/wg/ Writing General

[Anonymous No.23101265]

"Prom memories" Edition

Previous: >>23091289

/wg/ AUTHORS & FLASH FICTION: https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQ
RESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS: https://pastebin.com/nFxdiQvC

Please limit excerpts to one post.
Give advice as much as you receive it to the best of your ability.
Follow prompts made below and discuss written works for practice; contribute and you shall receive.
If you have not performed a cursory proofread, do not expect to be treated kindly. Edit your work for spelling and grammar before posting.
Violent shills, relentless shill-spammers, and grounds keeping prose, should be ignored and reported.

Simple guides on writing:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHdzv1NfZRM
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whPnobbck9s
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKcbvioxFk

Thread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8gowZkMGAM

[Anonymous No.23101282]

Everyone post their end goal in writing, now.

[Anonymous No.23101284]

>>23101282
I make a story that actually causes a significant positive shift in someones life.
Barring that, I make at least a living wage.

[Anonymous No.23101287]

>>23101282
To write something that people actually want to read.

[Anonymous No.23101300]

>>23101282
I want to have some fun and become good at some kind of art form. I want to write something I'm proud of that's also completed.

[Anonymous No.23101308]

[Anonymous No.23101320]

>>23101282
I want to write a fanfic with the prose skill of a great writer, write a great novel, then refuse to elaborate as to whether I authored that fanfiction.

[Anonymous No.23101322]

>>23101282
I’d just like people to enjoy my work. But i know that’s unattainable.

[Anonymous No.23101344]

>>23101282
To cure my mental illness by externalizing

[Anonymous No.23101407]

>>23101282
i just want to finish it bros... why do i have to be hung up on words...

[Anonymous No.23101440]

>>23101282
Write something that is capable of producing the same emotional effect on my readers that my favorite stories had on me.

[Anonymous No.23101480]

>>23101282
Speak to the few who will understand it most in a way only a novel can. Broad appeal is overrated.

[Anonymous No.23101539]

>>23101282
If I could write only the novels I imagine I want to write today, which is about four, the last being the most ambitious of the four, I would be happy. Realistically will find a way to keep going. Hoping to gain talent, make good stories, get readers. I would love to inspire other authors if possible.

[Anonymous No.23101574]

>>23101539
>four novels at least theoretically planned
That's pretty impressive, most people I know have 2 solid ones at most. Maybe a third that's not the most interesting of ideas, but doable.

[Anonymous No.23101578]

Vote for your favorite children's books in /lit/'s poll (no log in required):
https://forms.gle/24sJgnJoXxSTV1d1A

Thread: >>23101513
.

[Anonymous No.23101639]

Anyone need a cheap editor?

[Anonymous No.23101648]

A protagonist without flaws isn't fun.
So what are yours?
Physically at least, he's missing everything beneath his upper left forearm.
Now, otherwise?
>Scarily vindictive to the point of near-insanity
>Relating to the above, has a number of things that cause him to fly off the rails, such as someone implying he's weak
>Has no qualms about brutalizing someone
>Absolutely fucking despises his family for no good reason, and even the reason he did have was not expressed in a healthy way at all

[Anonymous No.23101684]

>>23101648
He's a tough guy with a cynical perspective on the world from a rough upbringing. He's a deterninator who never gives up no matter what and always fights on no matter how perilous the situation. He's street smart, and has a strong sense of justice. He's wily and clever. He's direct and to the point.

Is this cringe?

[Anonymous No.23101692]

>>23101684
Those aren't flaws.

[Anonymous No.23101698]

>>23101692
I didn;t think about flaws when creating him.

[Anonymous No.23101706]

>>23101648
He's a people pleaser who uses his sexuality as a trap so he can turn into a narcissistic piece of shit and drive the same people into hurting him. Probably just wants to destroy anything he can recognize as beautiful. Treats casual sex like a handshake and goes on polydrug binges to stave away any feelings of regret or emptiness.

