/wg/ Writing General

[Anonymous No.20370652]

Are you guys part of Booktok or bookstagram edition.

For General Writing
>The Rhetoric of Fiction, Booth
>Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, Burroway
>Steering the Craft, Le Guin
>The Anatomy of Story, Truby
>How Fiction Works, Wood

YouTube Playlists for Writing
>https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTCv6n1whoI23GmdBZienRW0Q0nFCU_ay Robert Butler
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6HOdHEeosc [Open] [Open] [Open] [Open] Brandon Sanderson

Technical Aspects of Writing
>Garner's Modern English Usage, Garner
>What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing, Ginna
>Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, Tufte

Books Analyzing Literature
>Poetics, Aristotle
>Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell
>The Art Of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives, Egri
>The Weekend Novelist, Ray

Traditional Publishing
>don’t
>you make 10-15% profit max
>self publishing you make 70%+
>they’ll still require you to do all the leg work of a self published author anyways

Self Publishing Options
>https://archiveofourown.org/
>https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/
>https://www.kobo.com/us/en/p/writinglife
>https://www.royalroad.com/
>https://www.scribblehub.com/
>https://www.wattpad.com/

Self Publishing How-To
>https://selfpublishingwithdale.com/

Poetry
>This Craft of Verse, Borges
>The Poetry Home Repair Manual, Kooser
>Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry, Mason

Anime Writing (^･o･^)
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4on26mKakgs [Open] [Open] [Open] [Open]
>https://www.wikihow.com/Create-an-Anime-Story

For advertising
>https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bQygKqJVFXg [Open] [Open]


/wg/ Authors and Flash Fiction Pastebin
>https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQ

[Anonymous No.20370661]

How come I can read nonfiction for hours but can't read fiction at all?

I want to start writing erotica but I don't think I have the chops

I enjoyed Harry Potter, hunger games, and the hobbit but I can't get into anything else

[Anonymous No.20370705]

Distraction blinds my mind
A barrage of addictive images and sounds
Laying waste to the hours of my life
Another funny video to watch
Another shitpost to read
Stealing my dreams from me
I wish I could pursue them
But I can't quite remember what they were

Is this any good?

[Anonymous No.20370738]

>>20370705
I never understood poetry
The lines never resonate with me
It always feels like a cheap ploy
Like the decision to fight for Helen of Troy

There's nothing spectacular or human about all these lines
Linking whimsical shallow words thinking it's all refine
Why not set your heart out to produce a piece much grander?
Therefore your words won't end up only read in the textbook of a high schooler

[Anonymous No.20370747]

EmilyAnon are you here?

I salute you for completing your book, but this was not ready for prime-time. You need to work on your prose, buddy. Still half-way through, so maybe it gets better. The premise/concept/characters are okay, but the prose itself stumbles and staggers too often.

[Anonymous No.20370754]

I gave emilyanon a few tips on his cover and font beforehand.
Haven’t read your book. I don’t plan on it either because it’s not my genre of interest.
If you want to know how to have more success on your next book outside of the genuine content which you’ll have to work on yourself, just ask.

[Anonymous No.20370759]

>>20370754
i'm not emilyanon but i would still like to know how to have more success

[Anonymous No.20370760]

>>20370652
damm...that girl fucks...like she's a bucking bronco...

[Anonymous No.20370783]

>>20370759
Any method of retaining previous readers or potential readers is huge.
Consider making your own website.
Email lists are massively important.

[Anonymous No.20370790]

>>20370783
so make a tik tok and twitter?

[Anonymous No.20370820]

Where can I get some feedback about my stories without people being too harsh?
I wrote a short story using it as the basis of my suicide note (i won't kill myself but it is quite personal). it feels really personal to me and i dunno if I can handle cruel criticism right now.

[Anonymous No.20370821]

>>20370790
No, where did I say that?

[Anonymous No.20370825]

>>20370738
Is this a critique on my poetry or poetry in general?

[Anonymous No.20370834]

>>20370820
Go to the gym for a year then come back with bigger balls to post your story.

[Anonymous No.20370836]

>>20370825
Both. Stanza one is how I feel about poetry, stanza two is for you.

[Anonymous No.20370838]

>>20370661
I think you might just be retarded

[Anonymous No.20370839]

>>20370834
I have been going to the gym for several years. I don't mind criticism in general but I don't think im in the right mindspace to get flamed right now.

[Anonymous No.20370852]

>>20370839
It's probably not advisable to post it then, because regardless of where you go there's always going to be someone that would love nothing more than to take a fat dump on the work of someone else

[Anonymous No.20370855]

>>20370747
Ouch. But thanks for giving it a shot anon.

[Anonymous No.20370866]

>>20370747
>You need to work on your prose, buddy. Still half-way through, so maybe it gets better.
It probably doesn't...
>The premise/concept/characters are okay, but the prose itself stumbles and staggers too often.
Thanks. What's most disheartening is me spending two months editing, reediting, read aloud, find friends to critic, etc and it's still not good enough. Too late now. Only thing is to try and do better next time.

Hopefully it's not the worst thing you ever read.

[Anonymous No.20370871]

>>20370866
Maybe I needed 5-8 months of editing. But the book was seriously turning into a giant blur.

[Anonymous No.20370875]

>>20370652
I’m tentatively approved for a literary grant and I have to finished a manuscript for August and it’s coming along but does anyone know how in life to find a good editor? Every editor I’ve hired and worked with is an idiot

[Anonymous No.20370877]

>>20370852
Yeah, maybe I'll share another short story in the future which it's less personal.

[Anonymous No.20370880]

>>20370877
When you're in a better place maybe you can post it then, best wishes

[Anonymous No.20370882]

>>20370855
You're welcome. Don't get discouraged, though. You need work, but you're not hopeless. Try to work on your flow and dialogue. Have someone read it out loud so you can hear how it sounds. You also repeat words a lot, try to look out for that.

[Anonymous No.20370888]

>>20370875
>hiring an editor?
Bruh, learn to edit yourself.
Do you hire a writer to write the book for you too? Editors are just writers you hire to rewrite 5-10% of your book.

[Anonymous No.20370900]

Is it actually worth it to post to WattPad, RoyalRoad, or ScribbleHub if I'm not writing a LitRPG, anime crap, or fan fiction?
I just looked at the "most popular" webnovels on each one, and they all pretty much looked the same.

[Anonymous No.20370901]

I am back psueds. I have traveled to the villages of Kerela, India to write in peace and quiet. Now there is nothing to disturb me, and just enough wifi to do research. My new idea I'm playing with is a fantasy romance between a some sort of morally grey dark knight figure and an angel that represents law and order.

[Anonymous No.20370916]

>>20370901
Are you an Indian? How is big ass Karela peaceful?

[Anonymous No.20370919]

>>20370901
Sounds like Dark Souls

[Anonymous No.20370930]

>They stood on solid ground, harder than stone. Yet, with each blow one rained on the other, the already ruined landscape quaked slightly. I watched them fight from afar, my old friend ready to be drawn. But as I looked closer, many things became apparent about the both of them
>One, the young one. Born into a world of conflict with no choice but to fight if he wanted to stay alive, or at least from what I knew of him. And as he fought and survived, he grew from something only slightly above a mere beast to a thinking being that truly had a life of his own, with friends, beliefs, and almost a family in a sense, to the point where I myself almost mourned when he seemingly passed from his injuries. No words ever left his mouth, yet the mere motion of his eyes, bright and brimming with emerald innocence and wonder always let me know there was a bountiful soul there.
>But that wasn't who I was looking at. I was looking at a revenant, a husk of his former self. His skin was darkened like he had been smeared with ashes. The tiny spikes that jutted from his elbows had grown into massive blades of bone that pointed forwards, nearly beyond his wrist. His muscles were twisted like a cloth that had been wrung into an unnatural shape. His skull had warped, grown beyond his skin, and encased part of his head like a facemask that was hard like steel.
>And yet, despite all these changes, the ones that caught me the most off-guard were his eyes and movement. There was no emotion behind them, just a hateful indifference to anything around them. And the way he moved was even more telling. He wasn't moving with that concerned, almost evasive fighting style he once had. He wasn't moving or swinging like a beast, but rather with a level of raw force and precision that I couldn't even imagine him capable of. It felt like, at any moment, he was going to break his arms with how hard he was hitting.
>The other, the larger one. He was elated, and that's all I could really see. Why was he almost smiling as he exchanged blows with this husk of the young one? Like this was almost his reason for living.
>My fingers, and indeed my body, were never made of flesh and blood, rather they were forged from iron, with an enchantment flowing through them. They had never disobeyed whatever order I gave, without a single outside force influencing them. But now, like the ground beneath me, they were shaking. Was it fear? Anger? Anticipation? I did not know.
>I almost felt like I was a gnat watching men fight. Insignificant, but present.
Whateva.

[Anonymous No.20370979]

>>20370888
Obviously I do edit myself but every author I’ve ever learned from also hired an editor and the ones I’ve already employed are trash, so I’m asking if there’s some secret method to finding a good one. I’m half considering finding an English professor at the uni and just paying him for his time

[Anonymous No.20371041]

>>20370979
What sort of editing are you looking for?

[Anonymous No.20371054]

>>20371041
...The normal kind? Are we going to split hairs on editing? That’s fine but I’ve hired self advertised professional editors, with varying rates, and each one flatly failed to provide suitable services. One misread a word, the other misunderstood the word length per the submission rules, and if one investigated the editors of authors past, they are usually former friends or classmates who share interests and similar vocations. Being in this current year of pocket screens literally no one I know actually reads books and or can produce appropriate editing per sentence structure, grammar, story structure, etc. I hired a former English and esl tutor once with a short history of publications at a reasonable rate and she didn’t even know the planets are named after Greek and Roman gods. Bewildering

[Anonymous No.20371071]

>>20370916
I'm an American with Indian parents. It's very peaceful and quiet if you get out of the cities and into backwater villages. It's rainy and tropical. Reminds you of a cool summer morning. Perfect writing atmosphere

[Anonymous No.20371074]

>>20371054
Not split hairs, but people sometimes specify different kinds of editing. Line editing, content editing, copyediting, etc. Why not post a sample of your stuff here?

[Anonymous No.20371133]

>>20371071
>india
>peaceful
What are you writing about?

[Anonymous No.20371294]

>>20371133
A fantasy romance. A morally grey Merc teams up with an angel who believes in justice and order to save the world. They have to learn to settle their differences. She realizes the side she serves isn't as noble as it seems and his belief in individuality and freedom has it's own flaws.

[Anonymous No.20371324]

How much your writing career is determined by success indicators in other areas? It seems like most successful novelists seem to come from prestigious educations and graduating at the top of their classes

[Anonymous No.20371343]

>>20371324
> It seems like most successful novelists seem to come from prestigious educations and graduating at the top of their classes
One of my favorite writers never even finished what passed for primary schooling in the 1930's as he was forced to work as a logger since his early teens, then spent 5 years in the army, then became a construction worker and barely managed to complete the needed training to become a foreman.
It's about how hard you work, not what grades you get in school.

[Anonymous No.20371350]

>>20371343
That does not change the fact that the vast majority of authors come from well off families, especially in the 1930s

[Anonymous No.20371365]

>>20371350
Could it be that this has something to do with the leisure time afforded by wealth?

[Anonymous No.20371401]

>>20371365
very likely, but going to prestigious schools means they will have read a good bit of literature as a matter of course and doing well in that schooling indicates they actually did read that literature and that they comprehended both its themes and manner of construction.

[Anonymous No.20371416]

>>20371401
So are you just making excuses for why you shouldn't even bother trying or what?

