide yourself.

my guide is to cater to everyone including people like yourself looking for something more advanced and complex to navigate life with and succeed

[Anonymous No.20082839]

>>20082805
his writing is pretty good. Why does he get bashed on?

[Anonymous No.20082869]

>>20082839
I said anime writers got bashed on.

[Anonymous No.20082876]

>>20082821
Sales ability and persuasiveness
Motivation and Leadership
Emotional Regulation and Emotional Self-Awareness (Equanimity)
Teamwork

Anxiety and Stress Management (Indomitability)

*Canine training, feedback cycle psychology reinforcement theory

just some more notes that would be included in psychology

[Anonymous No.20082884]

>>20082807
Sounds a little like Straw Dogs. I stopped reading it after about 50 pages. It all boiled down to
>we're just animals bro
It was rather dull.
While there can be some insight in exploring that side of us, we're a little more complex than that (to say the least) and it's reductive. I would also say it's destructive in the sense that a lot of people these days have taken Darwinism to an absurd extreme that Darwin never intended. The idea of "survival of the fittest" has been bastardized and mutated into an unrecognizable mess of, for lack of a better term, evil. The fruity ideas of power dynamics and survival that's in the zeitgeist at the moment are not conducive with our survival and are likely to get us all killed. Even worse, before it kills us physically, we will die a thousand deaths spiritually.
It could be interesting, but it's been done before. If you are to do it again I hope you keep in mind the misinterpretations of our nature as animals and counter-balance that with the reality that animals are far kinder than we give them credit for, and our survival hinges on team work and co-operation. Without it we're just naked apes with no claws who make weird mouth noises.

[Anonymous No.20082900]

>>20082821
In my own opinion the psychology and philosophy of becoming what one is and playing the hand you're dealt is the most important. Everything else is superfluous, and without that foundation, useless.

[Anonymous No.20082905]

>>20082884
>>20082900
i'll make a note of it

[Anonymous No.20082931]

>>20082884
>>20082900
again, appreciated for the notes. really gives the guide shape

[Anonymous No.20082933]

>>20082931
Happy to help. Hope it turns out well.

[Anonymous No.20082936]

Wrote 700 words today, revised a few sentences here and there.
Got a few more followers.
It's coming together anons.

[Anonymous No.20082957]

>>20082720
Far more useful than navel gazing nonsense like this is a set of selected exercises meant to improve skill in some area. e.g Scientologists apparently have an exercise where they attempt to stare at each other's eyes without being allowed to change expression. A few hours practicing something this simple apparently leads to a dramatic shift in the experience of social anxiety and projection of charisma. Here's one related to reading: if you focus on the spaces between words instead the words themselves you can read up 20-30% faster without any additional effort or loss in comprehension. I also have one for chess: do puzzles from the opponent's perspective to rapidly train an habitual "blunder check" before you make a move. Here's one for learning: going through a sample exercise while manually writing down an explanation for each step given, results in a dramatic increase in retention and understanding.

I can also see books of collected exercises for specific subjects (mathematics in particular, e.g Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability or Thinking Physics) as being part of this. In google's DeepMind team, new members are given a selection of papers to read and replicate as an initial training. You could do the same for virtually any topic of higher learning.

[Anonymous No.20082971]

>>20082936
>decide to devote the day to editing
>end the day with less words

[Anonymous No.20082972]

>>20082957
thank you. if you have more to offer, i have more thanks to give.
where do you find your information? what are your inspirations and sources etc?

[Anonymous No.20082978]

>>20082839
His writing is weird. It's solid, but I find it hard to call it anything more than somebody just making use of their tools in a way. He's good with the tools, but that feels like it.

[Anonymous No.20082989]

>>20082971
I edit the previous days writing as I go, so I stay connected in the text.

[Anonymous No.20082994]

Hey all, I added another chapter and expanded/redid some of that prologue to the thing I was working on. Looking back on the new chapter, it feels a little rougher and I'm not QUITE as happy with it as I was with the initial draft of the prologue, but it's also way too late and I don't have the mental energy to write more or rewrite right now, but initial thoughts are always welcome.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12GTaSTXTmm6KKKgXCT7M0LPOBjxvYFzfTJFHgeD702U/edit?usp=sharing
Feedback on it all is appreciated, actually, if anybody hasn't read it yet. 4500 words so far, and I just sort of threw the new chapter together in an hour and a half.
I should probably look into asking for feedback somewhere else, too, to be honest, because /wg/ is hardly a hotbed of people wanting to actually read.
I also really need to think of some better names, not just for characters, for the magic stuff. Should have more specific terms I think.