[Anonymous No.23101712]

>>23101648
Physically, he's pale, not sickly pale, he just can't get a tan at all, so he looks like its winter all year round.
His features are sharp to the point where he looks strange, almost inhuman.
The closest comparison is something like Dracula or Ezra Miller.
Mentally, he has a host of issues.
Being soft kidnapped when he was a child led to a strong desire to be free, strong to the point where he lashes out at things that he feels are binding himself or others.
During this time he was also under and implied threat of death if he refused to work for his captors. His work ended up allowing others to create machines that ended a longstanding war, but the result was millions of deaths that he blames himself for on some level.
This causes him to want to make up for what he has done, and part of that guilt manifests as extreme self-sacrifice.
He is a man of contradiction, hating hurting people, but at the same time he has killed millions, and he will continue to do so, because his own suffering is worth almost nothing compared to the suffering that is happening to other people.

[Anonymous No.23101815]

https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/wcsfp9/a_comprehensive_guide_to_writing_better_dialogue/

Do you write realistic or perfect dialogue? I personally generally write perfect dialogue more often.

[Anonymous No.23101816]

>>23101648
>occult detective
>so racist that he refuses to even consider non-White spooks causing supernatural shenanigans
>almost always gets involved with ethnic cryptids and spookyshit because his only clientele are ironically superstitious minorities
>does not believe that women have enough willpower to remain past death, encounters female ghosts more often than not
>believes that every supernatural event can find, no matter how far fetched, its origins in jewish mischief
>subconsciously dresses like an Orthodox Jew, because he is an Eastern European Jew in self-denial
>most of his techniques for solving supernatural mischief originate from kabbalah and jewish mysticism

[Anonymous No.23101817]

so, if I plan on driving my own traffic to book sales but I want to do print-on-demand, what is the best option? Again I don't really need the book to sell on it's own. I generally plan on shilling it through youtube videos. So if I was only interested in selling to those people, are there better options than KDP? Is there a better Print-on-Demand alternative for better royalties?

[Anonymous No.23101825]

As an anon who feared AI would replace authors I've been working with it for a little while. Between Bard, Bing, GPT, NovelAI, and LLMs this is just sensational news.
I can't use it to create rough drafts I can go through and polish.
I can't rely on it for complex plots as it's always forgetting details.
I hardly can use it for brainstorming as it's just not that creative.
I can't trust it to proofread my work without giving me bogus feedback.
The list goes on, and it's actually just absurd normies actually think this can replace authors.
Now that I've wasted so much time with it, I feel I should ask if any other anons have tried and had success with anything from it or if my opinion is correct in that it's just sensational news for a fancy random word generator.

[Anonymous No.23101836]

>>23101825
I've used ai more than I'd admit for my novel that's supposed to be fully human written. I didn't copy anything wholesale but used it for lots of inspiration for my plots. How can I stop my reliance on it?

[Anonymous No.23101901]

>>23101815
I'd say I write perfect dialogue when I am having two characters having a chat and they aren't friends.
But realistic when it is between people who are close to one another, family, close friends, etc.
This just just a chunk from the chapter I'm writing now, and I haven't gone over it with an editing pass, but I would call this perfect dialogue. Normal people don't talk like this, characters talk like this.

[Anonymous No.23101917]

>>23101282
Undisputed mastery. Everything else is secondary.

[Anonymous No.23101925]

>>23101825
Mostly using it for editing but yeah you can't trust it. It will always tell you what you want to hear. A human editor will have to come along regardless, so whats the point of the AI?

[Anonymous No.23102143]

>>23101815
That is the most helpful writing related anything I've read. Thanks for linking it

[Anonymous No.23102151]

>>23101265
>"Prom memories" Edition
I was too cool to go to prom. I just stayed home and played vidya games.

[Anonymous No.23102449]

I'm struggling a lot with the descriptive element of writing; the character's appearance, their perceptions, and their environment, but I also don't want to over-do it. Any tips for finding that balance?