[Anonymous No.20371425]

>>20371324
Academics are cringe.
I don’t respect paper certificates.
I bet you got double jabbed and two booster shots faggot.

[Anonymous No.20371433]

>>20371401
>>20371425
When i say academics I'm not even limiting it to literature related majors. People like Clarke or Asimov were /sci majors who graduated at the top of their class at top unis. Michael Crichton graduated at the top of his harvard undergrad and entered harvard med etc.Pulitzer prize is made for columbia grads etc.

[Anonymous No.20371437]

>>20370839
You are in the wrong place

[Anonymous No.20371441]

>>20371433
Literally no one likes Academics. Not even themselves

[Anonymous No.20371448]

>>20371441
Naturally, every academic thinks he's in the very small cohort of academics who don't suck dick for beer money. They all do, though.

[Anonymous No.20371474]

It's a symptom of the continuing decline of western culture that writers, even on 4chan, concern themselves mostly with how best to follow the rules rather than exploring new ways to break them and push the boundaries. This is what's most distasteful to me about genreshit, honestly. Everything revolves around rules and convention. No single sentence of science fiction, fantasy, chick-lit, etc., can be penned except in strict reference to the rules of its applicable genre. These rules are mostly interchangeable. If we examine the metastructure of these rulesets, the fantasy writer is almost no different from the chick-lit writer save for the targeted demographic. Both take the same basic structure of an empty square and fill it in with different colors. It's all so tiresome, bros.

[Anonymous No.20371521]

>>20370652
Anyone have experience creating book covers? Need one for my fantasy novel but don't want to pay for one on fiverr when like 5 people will ever read my book

[Anonymous No.20371549]

>>20371521
What's your book about?

[Anonymous No.20371574]

Is there a format in writing machine unit model numbers?

[Anonymous No.20371600]

I wrote this one a year ago, just dug it up.

He misses his sleep deprivation, as what torments him may enrich his sensation by giving it purpose; a passive existence foregoes change, as he who is content idles in a tranquil equilibrium, sated to the verge of unrecognition. He has lost his identity---it has dissipated amongst a thick haze of satisfied responsibilities, romantic security, the unlikely suppression of internal conflict, solitude but not quite loneliness, companionship without the respite of belonging. He feels muted, dampened, smothered with a dirty pillow.

When I am alone is when I truly feel at ease. In the company of others I am like a ball atop a hill, waiting for the subtle, suggestive nudge of signs of tiredness, boredom, yet another mundane excuse that attempts, with utmost grace and upholding of formalities, to end the unpalatable longevity of an interaction that has overstayed its outcome, to send me into motion so that I may gently roll to a familiar state of intimacy with the self.

I really write about nothing, don’t I? I have the means to produce songlike words but I lack the faculties to write a song.

Late nights to early mornings are when I thrive. The consistent hum of digital information and social activity, blurs into the background and, eventually, scatters into the silence of the night, waiting for an unwelcome return following sunrise. These days it is unfathomable to be alone with your own thoughts.

“Pleasure has no inherent worth. To reduce our most intimate and idealistic pursuits to the acquisition of pleasure is not only blasphemic, on a moral plane, but morbidly debilitating to the fool who believes in such an equivalence. ”

“Why are you content?”

“Because I habitually complete the goals I assign to myself.”

“And why are these goals important to you?”

“They make me happy.”

“Your reasoning is appallingly circular.”

“You can live in circular things without ever needing to change your habits. Diogenes’ most successful years were spent in a circular pot. I complete my arbitrarily self-assigned responsibilities, and when I do, I am rewarded with contentment. I don’t require structure in my life to pursue any meaningful goals; the structure is its own end. There is no why hidden beneath the folds of the what.”

I haven’t exited my bed in days, perhaps years.

[Anonymous No.20371659]

>>20371549
Low fantasy crime drama about magical gangsters

[Anonymous No.20371698]

>>20371521
>Anyone have experience creating book covers?
Yes, I make my own covers. And no, I won't make you a free cover.

[Anonymous No.20371704]

>>20371698
do you draw? just curious

[Anonymous No.20371796]

>>20371704
I draw and do also 3D-modeling.

[Anonymous No.20372021]

>>20370661
You just don't have a taste for good fiction. The YA shit you've read is like the dinosaur tendies of literature that you eat with ketchup. If all you've ever eaten is dino tendies with skim milk, do you think you could just pick up a bottle of 25 year Ardbeg scotch and appreciate it? The further you get away from YA, the more particular the taste becomes. It becomes harder to appreciate. Sometimes you have to endure a little bit of hardship along the way.

[Anonymous No.20372080]

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/490811/peaceful-unadventure-life-on-an-alienconquered-earth/
Could you rate my new novels Title/summary? Is it any good?

[Anonymous No.20372117]

I was here a couple of threads back. Came back from criticism and such.

https://pastebin.com/N9wqNscQ

Feedback is welcome.

[Anonymous No.20372133]

>>20372080
It's not as witty as you think it is and doesn't say much anything. If your story isn't about x or y, then don't fucking mention them. It's not funny.

You describe the story as "slow", "peaceful", and "unadventurous", but when people get into a scifi-setting with Earth conquered by aliens, they kinda expect the exact opposite of that. The story sounds like a mess and you face a big challenge in getting readers to stay.

[Anonymous No.20372138]

>>20372133
well its mainly a comedy and that contrast is supposed to show in the title

[Anonymous No.20372171]

>>20372133
I thought he was setting the scene. How I read it, they ARE actually happening... but so far away and beyond the scope of the story that they're irrelevant to the characters the story deals with. I actually like it... if I'm gathering the correct impression. So much genre fiction is obsessed with the Biggest Baddest Big Bad Ever who Must Be Slain by the Slowly Power Creeping Protagonist. It's a good concept.

[Anonymous No.20372207]

>>20372117
I like the plot point, although I've personally been getting tired of aimless 1000+ch plots, there's an audience for that.

I do think you need to decide whether to stick with ruler or butler or their names its kinda confusing to read the dialogue and, maybe its just me, but the switch from the ruler to the butler was a confusing.

I am interested in the story although more could be done to hook the person in the beginning, maybe start with him saying he wants to rule the world first and then go on? I don't know.

[Anonymous No.20372238]

>>20372207
I see. Thank you for this, anon.

[Anonymous No.20372258]

>>20371521
Yes I do

[Anonymous No.20372277]

>passed 50k words
oh boy

[Anonymous No.20372282]

>>20372117
>It was an empty, quiet town right now, with only the usual salesman and women out, no one else.
Stopped reading right. So many layers of redundancy and unnecessary in this one line.

Skimming ahead now it looks like you have semicolon and comma issues as well.

[Anonymous No.20372335]

>>20372282
Yeah, I'll admit I kinda fucked up on that line. And the commas and semicolons, too.

[Anonymous No.20372340]

>>20370900
No

[Anonymous No.20372352]

>>20370900
it depends I mean what would be the disadvantage to posting?

If you're planning on writing to publish traditionally then no, but if you are writing to essentially figure out whats good then yea it would be worth it.
It helps tighten up your hooks and titles and, if you do it consistently (for a year or two), you might even get a following from your niche.

Most of those you see in the popular have been publishing for 2-3+ years or have just hit a very popular reading nerve. It isn't rare to see 100+ chapter with 10k views as opposed to 500k view popular novels. But 10k is still better then 0 for a novel you won't finish and will go in your "stopped writing" pile.

The only downside is that you might feel bad that you aren't getting enough attention and stop writing.

[Anonymous No.20372384]

>>20370652
Is it possible for a 22 year old SFF writer with only a high school education (who barely passed, mind you) to be successful?

[Anonymous No.20372386]

>>20372384
no, you should quit now

[Anonymous No.20372390]

>>20372386
:(

[Anonymous No.20372400]

>>20372390
silly question m8

[Anonymous No.20372421]

>>20372400
:(

[Anonymous No.20372451]

There was a nip in the air, so The Stud raised the collars of his coat. It wouldn't do to catch a cold, not when he had so many appointments. The day had barely begun, only mailmen and the very earliest of commuters were out and about. And The Stud, of course. His days started early. Some days he'd be out jogging in the wee hours to help keep in shape, God knows he had little enough time for that once The Sun was up.
If someone had asked him, The Stud would've called it ironic that most of his work was done in broad daylight. Still, he needed an early start. Each day was filled with bookings. He called them that, bookings. Most of the women knew he was the kind of bee who flew from flower to flower, but few could guess as to the true extent of his responsibilities.
Each day had a rigid schedule, planned weeks ahead, sometimes months ahead if the woman in question had trouble emptying the whole house. He took into account traffic, the weather and breaks for lunch, dinner and three or four bathroom breaks. Substracting all the time spent on maintenance of his body's needs, general grooming and the commute, t
The Stud spent roughly eight hours a day having sex with up to 16 women per day, mostly housewives.
It was hard work, and he had to be discreet. Suspicious husbands and nosy neighbors posed a threat of discovery. The closest he'd ever come to getting caught was when Mrs. Wilson's parrot had started repeating his first name, much to the confusion of Mr. Wilson, a shoe salesman who was unable to satisfy his wife due to an overemphasis on the lowest parts of her anatomy.
Fetishes and kinks were utterly outside The Stud's personal experience. Truth be told he was less a man of passion and more a man of discipline and craft, an artisan of what he called The Deed. He wasn't hung like a horse nor did he quote poetry at the bookings. All he did was The Deed, and he did it with precision, focus and a skill to be proud of.
While driving his car to the first booking of the day, he happened to pass by the man whose house he was headed to. It was too dark to see his face from behind the wheel, but a quick glance at the license plate told The Stud who he passed. He felt a sense of relief, to be passing the man already, to know with perfect certainty he was gone from the house.
The Stud could not know yet that the man, construction foreman Manuel "Manny" Riverside, had forgotten his gloves in the kitchen and would be returning for them shortly.
The Stud was also unaware of the dead body already in the trunk of his car, which had been borrowed by his cousin, who had needed it to visit Aunt Elvira in the countryside.
On the radio played a warning of an approaching stormfront, which had not been headed this way only yesterday.
The Stud pulled up to Casa de Riverside. There was a light in the kitchen window, as agreed. But another light shone from the second floor windows. Not a signal they had agreed on. He hesitated, but got out. Time to do The Deed.

[Anonymous No.20372457]

>>20372451
>404: description not found
Seriously, this is just a mess of dictated character traits and names and vague actions. Completely ungrounded in anything anyone could sink their teeth into. If it's a standalone piece or the beginning to a larger piece, describe something. Anything. It could be the arrangement of a flowerbed, the color of a car, the way a character picks his nose. But actually describe it. This is unreadable.

[Anonymous No.20372475]

>>20372457
I hate descriptions. I hate them. I don't give a fuck what someone is wearing. I don't give a fuck what color someone's fence is painted. I don't give a fuck how far apart someone's eyes are.
Description is filler. Useless, pointless filler. Description is how a coward with nothing to say pads out their story.

[Anonymous No.20372493]

>>20372451
>the commute, t
I'll just see myself out.

[Anonymous No.20372547]

>>20370652
My first novel is pretty shit, but that's okay because my second one will be better!

[Anonymous No.20372553]

>>20372547
What was your first novel?

[Anonymous No.20372557]

>>20372553
It's not released just yet fella, but I will post it here when finished

[Anonymous No.20372570]

>>20372547
I thought that way too but I'm 40k words into my second novel and it's not looking too good

[Anonymous No.20372575]

>>20372570
That's a shame. Did you consciously try from the outset to do things differently the second time round?

[Anonymous No.20372586]

>>20372575
Yes.
>go from 1st person to 3rd person limited
>multiple POVs instead of one
>characters are all older and dealing with vastly different problems in their lives
>smaller, more focused cast of characters so more focus can be given to all of them
>fiction instead of autofiction
Those are just some fundamental differences.