[Anonymous No.20083086]

>>20082972
They were collected sporadically over years of consuming papers, youtube videos, books, even blog posts. There's no one unified source (hence why a book containing a bunch of these would be so useful). Probably the best way to do it would be to talk to a bunch of experts in the given field, but they may be hesitant to give up their secrets. The point though, is to focus on activities and exercises (especially ones that invert the standard approach) rather than pure declarative knowledge.

The exercise with the greatest return on investment that I know of is probably the 6Rs (see: https://easingawake.com/?p=SixRsFiveSs).). Practicing this a few hours everyday for even one week can quite literally change your life. Here's one for writing: get 10-20 novels (or short stories or poems or whatever you want to write), then read them in strict parallel. i.e read page 1 of novel 1. Then read page 1 of novel 2. etc. Doing this you'll be able to pick up, to a much greater degree, the latent patterns of fiction. e.g I did this with a collection of Chekov's stories. Most of his stories follow the same structure and even the same pattern of beats. He almost always opens with a description of a character, for example, and sets up some kind of feeling which he always reverses at the end. Pushkin on the other hand, likes to start his stories with some kind of gathering. You won't notice this if you read them serially--that's the magic of fiction--but if you read in parallel the patterns are almost too obvious.

A lot of this is just invention and experimentation. The parallel reading thing is one I came up with myself, for example. Just trying the exact of opposite of whatever is the convention, usually leads to some kind of insight.

[Anonymous No.20083087]

>>20082994
I like the prologue - you should just call it chapter 1 - I don't like that your 1st person perspective dies and effectively becomes a voice in their heads. It really makes it sort of worthless. I'd much rather have one of them become the 1st person perspective.

I hate your chapter 1. I have no idea where they even are setting wise - empty grasslands - its just words words words exposition then it ends and they get the memory. You should be able to explain the whole memory system less autistically and much more succinctly. Like be real simple and have them actually get to where they're going. I liked your 1st person perspective your 3rd person is dull and talky and I don't like it.

[Anonymous No.20083098]

>>20083087
Yeah, that was my general feeling on it too. I have the idea of how to do the chapter 1 thing, but my execution on explanation was clunky. I'm not sure how to refine it, but it probably requires me to relearn some things and properly define what I want to get across.

As for the 1st person thing, the 'thing' I want to do is have flashback chapters diegetically told from the hero's 1st person perspective, and the prologue is technically that too, as that's him explaining to the girls on their way out.

[Anonymous No.20083100]

>>20083087
Does ANYTHING work for you in chapter 1, on that note? It's something I'm not super happy with as-is, but I'm not sure if it's "rip it from the ground up and start over" or if it just needs some fairly choppy editing.

[Anonymous No.20083110]

>>20083098
>As for the 1st person thing, the 'thing' I want to do is have flashback chapters diegetically told from the hero's 1st person perspective
I would much rather have him fade out after he dies, send them on a quest type thing where later on they find some relic or something and then he starts talking again explaining what he's doing.

What I'd really like is for there to only be 1 girl that becomes the new MC who was in love with the hero and while she's going on his merry relic hunt she starts getting pissed off at him for making her do this and she starts second guessing what he did letting the evil king live and then she finds a new man at some point and this scavenger hunt she's on becomes a huge point of tension. And of course she finds out that letting the evil king live was a dumbfuck move.

[Anonymous No.20083116]

>>20083100
I don't like your 3rd person perspective. Its a lot of telling and like no showing.

[Anonymous No.20083117]

>>20083110
I can see that making sense as a story, but I'm kind of attached to the premise I have as-is, of effectively two main characters with a shared presence between them.

[Anonymous No.20083122]

>>20083116
Yeah, I think I did too much dialogue. I wanted to characterise the girls more, but I think I did that alright with just their narration at least in the prologue. I'll definitely go over chapter 1 again after, see if I can improve what's there or maybe just start fresh.