>Today was Sunday and despite having largely sobered up before having gone to bed I still awoke in a malaise. My throat was dry and my head fogged. I fell back asleep for an indeterminate amount of time. Once reawakened I hobbled to my desk to fetch the glass I’d been drinking out of without washing for some weeks. Despite the softness of the water here the glass had acquired a vaguely opaque sheen. The water within it, only reaching a third of the way up the glass, looked dirty from the outside but clear from the inside. It didn’t taste fresh but it quenched what it needed to and provided the bare minimum reinvigoration needed to stumble into the ensuite in aid of obtaining more water.
>My senses begun to return to me within minutes and the fogginess dissipated. With that came with regret; not regret of quenching my thirst, that much was welcome, but as the physical aches left the emotional torments surfaced. I was alone. I knew that rationally prior to my acknowledgement of that fact, but it had just seeped in below the skin. I was not merely alone, no, the sensation was accompanied by bitter desolation. I knew I had to do something to alleviate the inspissating agitation coursing through my veins and infecting every fibre of my being, of my creature. Defiant in this is I ventured through the hallway, buzzed my way out through the entrance, and leaned against the dingy granite wall mere yards away, and lit up a cigarette.
>I returned back to my room but not before having a second cigarette for good measure. One is never quite enough, even superking-sized cigarettes. Most people only have the one and then return back to work or whatever it is that they were doing still engrossed in their misery. I much preferred to have two, or at minimum one and a half. Doing so allowed for that itch which infected my throat to be thoroughly scratched. Today, however, I did not have the full two. I stopped halfway through the second and discarded it on the granite gravel below before returning back to my room.

[Anonymous No.23102531]

>>23101815
A retarded guide written by a retarded redditor. Write dialogue that is interesting and fits the setting of your work. Forcing human conversations into arbitrary trope boxes with contrived definitions helps fucking no one to be a better writer.

[Anonymous No.23102533]

Where would be the best place to post stories online to build literally any kind of following to eventually make the leap to self publishing?

[Anonymous No.23102539]

>>23102533
What leap, dumbass? When you post stuff online, you're self-publishing. There's no higher ground there.

[Anonymous No.23102557]

>>23102531
>Write dialogue that is interesting and fits the setting of your work.
That's way too vague and aimless. It does nothing to help you actually do that. While arbitrary trope boxes do suck, yes, they're a decent crutch to lean on at first, before you can really find your voice and break out of said boxes.

[Anonymous No.23102578]

>>23102539
$$$$$

[Anonymous No.23102587]

>>23102557
This is a problem when people who don't read, or have any kind of life, try to write. These moronic puzzle piece solutions are made to circumvent the issue by explaining human existence the way you would explain it to an alien from outer space, by distilling it into a zany picture book of caricatures. But that doesn't turn the ET into man any more than it turns a retard into a good writer. Nobody gets out of those boxes. If they could, they wouldn't need them in the first place.

[Anonymous No.23102594]

>>23102587
You've just started writing so long ago that you forgot what it was like at first.

[Anonymous No.23102621]

>>23102594
Obviously, everything is a struggle at first. In fact, it never stops being a struggle. But there's a world of difference between getting into writing after first reading and studying many, many stories created by others, and trying to forge swords without knowing what is iron, or caring to find out. One way, you rely on your own counsel, which gets only sharper the more you use it. The other way has you always depend on strangers to tell you how to think, and you'll never find satisfaction on that road.

[Anonymous No.23102659]

>>23101265
>Try writing a short story
>It turns into a novella length story
>Send it to friends for feedback
>We're all working adults, so none of them have time to sit down and read what's basically a short book
What do I do bros? I want to start pumping shit out onto Amazon Kindle so I can have some work to my name, but I can't afford to hire a designated editor.

[Anonymous No.23102688]

>>23102659
>but I can't afford to hire a designated editor.
Scout online for some junior literary agents. They're probably more receptive than the more less known ones and more willing to take risks on debut novels, they're probably also more open to allowing in-house editing as default

[Anonymous No.23102691]

>>23102659
>none of them have 3 hours to suffer for a friend
I doubt you're missing anything getting critique from them.

[Anonymous No.23102700]

>>23102449
this is well-written, anon. just don’t use “needed to” twice in the same sentence and you’re good.

[Anonymous No.23102735]

>>23102700
>this is well-written, anon.
ah shit ty anon, means a lot

>just don’t use “needed to” twice in the same sentence and you’re good.
I didn't realise I had so ty for letting me know. I have a bad habit of reusing words and phrases I'd just used in the same/previous sentence(s). I do try to be aware of it but sometimes they slip through.