[Anonymous No.20372594]

>>20371416
>>20371425
>>20371441
>>20372386
seethe

[Anonymous No.20372607]

>>20371401
Or it just means they made the "contacts" they needed, at school, that'll help them get published.

[Anonymous No.20372611]

>>20371474
The problem is, if you go too far outside of "expectations", people won't read your work.

[Anonymous No.20372613]

I want to write in second person. That will be the greatest litrpg experience

[Anonymous No.20372615]

>>20371521
Just pick a public-domain image that manages to evokes the feeling of your book. That's what I did for my first novel.
The cover of my second novel was a photo I took, but I had a very specific idea for what I wanted.

[Anonymous No.20372619]

>>20372586
I swapped from 1st to 3rd person a few months back, so I know how strange it can feel and how much it can shit up your prose. What I'd reccommend is that you look into Indirect Free Discourse / Speech, its like a mix of first and third person in regards to how handling character emotions/thoughts works. Pseuds might rag on it for being slightly more 'show' then 'tell' but I would highly suggest you look into it, it helped me a ton and I've never had more fun writing since I figured it out.

>>20371401
I don't understand why people seethe at academics so much. Why do peoples' jimmies get so rustled by peeps that've gone through higher education? Is it an American thing?

[Anonymous No.20372622]

>>20371600
purple
And if the narrator hasn't exited his bed in days, perhaps years, how does he shit?

[Anonymous No.20372624]

>>20372475
>Description is filler. Useless, pointless filler.
without description, you deprive your reader of an entire sense, maybe more. what could be an image that lives and breathes in a reader's mind becomes just a pile of words enumerating thoughts, actions, and feelings. maybe anime is more your style.

[Anonymous No.20372628]

>>20372619
It's very much an American thing. Fancy East Coast edumacations don't mean nuthin' when I's got my bible that I don't read 'cuz I knows what it sez 'cuz preacher tol' me so

[Anonymous No.20372635]

>>20372624
I know I personally get really annoyed when the protagonist is barely at all described which seems to be a common trend these days.

[Anonymous No.20372637]

>>20372352
Worth it, as in, will it even get noticed.
The novel is already written; I'm just trying to find places to publicize it.
I intend to serialize it for free, and hope people who like it decide to buy a copy on Amazon.

[Anonymous No.20372638]

is this good dialogue

[Anonymous No.20372665]

>>20372638
>said slowly
Adverbs! HAAAAARK! Adverb alert!

[Anonymous No.20372673]

As he got close to the entrance of a tunnel, Arki felt something crawly on his right shoulder. He knew that this could only mean one thing and tried to remain as calm as possible. His muscles got loose, his breath got slower and he closed his eyes, as any panicking misstep could prove to be his last. The crawling got slower and slower until it finally stopped. Arki opened his eyes and felt every single hair on his body stand up. What beheld him was a giant hairy black scorpion, which were known as ‘swamp rats” by the Elyrians.

The scorpion lifted its tail and started swinging it slowly in a hypnotizing motion. One sting and his legs would go from numb to completely paralyzed, all in a matter of seconds. As he unsheathed his rapier with his other hand, Arki took a better look at the beast without moving his head. Almost as big as his forearm, this one was bigger than the average. "Must have crawled out of this crevice in the wall in search of food. Fuck, I ran into a mother," Arki thought. "I’ll need to do this quick, or else I’ll join a watery grave."

Arki clumsily moved the rapier’s point towards the scorpion, hoping to grab its attention. Sensing the movement, its tail stopped swinging, giving place to deafening stillness. In an instant, its pincers firmly grabbed onto the sword and Arki swung it with all the strength that he could muster. The swamp rat slipped off the sword and was swallowed by the fog. Upon hearing a splash, Arki knew that although it wouldn’t have died, it’d be someone else’s problem now.

[Anonymous No.20372674]

>>20372673
>crawly

[Anonymous No.20372677]

>>20372674
what the fuck, I swear I had changed it, I literally doubled checked to make sure

brb kms

[Anonymous No.20372684]

>>20372638
Yes, but you repeat "said" and the characters' names too much. Try to describe what they're doing/the expressions they're making/the voice tones/and so on instead of just "x said, y said."

"I suppose," Dockson REPLIED.

[Anonymous No.20372694]

>read a novel
>really want to write a novel like it
>I can only think of copying the novel I read
help

[Anonymous No.20372695]

>>20372684
no. do not do this. do not play the said-synonym game. if you feel like you're writing "said" too much, omit the dialogue tags entirely. do NOT fall into that infantile insecurity of finding synonyms to shore up shoddy writing. if you are writing correctly, in a dialogue between two people, you should only need to write out a tag a couple times.

[Anonymous No.20372698]

>>20372684
That's Brandon Sanderson, not this guy. It's a pretty inexcusably meh bit of dialogue but it's from one of his first published books.

[Anonymous No.20372704]

>>20372637
hard to say, sometimes things just blow up, sometimes you get 3 views. You shouldn't be pushing your hopes on one novel, you should be thinking constantly of what to publish and what would be a good idea.
I don't know if your specific Idea will blow up. Even if you told me in detail what it was I wouldn't know. You can only publish and see.
If you look at the most popular novels you see that they are all the same fantasy novels but then you dig down and you see a contemporary novel about love at 300k views, and maybe it isn't 5 million, but its still 300k.

[Anonymous No.20372711]

>>20372613
I want to write a second person perspective story where 40k words in I write about the reader getting cucked in the worst ways possible. At this point it will turn into a CYOA where both options lead to the reader getting cucked even worse.

[Anonymous No.20372712]

>>20372695
No need for said-synonym, that's not what I was saying.
>if you are writing correctly, in a dialogue between two people, you should only need to write out a tag a couple times.
This is true. But
>>20372684
>describing what they're doing
>the expressions they're making
>the voice tones
>and so on
is correct as well and will not only make the piece better to read, it will also not break immersion.
the said-synonym game is bad, but the
name-said (20x) game is much worse.

>>20372698
Ah, so there was no need to be polite then.

[Anonymous No.20372739]

>>20372711
Please explore this madness further.

[Anonymous No.20372754]

>>20372712
That said, using 'said' often isn't bad, especially in conversations with 3 or more participants. It's practically invisible to readers unless you're doing it every line.

[Anonymous No.20372811]

>>20372665
A whopping one adverb in the whole entry, calm your tits.

[Anonymous No.20372821]

- How to come up with a interesting title that is also related to the story and not something overly autistic?
- Also, what are the best titles you have seen? Titles that made you interested as soon as you read it

[Anonymous No.20372838]

>>20372821
Try to avoid anything too generic-sounding. Verb of Noun or Noun of Noun titles are all over the place. Established authors can get away with those because they're selling on their name, not the book's name. It should be something that's relatively short but also fairly memorable. I can't remember a title that immediately 'gripped' me, admittedly, but I'm somebody who tends to at least look at the synopsis before judging it.

[Anonymous No.20372863]

I have serve schizoaffective disorder (My therapist rated it a 8 or a 9 out of ten)

While I can write my psychosis and depression just fine its hard writing my mania. I don't want to protray my mental illness in a bad light and its very hard to not paint someone who has mania in a bad light either by hurting them selfs or others

How do i write my mania? Should I just say fuck it and let them be a bad person?

I need help.

[Anonymous No.20372865]

>>20372838
Yeah, I'm trying to come up with something weird, but not too autistic. Something that sticks and is interesting right away.

Right now I'm thinking of something along the lines of "Every Farewell", but I think it's not that interesting. Thoughts?

All Tomorrows for example stuck with me and is interesting. As soon as I read that title I started theorizing about what was going to happen in the story.
Now, The Eternal Champion for me is an interesting title, but it's forgettable as hell, I need to keep checking my list to remember it.

[Anonymous No.20372894]

omg bros
we got 1 royalroad follower after 15 chapters

[Anonymous No.20372900]

>>20372894
hell yeah!

[Anonymous No.20372904]

>>20372900
we are so close to making our dreams come true bro!

[Anonymous No.20372906]

>>20372865
I mean, I can't judge these titles without knowing what your story is. On the surface, "Every Farewell" sounds like a sombre but overall hopeful story about moving on when you lose people you care for.

[Anonymous No.20372912]

>>20372894
Genuine question here chap… do you think this is worth it after 15 chapters and only getting ONE follower?
Clearly something in your approach or material is horribly wrong.
Reevaluate.

[Anonymous No.20372920]

>>20372912
how many did you get after 15?

[Anonymous No.20372935]

>>20372138
>well its mainly a comedy
Yes, I can tell you're trying to be funny, which is why I'm telling you now, it's not funny. Who do you think reads descriptions like "this isn't the kind of blast you think, but slow and unadventurous" and thinks "oh boy, this is going to crack ribs"?

You wanted opinions on the synopsis and I've given mine, do what you will with it.

[Anonymous No.20372945]

>>20372906
>sounds like a sombre but overall hopeful story about moving on when you lose people you care for.
Aside from "sombre" it was spot on, but do you think it sticks? Do you want to know more just from that?

[Anonymous No.20372951]

>>20372945
I think it needs something before "Every", personally. After, Behind, With, I dunno, something. But that's just me who likes more contextualised titles.

[Anonymous No.20372965]

>>20372935
I don't know man, my reads to views ratio has been a solid ~10%
People seem to enjoy it

[Anonymous No.20372985]

>>20372951
Hmm, all of those suggestions fit and are not bad...
> After Every Farewell
> Behind Every Farewell
> With Every Farewell
It does sound better. Shit, thank you anon

[Anonymous No.20372986]

>>20372985
Those are good titles, I agree

[Anonymous No.20372995]

>>20372965
It's magical how the shit people post always suddenly turns great and popular when you criticize them and no opinions were needed after all! Keep it up then!

[Anonymous No.20372996]

>>20372985
Juggle them around, see what works best for the story. Is it just about somebody who loses a lot of people they love because circumstances, or is it more focused, like somebody working in a hospital watching people go, etc?

[Anonymous No.20373007]

so how long do you try to keep your story arcs? I'm thinking of making one 30+ chapters long

[Anonymous No.20373027]

>>20372920
not that anon but at 17 chapters I had 18 followers. I remember because I gained 3 followers that chapter and lost 1 who gave me my only 0.5 star review while he was slamming the door shut on his way out.

[Anonymous No.20373029]

>>20372996
It's nothing unique desu, it's about a warrior who learns to live without people he cared about who died in battle and stuff like that, just with my own twists. I guess "After" and "With" fit better in this case since it's all about his struggles after that event

[Anonymous No.20373034]

>>20372985
After Every Farewell sounds the best imo. Rolls off the tongue.

[Anonymous No.20373040]

>>20373027
what was the genre? Did you hit a plateau?
I do admit that my writing and plotting could do more work, but its my first work *shrug*
I'll keep at it for around 3 more weeks then publish something else

[Anonymous No.20373056]

>>20373034
Agreed, thank you anon

[Anonymous No.20373073]

>>20373029
Ah, After probably makes sense if it's about his struggles to move on, etc. Like, if I were to make a story based on those titles, After would be somebody moving on and trying to enjoy life after losing their loved ones, Behind would be examining the aftereffects of various different deaths on various different people and With would be somebody who constantly experiences the deaths of those they care for (probably some immortal protagonist for extra suffering).