[Anonymous No.20083162]

>>20083117
>effectively two main characters with a shared presence between them.
The big problem I see with that is they'll effectively be two dogs (bitches, at that) on a leash. You'll have the voice in their head telling thejm what to do and they'll effectively be reduced to puppets. Other problems - they can't make mistakes, they'll always have someone around to correct them. They effectively has esp with each other so even if they're separated they're not. One gets kidnapped oh no we have to rescue her. Oh, its no problem at all.

[Anonymous No.20083178]

What if nobody likes my book?

[Anonymous No.20083228]

>>20083178
You can always write another. Here's one I'm working on.

[Anonymous No.20083236]

>>20083086
greatly greatly appreciated

[Anonymous No.20083241]

>>20083178
Who cares? Did you spend hours and days and weeks for some random nigger like me to dislike it did you write it because you wanted to?

[Anonymous No.20083257]

>>20083241
I wrote it to try and earn some Patreon bucks

[Anonymous No.20083361]

>>20082812
Nope, I literally just began posting it recently. I'm pre-writing and self-editing whole volumes before dumping chapters on RR for secondary feedback.

[Anonymous No.20083370]

>>20082746
Probably not unless you're woke about it. They have a pretty strict "no real world shit" policy.

[Anonymous No.20083402]

I'm writing pulp, not literature. I keep relying on plot twists, tragic events (of course I killed off the dog), trying to gross people out by describing masturbation or hemorrhoids or pathetic, impotent sex with a prostitute (that ends with the man crying) or coasting on by with action scenes and detailed, brutal violence (hacking people apart with an axe). I constantly withhold information from the reader to create an air of mystery when in truth I just didn't think things through properly and use intrigue as a crutch. And whenever things lull between these extreme things I add in jokes and references to other, better things.
This shit has nothing of value in it. How do I get from where I'm at to writing something of value? At the level I'm at, I might as well write scripts for superhero comics.

[Anonymous No.20083425]

>>20083402
This feels like a direct attack on my own work. Ultimately though I'm not a professional and not aiming to be one either. Its enough to write something i can read a year later and get absorbed by. >The secret is not to write about what you love best, but what you, alone, love at all

[Anonymous No.20083445]

You can't write like Sanderson. Admit it.

[Anonymous No.20083591]

>>20083445
Absolute Reddit

[Anonymous No.20083618]

>>20083370
so not even 'the worlds over and your trying to repeat such and such governmental bullshit policy'?

[Anonymous No.20083657]

Here's a little pick-me-up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H0Y4O8gc7Y

[Anonymous No.20083852]

>>20083445
It's good. Very good. No wonder why he has 14 million and I don't have a dime

[Anonymous No.20083936]

>>20082720
I'd pay money if someone wrote the /fit/ sticky for every other self-help topic, and jammed them all together in a book.

Finding any body-builder forum is like stumbling into an alternate universe where it's easy to lose weight and everyone does it all the time. If you could replicate that for personal finance, mental health, dating, being likeable, etc. you'd have something interesting.

[Anonymous No.20083994]

>>20083445
>what driven that point

Maybe he can use some of that 30 million to get a better editor now.

[Anonymous No.20084017]

>>20083994
That text has no editor at all since it's self-published through his kickstarter.
I wonder what the next step of this master plan is.

[Anonymous No.20084039]

>>20083852
>14 million
Uhmmm, it's 28 million okay sweaty?

>>20083402
If it brings someone joy it has value. There is nothing wrong with stretching yourself though. I guess I'll turn the question back around on you - what is stopping you from attempting more refined prose of meaningful plot?

[Anonymous No.20084055]

I got my 8th rejection today. Yippee. Only two more and I'll be in the double-digits!

[Anonymous No.20084083]

>>20084055
It can seem forever

[Anonymous No.20084088]

>>20084055
You’re never going to get trad published, nor should you want to.
Their deals are garbage.

[Anonymous No.20084098]

>>20084088
Sour grapes is not an argument

[Anonymous No.20084204]

>>20084088
You get mad clout from it though, and from there you get speaking arrangements which is what actually pays.

[Anonymous No.20084249]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH HOW DO YOU WRITE COMPELLING CHARACTERS FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

[Anonymous No.20084252]

>>20084204
If Gardner can get a speaking arrangement, any of us can.