[Anonymous No.23102897]

>>23101282
Become good enough that I'd actually enjoy reading what I wrote.

[Anonymous No.23102919]

>>23101282
To for once in my life accomplish something

[Anonymous No.23102942]

>>23101282
That enough people read my writing and it inspires them to try and be better people, and mankind thereby avoids the horrible doom of fire and metal that awaits.

[Anonymous No.23102976]

anyone here ever won a writing competition? keep seeing ads on instagram about rando ones that give like thousands of bucks

[Anonymous No.23102991]

>>23101917
Chad

[Anonymous No.23102993]

>>23101282
To be a master of craft and take literature to the next level (and smash mentally ill art hoes along with the way)

[Anonymous No.23103005]

>>23102976
When I was a teenager I entered a poetry competition I came across online. Supposedly I won and was going to be published in a book, for which they wanted £20 so I could be sent a copy. I didn't have the money as, like I said, I was a teenager. Looking back I'm pretty sure it was a low-level scam given I never received another email from them.

[Anonymous No.23103006]

>>23102976
They are scams to sell your data, just like those job listings that never seem to get filled.

[Anonymous No.23103024]

>>23103005
>>23103006

shit that makes sense. imagine trying to scam poor artists of all people lmao. i remember during covid a random lit mag once said they'd publish my work if I paid them $20 for "administration". fuckers went out of print within a month

[Anonymous No.23103034]

>>23103024
Yeah, it's one of the oldest con games, playing on vanity. Takes a new form every decade or so.

[Anonymous No.23103044]

>>23103024
Big publishers have downplayed "vanity press", but with the way things are going, self pub in some form is the way to go.

[Anonymous No.23103069]

>>23102659
We work for whatever you can afford. If you need an editor, hit up

http://www.fiverr.com/matthewg42

[Anonymous No.23103099]

>>23103069
shit mah boi is sick shades and suit

[Anonymous No.23103104]

>>23102449
Way too bland. This entire entry is telling, not showing. I'll provide you with an example of what I would do instead of what you got here.

>Then suddenly, the beeping. Irate. Loud. Far too loud. The infernal machine that delighted in yanking me from my slumber every morning was doing it yet again. With heavy hands I rolled on my side and slapped the alarm clock, stopping the noise.
>One by one my senses trickled back to me, and with them the bothersome pain of a throbbing headache. I thought that I had preempted such malaise by sobering up before bed time, but clearly I was wrong. Again.
>Eager to return to a world without headaches, I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep. Sweet... sleep...
>Then suddenly, the beeping again. I curled my hand slightly to press the button on the clock. There would be no sweet sleep this morning.

I'd go on but you get the point. As far as what I would do for the character's appearance, a mirror is a great way to do that. After this bit I wrote up here, I'd have him look himself over in a mirror. Just don't go overboard.

As far as perceptions and their environment, I find keeping it short and moderately abstract is a great way to write it well.

For example, when describing a town:

>The whole town was little more than a canyon of bricks carved by asphalt riverways, and my house was but a single brick. It took me two whole years before I had actually managed to map my way around this maze of a city. Street by street, shop by shop... What a difference two years can make.

These examples are obviously not perfect as I'm just throwing down the first thing that comes to mind without much editing, but I hope this helps.

[Anonymous No.23103159]

>>23103104
>Way too bland. This entire entry is telling, not showing.
I fully agree, I know I'm not good with the showing-part of writing. But, and I'm not saying this to be snarky or anything, but your kind of descriptive writing (I recognise it was off the cuff) is the kind I really dislike; it's just too much, it's excessive, it's part-way between a novel and an oral screenplay. When reading, if there are too many adjectives I just find myself trailing off tbqh.

[Anonymous No.23103197]

>>23101825
Yeah, it's mostly worthless. It's specifically bad at making things like books which require a long piece of text, an extended timeline, cause and effect, consistent characters, psychological depth, fresh turns of phrase, and overarching structure. Not to mention any sort of message or philosophical themes.