[Anonymous No.20373148]

>>20373040
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40361/erased

No, it's largely been slow but steady growth, with occasional couple week plateaus, with new readers coming in and others dropping. I swear I have 1 guy who unfollows me within a couple hours of posting a new chapter and then he refollows a couple days before the next one posts just so he can drop me again. This most recent chapter I lost 2, him included, because I killed 3 of my characters in a pretty unfair way and I smacked my mc emotionally very hard. They're not permanently dead, but because of what happened the course of the story and their character development will change as a result. I recommend drafting as much as you can before you start posting. Posting makes everything feel like work because it forces me to be on a schedule and I have to post as a result.

That said what I look at is the number of people reading my new chapter. It's been between 65-75 people every week for the last several months, with more filling in the ones behind as they let chapters build up before reading them. I can see where my plot beats pissed people off based on readers for each chapter, its kinda funny. I view that as a better metric than pure views because you can tell when a bot reads all your chapters and gives you a bunch of phantom views.

[Anonymous No.20373181]

How do you cope with the fact that no matter how hard you work, hie much editing you do, how many months and money you spend, your work of fiction will subjectively be inferior to this?

[Anonymous No.20373194]

>>20373007
As long as necessary. Some character arcs can start and finish in a single chapter. I've got one about a religious change of heart that takes a little under 30k words.

[Anonymous No.20373214]

>>20373148
I get more or less the same thing, just smaller, my writing is also completely out of the current trend (ie no fantasy, litrpg, or puns) for royalroad so I don't really expect a huge showing up (its also not good lol)
I also can only go by views because I'm waiting before I buy the author premium.
I find that my writing depends how much work I have to do? I work best in pressured environments.
Good luck to your endeavors, it seems like you are chugging along and 50+ chapters is impressive even if you only get 3 views per chapter

[Anonymous No.20373297]

>>20373181
I write for me, I don't give a shit

[Anonymous No.20373327]

>>20372704
Well, I've got 2 novels so far...the newest one was just self-published on Amazon.
I guess I'll just serialize it on all three webnovel sites.
Guess I have a lot of TOSes to read today.

[Anonymous No.20373402]

>>20373327
Link and I’ll tell you my first impressions as a fresh viewer.

[Anonymous No.20373450]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DRlv01MC7xhMr06IDZ-Y1BBDQkuc7cdsb34GJe5JFwU/edit?usp=sharing

Hell-Anon reporting for duty. I have some ideas for creating conflict/drama/stakes, but I am worried that what I want to do might be overly ambitious in terms of scope and scale. I've spent the first leg of the story establishing the main character as someone who was sort of hanging on by a thread in his human life on Earth before the "offer" he is given in Hell is presented to him. Now I've built the character up as someone who is career-oriented, handsomely paid for their talents, and overall just really loves their new life. The cruelty of the situation I'm about to throw them in is what's meant to kick off the whole story, but I just don't want it to seem too cheesy.

[Anonymous No.20373481]

>>20372622
It's not literal my guy.

As a fan of flowery prose I wish I could execute it well. Am I gapped by not being well-read enough?

[Anonymous No.20373526]

>>20373481
I couldn't say...I'm not really a fan of such flowery prose.
But if that was the effect you were going for...mission accomplished!
But could you keep that up for the 60k+ words it'd take to call it a novel?

[Anonymous No.20373537]

why is it so fucking hard to write more than 2000 words a day bros? I just want to spend a whole weekend morning writing but after the 2k word mark it just becomes so hard.
Even if I write in full screen mode without the word count there I can't go much beyond that number.

[Anonymous No.20373545]

>>20373148
sucks

[Anonymous No.20373546]

>>20373537
Also, for the anons who can write more than that a day, how do you do it? Caffeine? Nicotine? Cocaine?

[Anonymous No.20373566]

>>20370930
sucks

[Anonymous No.20373567]

>>20373402
ScribbleHub says it takes up to 12 hours to approve publication. Yeesh.

[Anonymous No.20373576]

>>20373546
Motivation and planning.
I wrote 65k words toward my most recent novel in two weeks.
Also, my day job was taking a break from crushing my spirit.

[Anonymous No.20373597]

Making my way downtown; walking in the middle of the street. A car pulls up behind me; I pretend not to hear. They honk their horn; I continue. An elderly man gets out of the car and asks me to move, cursing as he does. I am unfazed by this. I stare at him intently with a look of confusion accompanying my face. Unsure of what to make of the situation and genuinely confused, the elderly man gets back into his car and slowly tails behind me. Pussy.

Another car pulls up, this time in front of me. The driver is a middle aged man, presumably in his late 30s. In an almost comedic fashion the man repeats the same actions as the one before him, mimicking his predecessor almost word for word, only now my look of confusion and lack of care infuriates the man. He threatens violence; I stare. He curses and yells; I stare. He gets closer in order to move me out of the way of oncoming traffic; I stare. I do this in response to all of his incoherent babble, until he eventually makes the life-costing mistake of laying a finger on me. This he does. And this he pays for. Within 10 seconds he’s laying on the floor bleeding out, multiple puncture wounds now allowing for my piss to meet the insides of his abdomen. I stare for a few seconds.

I continue on my journey, more determined now than ever.

The others -now there is a crowd of substantial size- both fear, and despise me. I keep walking. Many more men lose their lives as a result of their interrupting of my journey down the road. It’s all the same to me. I am an immovable object. A gigantic and heavy boulder in the middle of a light stream, completely indifferent to all that is happening around me. I am a man above time, against time, and in time. I am the reason you’re late to work.


rate this shit i thought up the other day whilst walking home from work bros

[Anonymous No.20373635]

>>20373567
Why are you publishing on ScribbleHub instead of Amazon?

[Anonymous No.20373648]

>>20373597
Feels as though it was written by a monotone alien.

[Anonymous No.20373660]

>"HAHAHA!" gloated Satan, holding within his clawed hand the pulsating sphere of raw energy. "Now that the power of the N-word is mine, I can DESTROY the UNIVERSE!"
>"No! We will not let you do this!" shouted Zoe Melanie Natasha, "Our combined powers of queer friendship will stop you!" He posed his trademark pose. The demon sneered. "FAGGOT!" He thundered, pointing his free finger at him. The young man disintegrated under the devastating power of the slur, and his sizzling skull skidded toward Basedaman, its jaw gaping as if a new Nintendo Switch had just arrived at the door. "Brad! No! I loved you!" Clutching his balding head, Basedaman fell on his kneepads. Satan was just about to think of something hurtful enough to end his miserable life with, when he was interrupted by a loud, pasty "YO!" And when Satan turned, he saw Jamal LeTyrone Mboyango staring at him. Basedaman looked up at his comrade. "Jamal! Brad is dead. I lost both her as my boyfriend, and you as my bull! Forgive me!" Satan was disgusted. "Jesus Christ. This is too much. I have no other choice but to use it now." And he looked at Jamal, and he saw he was really really black. He then looked down at the glowing sphere of N-power in his hand, and then back at Jamal, and his grin widened. "No!" said Basedaman, "He's going to say it! He's going to say the N-word!"
>Satan took a deep breath in, his nostrils flaring, "YOU FUCKING N-"

[Anonymous No.20373662]

>>20373635
I published on Amazon too.
WattPad, RoyalRoad, ScribbleHub, etc. are my attempts at publicity...seeing as how I'm not a meerkat.

[Anonymous No.20373683]

>>20373327
Good luck! Usually the most views come from being in the new release section so it's always a nice ego boost to get you addicted

[Anonymous No.20373746]

>>20373662
Wait, WHY would you go wide?
It prevents you from getting more than 35% royalties.
It also prevents you from using KDP select which would make you more visible.
Literally why are you self sabotaging?

[Anonymous No.20373755]

>>20373683
WattPad published it immediately; ScribbleHub says 12 hours, RoyalRoad says 48 hours.
Since it's already written, I was just going to post a chapter per day. Hopefully that works with how they determine "visibility" or whatever.

[Anonymous No.20373767]

>>20373746
I signed up for 35% royalties and KDP Select.
And why is this self-sabotage? No one's gonna buy a paperback if they don't know the book even exists.
Being a completely unknown writer gives me a certain flexibility.

[Anonymous No.20373817]

>>20373767
>I signed up for 35% royalties and KDP Select.
Then you cannot publish elsewhere.
>When you choose to enroll your book in KDP Select, you're committing to make the digital format of that book available exclusively through KDP. During the period of exclusivity, you cannot distribute your book digitally anywhere else, including on your website, blogs, etc. However, you can continue to distribute your book in physical format, or in any format other than digital. See the KDP Select Terms and Conditions for more information.

[Anonymous No.20373826]

>>20373817
Yeah, everywhere is relative.
Amazon has over 50% of the us book market and over 75% of the us ebook market.
English is by far the largest book market with Spanish German Chinese following miles behind IIRC.

[Anonymous No.20373832]

>>20373826
You misunderstand.
>WattPad, RoyalRoad, ScribbleHub, etc. are my attempts at publicity
You are not allowed to publish your novel to those places and do KDP select. If you're publishing something else to generate traffic to your name you can do that but you cannot publish your novel there.

[Anonymous No.20373835]

>>20373832
>WattPad, RoyalRoad, ScribbleHub, etc. are my attempts at publicity
Dog
No one is going to go this complex route to find your 3 sale amazon book.
I'm being really nice about this and trying to help you.
Go exclusive or continue in obscurity.

[Anonymous No.20373841]

>>20373835
I'm trying to help the idiot understand that by putting his shit up on those places while also trying KDP he is risking getting blackballed by amazon, which would be a death sentence as an author. Like you said,
>Amazon has over 50% of the us book market and over 75% of the us ebook market

Hey retard, don't put your novel on scribblehub rr or wherever if you're already doing Amazon.

[Anonymous No.20373842]

>>20373832
Also I do understand you can’t do both kdp select for the higher 70% royalty and go wide. It’s why I said something.
The only reason I could think of NOT using Amazon is if I was a German writer publishing to Kobo, where they control something like 70%+ of german ebooks, the third largest language market in the world.

[Anonymous No.20373847]

>>20373841
>I'm trying to help the idiot understand that by putting his shit up on those places while also trying KDP he is risking getting blackballed by amazon, which would be a death sentence as an author. Like you said,
What you don’t understand is I know this and I’m saying STOP PUBLISHING ON OBSCURE WEBSITES and go E X C LU S I V E

[Anonymous No.20373850]

last night i dreamt the end so sorrow
and as i wake i fear tomorrow
i saw the one who will bring me my life
alone in a room with only a knife
i try to speak but my voice doesnt work
so i walk
and she gets further away
so i run
darkness sets in and nothing can be seen
and as i stop running i hear her scream
the screaming wont stop it echos inside
had i not stopped running would she have survived?

[Anonymous No.20373863]

>>20373817
Oh well, too late.
I don't care if they remove me from KDP Select; I got exactly 0 page-reads on my previous novel through it.
>>20373835
>>20373841
>>20373842
>>20373847
Going exclusive did jack squat for my previous novel.
I figure I continue in obscurity either way.

[Anonymous No.20373877]

>(blank) sat down and slopped a large bottle of pulpy brown liquid into the drinking horn, raised it up to his chin and chugged it. He did his best to ignore the flavor of burning rot about it, like an overripe orange. Finally, the horn was empty, save for a few bits of thick pulp at the bottom of it. He turned the horn upside down, shook it, dropped it on the ground, and passed out.

[Anonymous No.20373885]

>>20373863
>Going exclusive did jack squat for my previous novel. I figure I continue in obscurity either way.
Ever cross your mind it wasn’t exclusivity that was the issue but maybe 1 of the other dozens of factors?
Like for instance, have you bothered trying to retain any of the previous readers and bringing them to your second book?
No?
Because you don’t have any way to contact them. No following, no email list, nothing.
That’s a huge issue dude.