[Anonymous No.20084270]

>>20084252
It's not a high bar but goddammit I can't reach it

[Anonymous No.20084286]

>>20084249
You simply write characters that breathe anon. And now I'll list a few other useless platitudes I ascribe to good characters that won't help you at all, and defend my position by saying just write more

[Anonymous No.20084295]

>>20084286
No thanks, I'll just go read until forbidden characterization knowledge seeps in by osmosis.

[Anonymous No.20084391]

>>20084286
>Not completing my heckin good satisfaction guaranteed character template for a deep, complex, gripping, personality that pops off the page while remaining grounded

[Anonymous No.20084422]

I hate having to write a PolSci thesis on a topic relating to China: I don't fucking know what their first or their surname is when they are writing articles on western pages. Like when she's called "Kinling Lo", what the fuck is her first name and what style is the western page using? Are they "respecting" her Chinese heritage and taking her surname first or are they staying consistent and use her first name first?

[Anonymous No.20084424]

>>20084391
I didn't know I could feel visceral hatred this early on a Friday.

[Anonymous No.20084659]

>Join writing discord
>Half the people read but don't write
>Other half write but don't read
>Every time

What the fuck

[Anonymous No.20084716]

>>20084424
Just join my mailing list to get a copy >:-)

>>20084659
>join writing discord
>it immediately dies
>I know you're reading this John

[Anonymous No.20084718]

>>20084659
>Half the people read but don't write
that's good. hopefully they give plenty of feedback

[Anonymous No.20084739]

>>20084659
>Join writing Discord
>post a funny screencap that has fag in it
>mod locks my posting and talks to me like a child in a chiding, passive aggressive tone for 30 minutes

[Anonymous No.20084769]

bump

[Anonymous No.20084787]

>>20083370
>>20083618
That's funny because I wasn't at all planning to go very specific against the specific issues/policies I'm against. More like, taking what I think is truly wrong about those and transplant it to a made up, setting-appropriate issue.

[Anonymous No.20084814]

>>20084718
If only

[Anonymous No.20084821]

>>20084769
There is no bump. There is the possibility of a new thread

[Anonymous No.20084829]

>>20083618
>>20084787
Those might be alright but they freak out if you start doing shit like using the names of actual politicians or talking about real world ideologies or religions. Except if they're woke, of course.

[Anonymous No.20084832]

>>20084769
You can't bump past the bump limit. It's not like the speed limit.

[Anonymous No.20084839]

>>20084821
>>20084832
Yeah, sorry, guys.
I came back and saw the thread at page 9 so I freaked out a little and didn't notice the post number.

[Anonymous No.20084841]

>>20074849
Writing feels much less satisfying than drawing or singing. Why did I have to be born with this stupid talent?

[Anonymous No.20084862]

>>20084829
Man, I wasn't expecting it to be so strict. I feel like having one of my characters be jewish and her best friend catholic to be a pretty important aspect of their friendship and personalities. No idea what to do about them if they'll get me fucking banned.

>spoiler
Holy shit. Why are they like this? At least make it a universal blanket ban.

[Anonymous No.20084881]

>>20084862
It's supposed to be a universal blanket ban but they still allow shit like LGBTQAIBBQ+ stories and plenty of other minor stories take potshots at the right wing. Just accept it and obfuscate like the old Russian sci-fi authors had to during communism.

[Anonymous No.20084892]

I'm going to bury my politics behind 200,000 words of setup and then make the bad guys white, because the kingdom is an ethnostate, everyone is white. It will be a bloodbath between libertarian monarchists and Russou acolytes of proto-communism

I'd like to see a RR mod have the brain power to figure out if that's violating their rules

[Anonymous No.20084910]

>>20084892

[Anonymous No.20084915]

I'm honestly just worried someone will think that the descriptions I use for some post-human horrors in my setting will be seen as allegories for "something" IRL. On the one hand, anyone who thinks that they are deliberately an allegory for a certain group of individuals is basically insulting that group by insinuating it, but on the other hand someone with a poor knowledge of genetic and hormonal disorders could easily think I was trying to take a swipe at somebody.
The best part is that technically they could be seen as an allegory to at least four or five different groups, when their actual inspiration was the appearance of LotR orcs.

[Anonymous No.20084986]

>>20084984