[Anonymous No.23103344]

>>23101825
>this is just sensational news
For now.
AI is still technically in its infancy.

[Anonymous No.23103477]

>>23103104
different anon and i completely disagree with this advice. the example passage you've written reads like royalroad slop.
as a reader, i find lengthy descriptions of common experiences (like waking up) to be dull and overdone. you wouldn't "show not tell" a character taking a shit, because it's a chore to read and adds nothing to either your narrative or characterization.
"show not tell" is an excellent tool, but if you show literally everything, your reader's eyes will start to glaze over. instead, show what matters: the narrator's feelings, perspective, motivation. ask yourself: what do your descriptive passages do for either your greater narrative or the portrait you're painting of your character?

re: appearance, i'm of the opinion that describing a character's looks is unnecessary, unless it's directly relevant to the plot and/or the treatment of the character by society. but if you must describe it, for the love of god, do not write some cliche bullshit where your narrator looks in the mirror and waxes poetic about their eyes and hair. it's corny.


>>23102449
OP, take what resonates with you from both of us, but you've got some pretty solid stuff here. i'd work on your redundancy; read your writing out loud and note which phrases sound repetitive. run it through a grammar checker as well.

as for your request, i'll touch on perspective:
>Most people only have the one and then return back to work or whatever it is that they were doing still engrossed in their misery.
this sentence is awkward. "whatever it is that they were doing" is too vague, and doesn't actually give any insight into the narrator's feelings. i'd write it like so:
>Most people only have the one before returning to their daily mundanities, settling for a temporary balm; the barest chip of an edge off.

but that's my style, and it's your story. my advice here is to convey your narrator's perspective through your writing. how does he feel about "most people"? does he look down on them, considering them boring and monotonous, like bees in a hive? or does he consider himself lesser, and admires others' ability to just take the edge off and persevere, rather than indulging gluttonously as he does?
when writing first person limited, your narrator's opinions and outlook will serve as the driving force for his actions (and by extension, the plot). we're in his head - don't tell us that he does things, but show us why. as the reader learns what makes your character tick, the more real he will seem and the more compelling his narration will be.

[Anonymous No.23103529]

>>23103477
>this sentence is awkward. "whatever it is that they were doing" is too vague, and doesn't actually give any insight into the narrator's feelings.
(OP here)

Personally, I disagree; but, *but* I do see how it may have come off that way. I was trying to convey his indifference to and detachment from others' lives in the most succinct way possible. Your version is definitely more explicit in trying to convey that sentiment tho I admit.

>how does he feel about "most people"? does he look down on them, considering them boring and monotonous, like bees in a hive? or does he consider himself lesser, and admires others' ability to just take the edge off and persevere, rather than indulging gluttonously as he does?
>we're in his head - don't tell us that he does things, but show us why. as the reader learns what makes your character tick, the more real he will seem and the more compelling his narration will be.

Very useful advice ty. Copy-pasting that over to my notes now.

Truth is I don't know who the character is. I have no plot in mind, I don't really even have much of a character outlined in my own head. By and large that excerpt was the consequence of my own stream of consciousness (but with the grammar - a lack of all grammar causes me physical pain). Very much off the cuff.

[Anonymous No.23103639]

>>23103477

Of course. There's a time for showing, and a time for telling. Mine was just an example of what 'showing' could be. Like I said, I just whipped it up in like two minutes.

>>23103159

The best way to get better with it is simply to practice. Once you get the hang of it, you'll start to develop an internal sense of when to tell vs. when to show. I only ragged on your post because it is exclusively telling and nothing more. If you want a good resource, 'The Write Way' is a great a book to learn about not just this, but a bunch of other writing basics.

https://www.amazon.com/Write-Way-S-P-L-L-Preservation/dp/0671526707

But overall, the best rule of thumb for any writing? Variety is the spice of life. It's not that telling and/or showing is inherently bad, but that too much of either makes for dull writing. A healthy variety in all things keeps a story from becoming a slog.

[Anonymous No.23103667]

>>23102621
NTA, and I agree with you.
I can look at something like that about how dialogue is written and I can tie those terms to my stuff, but even without ever hearing of them until now I wrote in those styles naturally.
It is interesting to me, hearing about things I've already done and finding that they are established and I came to them without research.