[Anonymous No.20373893]

>>20373885
Meerkat detected.
As it turns out, I posted my first novel electronically too.
Amazon didn't detect that.
No one detected that.
Getting blackballed by Amazon assumes anyone in the world is going to notice my book.
The probability of that is near zero.
Getting blackballed would almost be a compliment.

[Anonymous No.20373894]

>>20373885
>>20373863
Again, I hope you’re taking this positively, as in, you could be doing better and here’s what you’re doing wrong.
I don’t know ant you to think I’m dogging you for the sake of dogging you. These are genuinely common but very powerful mistakes you’re committing to.

[Anonymous No.20373900]

>>20373893
Nevermind. Loser mindset. Continue what you’re doing, it seems to be going fantastic.

[Anonymous No.20373918]

>>20373894
So you recommend I be some sort of social gadfly?
If I could do that, would I be on 4chan?
>>20373900
kys

[Anonymous No.20373919]

>>20373877
>Hargreaves waddled over to (blank) and laughed heartily, his bulbous, hairy stomach going up and down with each laugh.
>"Rotwine, m'boy! Damn near kills the intestines!"
>Hargreave waddled up to (blank), kicked him in the head.
>"How're ye holdin' up, lad?"
>No answer.
>"...Lad?"

[Anonymous No.20373922]

>>20373877
I liked it anon. It felt uncomfortable to think of the drink.

[Anonymous No.20373924]

>>20373918
>So you recommend I be some sort of social gadfly?
I’d recommend you stop being a whiny bitch and actually examine your lack of critical thinking.

[Anonymous No.20373934]

>>20373924
Not him but you sound fucking obnoxious. I iimagine you're one of the couple self-published resident autists who haunt this sewer pretending they've made it, or one of the smut peddlers which is always funny.

[Anonymous No.20373941]

>>20373924
Oh rly?
Please explain what I could actually do to publicize my novels, given that there is so much content out there.
Does your method involve spending lots of money on advertising? Anyone with half a brain runs ad-blocking software in their browser.
Does it involve some sort of mailing list, or other socialy-competent activities? Not feasible for an autist.
Besides, I'm pretty sure all my buyers (few as they are) are people I'm personally acquainted with. So I already did what you mentioned.
Got anything else? Any actual feasible ideas? Or are you just here to bash on some anonymous chump?

[Anonymous No.20373953]

>>20373934
It's real simple.
Being a full time author means making this your business.
In what business would I make successful living not knowing my intended customer, making a good product, and advertising it in the right places? Nowhere.
I wouldn't open up even an ice cream stand without first thinking of where and who.
I bet you'd open up an ice cream shop in Antarctica and hope "Gee I hope someone picks my product."
Meanwhile I understand I need a good book first and THEN I need to be in a good visible place for customers to know I even exist.
What I'm saying isn't controversial, and you won't be able to disagree with me.
You'll just call me names and generally, be a whiny faggot.
This is descriptive of your nature, not a mere insult.

[Anonymous No.20373964]

>>20373953
Have you actually published anything? Do you have a book?

[Anonymous No.20373966]

>>20373953
are you that shitkickers guy

[Anonymous No.20373972]

>>20373964
Butt
>>20373966
Hurt
Doing exactly as I said you would.

[Anonymous No.20373980]

>>20373953
I'm not a full time author; I have a day job.
I'd like to be a full-time author, but that's out of my hands.
Knowing my intended customer, as far as I know, means isekai, teen lit, and/or self-insert fan fiction. No thanks.
I just try to write good books.
I also realize the chance of succeeding with a good book, but one that doesn't conform to isekai/teen-lit/fanfic/whatever, is near zero.
While signing up for WattPad/ScribbleHub/RoyalRoad, I found out that "harem" is a genre. Not even gonna look that up.
I also pointed out that advertising is stupid, in a world where anyone with half a brain runs ad-blocking software in their browser.

[Anonymous No.20373981]

>>20373972
oh lol you're that faggot
please leave ffs you're pathetic

[Anonymous No.20373984]

>>20373972
seethe
Didn't even need to expect that.

[Anonymous No.20373991]

>>20373847
I don't think you can really call Royal Road obscure at this point. Not that anon, but if I'm a first-time fantasy author with absolutely 0 online presence, wouldn't it be better for me to post on RR and Scribblehub so that I can get chapter by chapter feedback and build a reader base? I've heard the former is especially good for discoverability. Then, when I've improved and gotten some eyes on my work, I'd shill the second book out on KDP. Wouldn't that work?

[Anonymous No.20373994]

>>20373980
Not any of those anons, but what are you trying to write exactly?

[Anonymous No.20373998]

>>20373994
Something I like...something I would want to read.

[Anonymous No.20373999]

>>20373991
A lot of people go that route, though they instead finish or nearly finish their thing on RR and publish it in pieces on KDP depending on length. It's not AMAZING for discoverability, but RR does at least get some eyes on almost any new thing, and chances are people who're looking at newer stories are the kind who leave reviews and the like, but you do have to just get a lucky break to get anywhere good.

[Anonymous No.20374001]

>>20373998
Like?

[Anonymous No.20374003]

>>20373991
>wouldn't it be better for me to post on RR and Scribblehub so that I can get chapter by chapter feedback and build a reader base?
Great question, the answer is it could work.
The problem is you can’t simultaneously publish the work there for free and try to sell it on amazon exclusively.
The best bet would be to publish there with story 1 and try to sell story 2 on amazon if you really wanted to use RR.
I for instance use booktok but that’s a completely different discussion.

[Anonymous No.20374006]

>>20374003
Some of the bigger RR stories have basically all of the parts that're on Amazon removed from RR, but still everything after is there.

[Anonymous No.20374008]

Why is everyone talking about money ITT... Can you review my post where Satan learns the N-word? It's part of a seven-book trilogy I'm calling the N-Saga.

[Anonymous No.20374015]

>>20374008
You're allowed to say nigger here bud

[Anonymous No.20374021]

>>20374015
I know, it's the literature board after all

[Anonymous No.20374022]

>>20373966
Jason went back to selling porn. This guy is a local meerkat who gives marketing a bad name. He doesn't care about raising the standard of works posted or helping people find audiences. He just wants to brag about how smart he is and have people ask him for his advice.

[Anonymous No.20374026]

Would kickstarter be a good place to get money for a proper editor and cover artist? Would my credibility be ruined if I had like, 10 kickstarter over the course of several years and used creator donation services to pay rent? Is there a decent amount of money in formatting books using indesign? What about copywriting blurbs or beta reading?

[Anonymous No.20374029]

>>20374022
Faggot who won’t refute the point.
Just keep walking straight into what I said you’d do.
Dance monkey dance! I own you monkey boy!

[Anonymous No.20374032]

>>20374001
Not sure what your question is.
Genre? Irrelevant.
Subject? Irrelevant.
The only real criteria for my novels is a subject on which I think I can write 60k+ words.
Everything else is fungible.
But it's not isekai/teen-lit/fanfic/sad-wine-aunt/whatever stuff, and so the chance of "making it" is near zero.
I've merely accepted that, and have lowered my sights to just trying to get read.
I expect I'll miss that target, too.
I don't see any feasible alternative.

[Anonymous No.20374038]

>>20374032
I'm just gonna ignore you for however long this thread stays up.

[Anonymous No.20374110]

wow this place is negative asf
take a chill pill bros

[Anonymous No.20374112]

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54100/wish-mountain-adventure-drama-fantasy-tragedy

[Anonymous No.20374125]

>>20372117
You're mixing past and present tense, watch out for that.
Saying "the ruler" and "the butler" all the time doesn't really work. Replace most instances by "he" or "him", or maybe the ruler's name. As a baseline I think you want one go-to unique handle for a character with pronouns used whenever not confusing.
Not wanting to call himself the king is a nice touch, but "ruler" feels lackluster as a title. I'm not sure what would be a good replacement.
Trim your sentences. After you've written them see which words you can remove. For example:
>Slowly, his worrying thoughts of the town and such were dwindling by the seconds, and the remaining were about to be diminished by a warm cup of tea.
>His worries dwindled by the second, and would be put to rest by a warm cup of tea.
"Slowly" is implied by dwindling.
"Worrying thoughts" etcetera can be summed up as "worries", the reader already knows what about.
In "the remaining were about to be diminished", " were about to be" can become "would be" without the reader losing information, and "the remaining" can be omitted if you play it right.
Then the next sentence:
>As the master walked over to his servant, he could notice the body language and face he was making; the shaking and his face inching farther from him said it all to the ruler. And he almost completely loved it.
I would try to remove almost everything before the semicolon. You are already inhabiting the ruler's head, so you can just describe the servant instead of specifying that it's the ruler who's observing him. (This is more subjective than the other one though.)

[Anonymous No.20374129]

>>20370759
>emilyanon
Fuck it I will probably buy Eggplant, Emily and a few other /lit/ stuff. Cant take more than a month to read all of that stuff and have something to say about it I want to see you all do better.
Also wrote 10,000 words this weekend and I just flopped on the sofa to read some Joyce.

[Anonymous No.20374133]

>>20374125
Almost any replacement for king that feels justifiable almost always sounds MORE pompous than just king (sovereign, ruler, etc.) Lord is about the only thing that works, I'd say.

[Anonymous No.20374138]

>>20365492
>Never posted
You do not lift.
You do not have a girlfriend.
You do not have a job.
And most importantly, you do not write.

[Anonymous No.20374139]

>>20372638
Kelsier thought for a moment. “Is Clubs still running that shop of his? He’s one of the best Smokers in the city.”

“Isn’t he hard to work with?”

“He’s not so bad, once you get used to him. Besides, I think he might be… amenable to this particular job.”

Dockson shrugged. “I’ll invite him. I think one of his relatives is a Tineye. Do you want me to invite him too?”

“Sounds good,” Kelsier said.

“All right. That leaves Yeden.”

“He’ll be there.”

“He’d better be,” Dockson said. “He’ll be the one paying us, after all.”

[Anonymous No.20374152]

>>20374133
This guy has ambitions for further conquest and wears spiked armor indoors, so maybe pomposity is called for.
Sovereign is nicely secular without being as bland. I wouldn't casually insert it into sentences but it may work as a title.

[Anonymous No.20374158]

>>20374152
Ah, so it's not out of modesty but out of a disdain for kings or whatever? That makes more sense.

[Anonymous No.20374160]

>>20374129
Which Joyce? I'm wondering when I'll have the time to nab Dubliners from the library and give it a run.

[Anonymous No.20374218]

>>20374038
I knew there was no solution to my problem.
Thanks for all the seething, though. Really made my day.
>>20373817
Just read the terms and conditions again.
KDP Select is 90 days at a time.
It prohibits me from selling/distributing an e-book version of my work.
I'm not selling it; I'm giving it away for free.
And it's not an e-book; it's a series of separate web pages.
It'd be labor-intensive to assemble those into some sort of downloadable e-book, and doing so would be a violation of the TOS of WattPad/etc.
So I don't think I'm violating the KDP Select terms anyway.

[Anonymous No.20374225]

>>20374160
Ulysses, but Ive been told I might like Dubliners a lot more. I've read plenty of Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner, so I'm moving to Joyce who inspired both of them. I use a lot of the modernist techniques in my writing.

[Anonymous No.20374272]

In these troubled times, here's something we can all agree on...
...at least we're not as cringe as the pseud in picrel.

[Anonymous No.20374274]

>>20374225
I got filtered by both Faulkner and Cormac, but I absolutely loved Joyce. In my writings I borrow a lot from the modernists too, especially stream of consciousness/free association.

[Anonymous No.20374334]

What's your day job?

[Anonymous No.20374338]

>>20374334
Meant to add this: does it leave you time to write?

[Anonymous No.20374344]

>>20374334
>>20374338
I work 8 hours a day as a _______. It leaves me enough time to write and, although unfulfilling, I still manage to have the will to live doing my work.

[Anonymous No.20374373]

>>20374334
Won’t say, but I will say it doesn’t require a degree and it makes over $45/hr on check + double pensions, 401k, and the usual healthcare dental vision etc.

Degrees are a joke.

[Anonymous No.20374397]

>>20374373
Is there an unspoken rule against sharing what you do as a job on 4chan or something?

[Anonymous No.20374405]

>>20374397
nice try CIA

[Anonymous No.20374428]

>>20374334
I'm a painter at shipyard.

[Anonymous No.20374449]

>>20374125
Thank you for the criticism on my pastebin, anon. I'll write this down somewhere.

Also, the reason why I wrote it constantly as "the ruler" and not "him" is because I wanted to push the fact that this character would probably refer to himself as that a lot. But, judging by the criticism I've received, that most likely won't work. Again, thanks.

[Anonymous No.20374450]

>>20374397
I'm CIA.

[Anonymous No.20374458]

>>20374397
Lots of doxxing stalkers here.

[Anonymous No.20374493]

>>20374334
Co-owner of a very small, very niche manufacturing company.
>>20374338
Yes, I can always spare time in the evening. Though sometimes work & training leaves me too tired to bother.

[Anonymous No.20374495]

>>20374458
Sorry for activating anyone's schizophrenia. I'm just a NEETbux collecting loser who fantasizes about having actual, non-fast food/retail jobs.

[Anonymous No.20374498]

>>20374495
Yes, I know it's pathetic.

[Anonymous No.20374508]

>>20373566
Why

[Anonymous No.20374538]

>>20374334
Research chemistry. Mentioned it before last year.

[Anonymous No.20374578]

>>20374334
>>20374338
I'm an engineer and it leaves me time to write in the evenings after the gym and a nice dinner.

[Anonymous No.20374766]

>>20374450
Go write a fake manifesto

[Anonymous No.20374819]

What makes prose so difficult to get right? It feels so completely subjective and depends on the reader and genre. I'm so confused, I read, listened, and wrote different sentences saying the same thing, and each have their strength and weaknesses. What makes prose good?

[Anonymous No.20374843]

>>20374819
Its because so many things are managed at once and you cant easily do it in one run and I wouldnt try. The rhythm of word/sentence/paragrah length, the phonetics, the shape of the page (white space), and a multitude of literary devices and more are all at work. It takes a lot of scrutiny to make prose better.

[Anonymous No.20374848]

>>20374819
Because it is subjective. There's no objectively good prose, but there is good style. You have to write prose that sounds good to say, sounds right when read aloud, but also conveys your message in a satisfying way. Don't try some gay balancing act where you weigh the strengths and weaknesses of a sentence, ultimately the best sentence is the one that sounds right to you. Of course, what you consider 'right' will change the more you write and the more you read, so do both of those until you feel comfortable with how things are turning out.

[Anonymous No.20374972]

>>20373755
My just-released novel has 2 views on WattPad (1 per chapter).
RoyalRoad hasn't approved it yet.
But I've already got a single 5-star review on ScribbleHub, and a reader. So I posted an extra chapter there, one no one else (except Amazon) has.

[Anonymous No.20374991]

>>20374972
you can publish a chapter a day on amazon? i thought you had to finish the book before they let you put anything on there.

[Anonymous No.20375074]

>>20374991
I was ambiguous.
The entire novel is available on Amazon.

[Anonymous No.20375090]

>>20375074
I misread your comment.

[Anonymous No.20375096]

Ah shit bros I had a really good idea for a fantasy book last night but I forgot what it was
I was thinking about writing it on my phone but I was too sleepy and lazy and thought I'd remember it but now I don't, fuck me
I hope it was just a dream

[Anonymous No.20375099]

>>20375096
Been there. Oh boy have I been there. There's a reason I have an idea dump file 15 pages long. Shit comes and goes like the wind, gotta nab it when you can mate, be it 4:43 AM or during lunch.

[Anonymous No.20375100]

>>20375096
Ideas aren't worth anything anyway.

[Anonymous No.20375106]

>>20375100
Yeah man I know that
I know I can't flesh out a story because I'm incapable of writing but I still wanted to write 1 page about the ideas but now I can't
All I can remember is that I thought about it when thinking about Bran's story in ASOIAF and the journey of the Hobbits to Bree
>>20375099
I just write them on my phone notes
My ideas are never that fleshed out to require any more than a few lines
I'm really fucking kicking myself

[Anonymous No.20375113]

>>20375096
I know the feeling.
I make a point of writing down every idea I have, because I've lost so many.
>>20375099
Totally
>>20375100
I have the exact opposite experience.

[Anonymous No.20375119]

650 words tonight of redrafting part 1 again, but rereading part 2 has me satisfied that I'm going in the right direction. I don't know what I'm going to do with this. I want to get it trad published, but the field of historical fiction is pretty narrow and self publishing might not do it the service I think it deserves.

[Anonymous No.20375120]

whats the name of the trope when someone is attached emotionally atached to a monster type of thing thats actually causing evil but they cant bare to kill it? and examples? may8e this is between a girl and a tiny monster. im trying to find where i stole an idea from

[Anonymous No.20375122]

>>20375096
I hate this shit. I have a great idea, but I'm working on another book, but with that great idea I suddenly want to write that other book. Leaving my current story forever unfinished.

[Anonymous No.20375125]

>>20375120
Beauty and the Beast. Remember her pussy is enough to tame and slay the beast, turning it heroic.

[Anonymous No.20375128]

>>20375122
It won't be forever unfinished.
You need to let your muse do what it wants; don't get in its way.
Write down whatever you have of this other idea until it's out of your system.
At that point, you'll have a choice, and you can decide to resume writing the original story.

[Anonymous No.20375131]

I wrote a little thing based on A Scanner Darkly that I plan to develop into a full novel. Can anyone offer criticism or a possible title for the book? Anyways, here’s the actual thing I wrote.

“Jenny, you’re late.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry.”
Chris Christ let Jenny Brooks into the room and they both sat down at the multicolored plastic table, surrounded by more multicolored plastic objects (mostly dishes) and old cut up newspapers. This was the terrible state of Chris’ kitchen, as well as his entire apartment, which Jenny was unsurprised at due to the fact that he knew Chris was a speedballer (an addict to cocaine and heroin). Jenny brought out a purple bag and emptied its contents onto the table: a pipe, a lighter, a miniature Apathy Box, a copy of “The Fine Torture of Gary Eastman”, and a bag of finely crushed Mek.
Chris wasn’t one to usually do Mek, nobody was except for Jenny, who had been smoking Mek since the age of 14, but since he was having Jenny over to check out his miniature Apathy Box he recently bought, he might as well smoke some Mek with him after.
Both of them held one of the four handles on the small red Apathy Box and suddenly a barrage of horrifying images and sounds had entered their mind at a speed beyond comprehension until it left both of them completely desensitized within a second. The desensitization would only last for as long as the Apathy Box was charged, in this case 30 minutes, and would then start wearing off quickly. This was enough time to watch the 25 minute short film that Jenny had recently rented, which was “The Fine Torture of Gary Eastman” a tempo-film DVD which could only be watched while under the desensitization effect of the Apathy Box, otherwise it would most likely lead to both Jenny and Chris not being able to sleep for months.
The good thing about Apathy Boxes, Jenny thought, was that he wouldn’t be traumatized by the memory of the film even after the desensitization effect had worn off.

[Anonymous No.20375135]

OH FUCK
I remember what it was now and I'm embarrassed
It was a shit idea no wonder i didn't bother writing it down

[Anonymous No.20375142]

>>20375125
no what im thinking of is more like lilo and stich but with an actually evil stich. there is no hope of redemption but the she loves the creature (maybe like a mother) and takes on the world

[Anonymous No.20375146]

>>20374991
>do you want to buy some chicken eggs mary?
What the fuck kind of fucking line is that? That better not be in the final draft. Delete that autistic shit right now.

[Anonymous No.20375149]

>>20375135
Post your novel idea. It's not like it's going anywhere.

[Anonymous No.20375154]

>>20375135
Glad we could help.

[Anonymous No.20375160]

>>20375131
Not bad. Indeed, very PKD-ish.
And as far as I'm concerned, there can't be too much PKDness in the world.
Good luck with expanding it!

[Anonymous No.20375166]

>>20375149
Ok so picture Adam and Eve but Adam is a king and instead of just a woman many men are made combine that with Aule from the Silmarillion, then get Cain and then combine that with Bran's story from ASOIAF and Frodo and co's adventure to Bree but also Strider is important
Basically that's what it was
>>20375154
I'm sorry for wasting people's time here

[Anonymous No.20375170]

>>20375149
A Science fiction where the humans living in it all have reincarnation as if it was a normal thing. They have a new body, but they remember everything in their previous lives.

But I can't think of a good conflict. Having some random thing preventing rebirth or an evil bastard is boring. There has to be some other conflict.

[Anonymous No.20375173]

>>20375160
Thanks for the good luck, but do you have any ideas for a title or any throwaway Sci Fi social satire concepts for me to use?

[Anonymous No.20375183]

I want to wing it but I also like having some idea of what I'm going to do... How much time should I spend on outlining? If I'm writing a story in a setting other than contemporary earth, how much time should I spend on world building? I don't want to waste a lot of time but I also don't want to swim around without a single clue.

[Anonymous No.20375204]

>want to write a story where the Gods exist
>can't stop thinking about the cosmological and ontological arguments
>want to write a story where the Gods disappear suddenly
>don't want to kill them off because I believe in Hierarchy too much

[Anonymous No.20375225]

>>20375170
Have it be RNG if you get born into a dogshit body, i.e. profoundly crippled / disabled or in a horseshit country, and have people keep killing them selves to reroll their starting location leading to a bottleneck where people 'sit in queue' to be reborn. Maybe have the protag off himself then be reborn many years later into a different world then the one he left, could make for some fun times.

[Anonymous No.20375230]

>>20375166
Helping a fellow writer, in his time of need, is never a waste of time.
>>20375170
There's plenty of conflict.
Do hereditary titles persist after death?
Do prison sentences?
Does accumulated wealth?
Do babies have to wait until they regain physical dexterity/strength before resuming their previous station? Who takes care of them until then, and what's their motivation not to abuse the position?
Can people control who they reincarnate as, or could they end up anywhere?
People that essentially live forever become very vested in the status quo, and lose their ability/desire to imagine how/why anything could be different.
Therefore, society becomes stratified very quickly, with the people at the bottom increasingly unable to rise very high before getting smacked down.
Their entire world gets disrupted by something they couldn't predict, and it's up to the "younger souls" to deal with the problem.
This is just off the top of my head.
>>20375173
Bit early for a title, isn't it?
You need lots more weird ideas.
From reading PKD, he mined his short stories for novel ideas.
So go off and write a bunch of weird short stories.

[Anonymous No.20375234]

>>20375183
Do whatever seems appropriate for the concept.
There are no rules, except to follow your muse.
For instance, I'm presently sketching out the opening scene of a novel.
I have so much, and such detailed, background for this novel idea, it's almost overwhelming.
So I've decided to "discovery write", at least for now, and expect to edit & rearrange a lot.
I've never done that before; I consider it a bad idea generally. But this might be the time to employ it.

[Anonymous No.20375235]

>>20375230
Well, time to write short stories.

[Anonymous No.20375240]

>>20375235
Hell yeah!
Don't be reluctant to write a story for every one of your weird ideas.
Even if the story goes nowhere, you've explored the idea, and can mine them later when constructing longer-form fiction.

[Anonymous No.20375250]

>>20375204
Gods need worshipers to survive.
That's been a staple of divine fiction for a really long time.
I immediately thought of "O Ye Of Little Faith" by Harlan Ellison.
The Gods disappear, or end up incarnating as mortals, once they have an insufficient number of believers.

[Anonymous No.20375286]

>>20375120
Sounds like the general female conceit of "but I can fix him".
That'll give you no end of inspiration.

[Anonymous No.20375296]

>>20374972
Huh...it now has 30 views on ScribbleHub, 3 readers, and I even have a follower!
Early signs on ScribbleHub, for my novel, are pretty positive!
>>20374110
I feel less negative now.

[Anonymous No.20375396]

>>20375240
Well, I just wrote an incredibly retarded short story that is only two paragraphs. Here it is.

Jonni Joyce was a robot boy who grew up in the southern area of New Chicago, and when he reached the age of 15, he decided to be a serial reviver. What he would do is perform ancient forgotten Mexica revival rituals that involved sacrificing a limb. As a robot boy, Joyce could replace the limbs he sacrificed and also wouldn’t feel the tremendous pain of limb severance. He ended up reviving up to 90 people, both robots and humans, every day. One day in New New Chicago when he had revived a man named Phillip Groyce, the police had chased them deep into a nearby forest and then gave up searching for them. They stopped by a creek and sat down on some nearby stones.
“Jesus, kid, you didn’t have to revive me, I’d say I’m a piece of shit.” Spoke Groyce in a raspy voice.
“Well, why is that?” Replied Joyce in an electronic tone.
“Oh, well, I burned down my house back in New New New Detroit when I was a kid and ran away to here. My parents and siblings died in the fire.”
“Oh my, why did you do that?”
“I thought it was fun, I guess. Hey, by the way, you wanna visit my friend Chris when we get out of this forest?”
“My, why I’d love to meet new people, yes of course I’d come with you.”

Chris Christ was just recovering from a speedball when the doorbell rang. He answered it and met with Groyce and Joyce. He let them in and offered them some Huxloid for Joyce and cocaine for Groyce. Both accepted and suddenly in a flash, the three were doing donuts in a park while the car was lit on fire. All three were incarcerated and executed, except for Chris, since he was a Hyper-Aryan Quasi-Ubermensch.

[Anonymous No.20375398]

Any thoughts on my story idea:

High school loser discovers the tomb of an ancient lich buried in his backyard. Bonding with the lich grants him great power, but he struggles to keep control of his mind. Desperate to break the lich’s hold, he opens a portal to the monster’s home on a distant planet but soon finds himself hunted by the lich’s old foes.

[Anonymous No.20375430]

>>20375398
So, "Moon Knight"?

[Anonymous No.20375432]

>>20375396
It made me laugh, thanks

[Anonymous No.20375437]

>>20375396
Sounds like you're well on your way to writing several weird tales.
For the record, my favorite weird authors (who all have a TON of short stories to their credit) are Philip K. Dick, H.P. Lovecraft, and Harlan Ellison.
Now go make us proud!
I gotta go to bed. Damn day-jobbery.

[Anonymous No.20375440]

>>20375432
In a good way, mind, I enjoyed it

[Anonymous No.20375441]

>>20375430
Maybe? Don’t watch Marvel garbage, so I wouldn’t know.

[Anonymous No.20375443]

>>20374334
I graduated in applied N-word studies.

[Anonymous No.20375456]

>>20374334
Chemist, specifically lab manager.

[Anonymous No.20375462]

>>20375149
It's the middle of the 1980s Satanic Panic, and a college student is annoyed that people keep doing things like banning Dungeons and Dragons.

So he plans a series of pranks to make it look like satan worshippers are a real thing that actually exists, but it backfires when the pearl clutchers go actually ape shit over it.

[Anonymous No.20375494]

>>20375440
Thanks, anyways I figured something out, I’m gonna write a shit ton of retarded 2 or 3 paragraph short stories and copy and paste parts of them together and compile it all into a full novel. Prepare for weird shit.

[Anonymous No.20375498]

You know what's worse than zombies?
Zombies that are each the size of a bus

[Anonymous No.20375508]

>>20375250
>That's been a staple of divine fiction for a really long time.
A very recent time, you mean. Actual mythological gods never needed worshipers. Worshipers needed them.

[Anonymous No.20375513]

>>20375234
That's what happened to me, man, I was writing it down and nothing came together, it fell apart like a poorly constructed pinata. I'm not sure how my peers write so it's doubly frustrating.

[Anonymous No.20375553]

>>20375498
It's been done by the Japanese.

[Anonymous No.20375566]

>>20375149
Two pilgrims meet. They share no common language and may not even be followers of the same faith. One is a prankster and a compulsive gambler despite his apparent lack of funds with which to gamble, the other is a serious and somber person with a fondness for all living things.
As they travel, they try to communicate via nonverbal means and on occasion perform casual miracles like drawing drinking water from solid rock and think nothing of such feats.

[Anonymous No.20375663]

I need help deciding a decent magic system for this race I'm building, for the actual magic itself I have no idea what I want it to be yet but I have the narrative there ready to be used.
I really wanted to go with a Native American vibe or something similar, and as far as their magic goes I either want them to have low levels of reality manipulation or some kind of mental ascendancy.
Narratively I want their race to be split into the Kyltans and Ostracians, the first is more neutral and isolated whereas the the latter is more combative yet cooperative when they need to be. The reason they're called Ostracians is because in ancient times they wanted to use their magic for war and conquest and were quickly exiled to the plains far out west far away from the rest of their civilization. Without the support of their homeland they quickly fell into disarray until the humans who would settle a town near them moved into the area and entered a mutually beneficial detente with them after the Second Cataclysm further decimated both of their communities.
A writing friend suggested I use something along the lines of metallurgy/alchemy, but I'm still kind of stuck on what I actually want them to do.

[Anonymous No.20375670]

>>20375663
Well I was going to post it here but it looks like some other anon beat me to it.

[Anonymous No.20375674]

>>20375670
Anon, you okay? If you’re writing a novel, it’s best if you ask us. It’s why /wg/ was made for.

[Anonymous No.20375679]

>>20375674
Whenever I post stuff related to writing a fantasy novel in here I have someone bitching at me to post it in /sffg/, and when I do that I have the same bitching but reversed.
At this point I just post in both threads.

[Anonymous No.20375683]

>>20375663
>native american
>reality manipulation
either druidism, plant animals and weather manipulation, or shamanism, using the spirits found in things to do shit
>mental ascendancy
psionics or hallucinogenic drugs that allow them to actually manipulate real things based on their perceptions

[Anonymous No.20375684]

>>20375679
>Whenever I post stuff related to writing a fantasy novel in here I have someone bitching
You mean the pseuds? Just ignore them, they don't write, nor do they contribute. Just ask your questions here.

[Anonymous No.20375698]

>>20375663
>>20375670
>>20375679
>Someone gives you advice
>Doesn’t respond
Like always.

[Anonymous No.20375702]

>>20375679
Everyone bitches everywhere. Just post it and hope someone responds.

[Anonymous No.20375708]

>>20375684
Fair enough
>>20375683
I was thinking along the same lines as you, but I'm leaning towards making it more of a harder system of magic like alchemy or transmutation. Nothing too extreme as far as power goes but it opens a lot of narrative doors if the character using it is competent enough.
>>20375698
I know you have nothing better to do anon but you should really get a hobby instead of staring at a screen waiting for me to respond to people. I hear writing is a pretty good way to pass the time.

[Anonymous No.20375709]

>>20375708
>I was thinking along the same lines as you, but I'm leaning towards making it more of a harder system of magic like alchemy or transmutation. Nothing too extreme as far as power goes but it opens a lot of narrative doors if the character using it is competent enough.
If it's a native american era aesthetic that you're looking for, your narrative seems to imply something far more advanced. Is it an industrializing native society? Feel like we're lacking context here. Alchemy would be more fitting. Tribes explored different herbal concoctions for medicine, visions, etc.

You could use the development of these medicines as a means to touch concepts from reality, such as spirit animals but that may be too on-the-nose. When you've ingested a certain blend of rare plants (could be a facet of your story how these resources are acquired) you could hallucinate certain concepts of reality.

Let's say a rainman ingests a specific mushroom from a hard to access region and is now hallucinating the spirit of rain, which just so happens to be a school of fish that swim through the sky. By interacting with them, he's interacting with the concept of rain. Perhaps the more you commune with an element, the more proficient you are with that element and thus you ascend to higher concepts. Rain becomes storms, storms become typhoons, so on and so forth. Spirituality translating to tangible magic.

Though there's always got to be a drawback or hardline rules to this use. The more advanced the medicine or herbs he's ingesting, the more it may poison him or make his spirit open to BAD spirits. Something something. Just a thought.

[Anonymous No.20375711]

I'm often told that great characters have great backstories that give them compelling motivations to set out to accomplish their goals and make them interesting characters in that respect,

but what I want to know is does an author intentionally not giving a character a backstory make for a more interesting character?

[Anonymous No.20375716]

>>20375709
Ah I was working on my reply to you in the other thread
>your narrative seems to imply something far more advanced
You'd be about right, I'd want them to have a more illustrious society that would merit them not wanting to bother with the rest of the world but would also create a drive in some people in that society to look for conquest.
I like the thought of communing with the different spirits of nature to influence reality around them, the one concept I've been really drawn to is that they are a society with an inherent ability to make reality more mutable in order to enhance themselves or change the world around them as they see fit.

[Anonymous No.20375717]

>>20375711
Sorry, I forgot a word, I meant to ask, WHEN does an author intentionally not giving a character a backstory make for a more interesting character?

[Anonymous No.20375721]

>>20375717
What comes to mind for me is when there's a mysterious figure that comes in and out of the story to aide the protagonist(s). You don't know who they are and you may never know, and that level of mystique is alluring to some.

[Anonymous No.20375731]

>>20375721
Is it always a bad thing to not give much focus on a characters backstory?

Like if you have a character that was holed up in her hometown all her life and has no experience with the world, but has no strong beliefs in any directions from her past, is it better to just gloss over her past? Could that still be a compelling character?

[Anonymous No.20375735]

>>20375731
>Like if you have a character that was holed up in her hometown all her life and has no experience with the world
I think you could make that into a compelling character if you have her make a LOT of mistakes trying to fit into the outside world after all this time of being a recluse. Sure her entire history may not be interesting enough to write about but what matters is what was the catalyst to make her into that kind of person, what steps she is taking to improve, and how she grows as a character through her experiences both good and bad.
In essence, it doesn't matter who she was before, what matters is who she becomes in the future.

[Anonymous No.20375744]

>>20375441
>Marvel garbage
>slams childrens' movies while writing fantasy garbage himself

[Anonymous No.20375761]

>cleverly name my main character You
>Reading the story now confuses the brain into self inserting
I have broken the 2nd person fantasy genre.

[Anonymous No.20375793]

On my mighty steed, I ride across the land
The land I do not see
Mist rose, mist so thick and so heavy
I am blind to the land
Beyond the mist I see the trees and hills
Crest the hill and a sea of mist greets me
My steed drinks morning dew
The blades of grass hang heavy underfoot, they do not rise to challenge my passing
I am sovereign of all I see
But I do not see the land
I am sovereign of the horizon, of the hills up high, of the trees afar
On my mighty steed, I ride across the land
Come the dawn is my journey ended
From one end of the land I have crossed to the other
But I do not see the land
Come the dawn, on a high hill I look down below
The mist is gone and the blades of grass rise to greet the dawn
And my rule is at an end
I no longer rule anything I see
And I finally see the land

[Anonymous No.20375798]

I want to write a story about a guy who gets reincarnated into a high fantasy setting, and romantically grooms his new younger sister. Is this a good premise and how can I improve on it?

[Anonymous No.20375803]

>>20371659
You can probably whip one up yourself, then. Just put a wand over one of those chalk body outlines and you've got a serviceable minimalist cover.

[Anonymous No.20375818]

>>20375113
>I have the exact opposite experience.
If I had to hazard a guess, this is because you write in a played-out genre where the only way to differentiate yourself from the thousands and thousands of similarly unskilled mental and emotional midgets, all writing with the exact same voice and concerning only nominally differentiable subjects and plots (eg Gorktron 5000 versus Tarkbar the Barbarian) is with ideas. Because everything else is just a fill-in-the-blanks exercise in writing by numbers, your experience is different because in your low and inconsequential sub-medium (I honestly hesitate to elevate it by calling it a genre) this is the only thing that separates you from the next 400 pound neckbeard aching for just one slurp at Brandon Sanderson's rancid smegma.

[Anonymous No.20375838]

>>20370866
If you don't mind my asking, who did you find to critique your stuff? If they were all friends/family or people that don't read, it's possible that they sugarcoated everything. It almost happened to me, but luckily I have some friends that knew better.

If you paid for an editor you did not get your money's worth. I'm catching grammatical mistakes here and there that are fairly obvious. If you tried to self-edit, that's a huge no-no. Your brain is not wired to detect its own mistakes, even if you follow the advice of letting it sit for a month and then going back through it with fresh eyes.

The book IS getting better, actually. And no, it's far from the worst thing I've read. I wouldn't be trying to give you advice if it was.

[Anonymous No.20375847]

>>20375838
>letting it sit for a month
Even a month is probably too short. You want to see your own writing with fresh eyes, as if it were someone else's.

[Anonymous No.20375853]

>>20372638
Sanderson's success obviously speaks for itself, but I can't help but be repulsed when I see how bad his prose is. I respect that he is one of the top fantasy writers and he has incredible work ethic, but his shit reads like it was written by an autistic 15 year old

[Anonymous No.20375862]

>>20375798
There are many Japanese isekai with this premise

[Anonymous No.20375865]

>>20375853
Didn't he write his first 10 books while an autistic teenager?

[Anonymous No.20375866]

>>20375853
>incredible work ethic
Other vocations with which you can have an incredible work ethic:
>plumbing
>bricklaying
>prostitution
>farming
>etc
Unless you're telling me Sanderson can suck a great dick, I'm unimpressed.

[Anonymous No.20375869]

>>20375866
You can not like the guy's work but saying he hasn't put in the hours to make it is just disingenuous

[Anonymous No.20375882]

>>20375869
I'm not saying that. I'm putting "the hours" in scope. I get that he has spent many hours at a computer typing in words. Any writer knows that it takes self-discipline to do that consistently. These must have been pretty fucking empty hours, because his command of the medium itself is really lacking. It's like he spent four hours a day playing TNT and Smells Like Teen Spirit for twenty years.

[Anonymous No.20375890]

>>20375882
Regardless, he's a millionaire with thousands of fans of his work

[Anonymous No.20375891]

>>20375882
What authors or books would you classify as acceptable command of the medium then? Assuming you mean fantasy literature, if you don't like fantasy at all then that's another story

[Anonymous No.20375899]

>>20375890
Kim Kardashian is a millionaire with thousands of fans of her, uh...
>>20375891
Fantasy specifically? Jack Vance is the only one who comes to mind. I admittedly have extremely high standards for writing style, though.

[Anonymous No.20375907]

>>20375899
> I admittedly have extremely high standards for writing style, though.
It always gets a chuckle out of me when some NEET loser on 4chan says they have "extremely high standards" when they themselves can't produce anything of value.

[Anonymous No.20375916]

>>20375899
>kim Kardashian

Yes she is. And thinking you're better than her is pointless too since by every single metric one could objectively measure a persons success by, you fail compare to her

[Anonymous No.20375921]

>>20375916
>>20375907
>the radical materialist crew is out in full force tonight

[Anonymous No.20375930]

>pseud who can’t write worth shit is back again
Stop fetishizing the idea of writing and learn to write instead.

[Anonymous No.20375940]

>>20375921
Honest question, what have you accomplished with your life, material or otherwise?

[Anonymous No.20375948]

It's the height of genuine irony to me that fans of science fiction and fantasy—ostensibly the most unrealistic and speculative genres—are always the most callously materialistic. The only way I can imagine these two things fitting in one head without massive cognitive dissonance is with an incredibly cynical attitude towards writing. You read and write fiction that is explicitly extra-real. But when you're done, you close your e-reader or the lid of your MacBook and go, "Heh? Sandersnoy is bad? He's got MONEY. You know, CASH. Your argument is invalid, pseud." It just strikes me as a very fragmented and incoherent attitude.

[Anonymous No.20375955]

>>20375940
I got (and declined) a full scholarship at twelve years old for testing in the 99th percentile of all graduating seniors on the SAT. I joined the infantry and fought in one little corner of a minor war. I came home and found some very minor success as a guitarist on the regional circuit. I have a cat and a girlfriend who loves me. I do my genuine best to live according to my values as a human being.

[Anonymous No.20375961]

>>20375948
Money is the consequence of attention and adoration, something your shit writing will never earn you. Just because he doesn’t write for your age range doesn’t make him a worthless writer who is deserving of pseud scorn.

[Anonymous No.20375967]

>>20375948
I think the main issue here is that the only criteria you've set out for a novel being "good" is prose. I haven't read Sanderson's books and the excerpt posted is obviously not good prose, but novels can be carried on concepts beyond just good prose. I'd rather read an interesting book with below average prose than a boring one with good prose, though obviously dipping below a certain level of quality is going to affect enjoyment regardless of how well thought out the concepts are in the book. I judge things by the ideas they present rather than how they're dressed up, basically, though it sounds like you're the opposite in this regard.

[Anonymous No.20375970]

>>20375955
>Welfare queen set to die for Israel
>failed guitarist
>cat mom
>bragging about girlfriend
Gonna need you to flesh out your resume before you’re allowed to talk to me again.

[Anonymous No.20375995]

>>20375967
You're not wrong. That said, the way I see it goes a bit beyond just having good prose. The best writing, in my opinion, brushes up against the sublime. There can be something timeless, and almost spiritual, in reading. This happens for me as an eddy of intuition in an otherwise violently nonsensical river. It's what happens when you're taken by the blue tomorrows in a Lynch film, or in the great iron afternoons before a rocket explosion. Ideas, to me, are strictly secondary to any of this. So I agree that good prose by itself is not that important. It is, however, a vehicle that can from time to time transport you to an experience of the sublime. I don't think any of my writing has ever lived up to this ideal, and I'm not sure it ever will. But that's what I'm talking about when I mention mastery of the medium itself, if any of that makes sense.
>>20375970
Trust me, I'd much prefer it if you and I never talked again. I have precisely zero desire to read another word you ever write, but since you seem to be pretty intent on carrying your little grudge, knock yourself out.

[Anonymous No.20375998]

>>20375838
Finished it. 3.5/5 stars. Not bad for a first book, the latter half didn't have nearly as many issues as the first half. It's a bit rough, but you got me invested enough that I read the whole thing and actually gave a shit about what happened to the characters.

I'll add that more than a few times you straight up forgot to describe things and I had to infer what was happening from the characters... not always a bad choice, but in some scenes, like the corn-dog incident, you want specificity.

Still, overall I was glad to read it. Improve and write another. I'll probably read that one too.

[Anonymous No.20376009]

>>20375995
Also, the point is this: Sanderson's writing is admittedly "good enough." The words make sense. Their aggregation transmits concepts and ideas. If that is the goal of writing, to transmit concepts and ideas, then Sanderson is definitely good enough. He makes sense. He has ideas and the way those ideas are represented is sensical. It's just that literature CAN go much deeper than that, and in an era where everyone seems to think that "good enough" is actually good, that idea deserves counterpoint. Maybe I'm not the one to give it, but I do think it deserves counterpoint.

[Anonymous No.20376011]

>>20375995
>carrying your little grudge
This is the first time I’ve interacted with you. You give off an aura that causes second hand embarrassment, you can’t blame me for reacting.

[Anonymous No.20376032]

>>20376011
Well, let me apologize on my "aura's" behalf.

[Anonymous No.20376088]

>>20375995
Okay, I think I'm understanding more what you're saying now. Something like the surge of emotions one might feel when viewing the Sistine Chapel or hearing works from classical composers? A sort of "beauty" inherent to works of art which is hard to place but we instinctively know and feel. In that case I can agree, though I've not yet read a novel that I would say has been able to elicit such powerful experiences in my soul, so perhaps it's simply lack of insight on my part. Aiming for above and beyond is ideal and going for "good enough" will undoubtedly see the general quality of all works produced decrease as the bar goes lower and lower, yes. Even so, dismissing anything that doesn't reach the sublime as valueless I believe to be a mistake too, since ideas worth thinking on can also come from a form that's at first unimpressive. And with those same ideas further examined by someone else, it's possible that they in turn will create something sublime.

[Anonymous No.20376170]

>>20376088
>Even so, dismissing anything that doesn't reach the sublime as valueless I believe to be a mistake too, since ideas worth thinking on can also come from a form that's at first unimpressive. And with those same ideas further examined by someone else, it's possible that they in turn will create something sublime.
I wouldn't be half as vocal if tastes and convention weren't weighed so heavily towards the kind of (in my mind) highly commercialized, everyman approach to the craft. It's something I feel very strongly about, and sometimes I go overboard. I just want to give a voice that opposes the common convention omnipresent even here, at the ass end of the darkest corner of the internet, where attitudes are still overwhelmingly common and ordinary. I need to get back to my own writing now though. Cheers, fren.

[Anonymous No.20376175]

When it comes to Christianity mythology, and angels and demons, God and Lucifer, what do you guys think of using the Shin Megami Tensei worldbuilding for references in terms of the dualogy between the forces of Order and Chaos vying for power, where the angels want order, the strong taking care of the weak, uniformity even if it means oppression and relinquishing freedom of expression and one's aspirations, whereas the demons want freedom of expression, individuality, and the freedom to seek power and one's dreams even if it means the strong trampling on the weak and lawlessness. both sides have aspects of good and evil. In SMT 4, the high ranking angels are portrayed as mechanical eldritch abominations and in SMT 5 the low ranking angels wear a mask to show that they lost their face when they chose God. Some of the games have the low ranking angels blindfolded to show that justice is blind.

Thoughts on using this for worldbuilding?

[Anonymous No.20376290]

[Anonymous No.20376313]

>>20375744
>if you don’t like Marvel slop, you hate children and hate fun
For your sake, I hope this is bait

[Anonymous No.20376343]

Bamp

[Anonymous No.20376389]

>>20376343
We're at 342 replies, newfag.

[Anonymous No.20376391]

>>20376175
>Demons are actually...good!
I've had enough of this, no thanks

[Anonymous No.20376488]

>>20376175
It's fine, but not particularly original—I've never played SMT and yet I've seen all of these elements before. I first encountered that exact take on order and chaos in RuneScape of all things.
You should probably sample other fiction for additional ideas.

[Anonymous No.20376545]

Bakers! Where are you! It's time to get to WORK!

[Anonymous No.20376554]

>>20376545
Fine, I'll do it... NOT

[Anonymous No.20376599]

>>20376545
New bread

>>20376598

[Anonymous No.20376608]

>>20375462
https://vault.fbi.gov/the-finders
Cant remember if shared this previously?
But read part 4 for good inspiration especially the part near end about the satanic dungeon beneath the daycare which was publicly called a nutty conspiracy theory