[Anonymous No.23103800]

I have some ideas I think I want to write about, but I have no idea how to expand just beyond 1-2 sentence ideas... Sometimes I can get a snippet out, maybe several hundred words at most, but it feels very stuffy and "fake". I've been reading a lot my whole life, and lately even tried reading more attentively so I pick up on what things in particular I like, but it hasn't really bore any fruit either. Maybe I'm just not cut out for writing after all.

[Anonymous No.23103878]

>>23103800
You need to think in terms of scenes. Describe place and space, set the scene and then add character action. Give us an example of an idea you're struggling with and maybe we can provide some sort of starting structure.

[Anonymous No.23103971]

>>23101282
I unironically want people to talk about me in the same breath as Homer and Virgil

[Anonymous No.23104091]

>>23103878
I have a guy in a city like cyberpunk. I know where the beginning starts. In a junkyard. I know where the ending ends. Leaving the city to finish business. It's the filler that gets frustrating.
A generic car chase? A generic fight scene? Some random character growth where they attain a new outlook on past regrets.
It's all so boring. I can't think in terms of hollywood or games, I want something more than that. Something that transcends the hero journey.
Or maybe I'm just overthinking shit and people really do want to read the same scenes over and over again. It's worked for marvel movies.

[Anonymous No.23104117]

>>23104091
>Something that transcends the hero journey.
Don't go fixing what isn't broken in the first place.

[Anonymous No.23104137]

>>23103639
>If you want a good resource, 'The Write Way' is a great a book to learn about not just this, but a bunch of other writing basics.
Will look at this ty

[Anonymous No.23104180]

>>23102449

It's tedious and overwritten. You really have nothing to say other than the water wasn't clear and that you'll take two cigarettes? That was worth all those words?

[Anonymous No.23104217]

>>23104180
I should note I was attempting to imitate Houllebecq's style

[Anonymous No.23104304]

how would you write a character that’s woke but not insufferable

[Anonymous No.23104324]

>>23104304
Don't put her in a setting in order to get in a fight. Even woke people can be pleasant in the right circumstance, but you can have things in the setting or brief tells to indicate wokeness. Just don't allow her to have a melty or say anything too stupid.

[Anonymous No.23104331]

>>23104304
>woke
You stop thinking in these retarded /pol/tard terms, and do what you want to do.

[Anonymous No.23104353]

>>23103639
>I only ragged on your post because it is exclusively telling and nothing more
anon >>23103477 again. what do you mean? there are multiple examples of "showing" in the passage. ex:

>My throat was dry and my head fogged
narrator is dehydrated and hungover
>I hobbled to my desk to fetch the glass I’d been drinking out of without washing for some weeks
narrator has felt depressed and apathetic for quite some time, enough to neglect basic self-care
>One is never quite enough, even superking-sized cigarettes
narrator is nicotine-addicted and self-indulgent, smoking without reserve
> Most people only have the one and then return back to work or whatever it is that they were doing still engrossed in their misery
narrator sees himself as separate from society in some way. a feeling of isolation is emphasized throughout the excerpt

considering the context of the scene ("morning routine"-style introductory passage), i would say OP displays a balanced usage of show and tell. that said, i did notice points where OP tells us something and then proceeds to show us the exact same thing - which is more of a redundancy issue, but i understand why it can seem like there's an abundance of "telling". for example:

>Despite the softness of the water here the glass had acquired a vaguely opaque sheen.
>The water within it, only reaching a third of the way up the glass, looked dirty from the outside but clear from the inside.
>It didn’t taste fresh
OP, you've told us that the water glass hasn't been washed for weeks, but you then proceed to show us with a description of the glass and the water inside. we know the glass is nasty already; you let us know the exterior is dirty three times. you have great basics here, though, and the passage can easily be reworded and condensed.

i would probably write it like this - but again, not my story, so take this with a grain of salt. this is just an example of condensed phrasing:
>Once reawakened by the itch in my throat, now intensified tenfold, I hobbled to my desk in search of the glass there: drinkware-cum-decor, misty and opaque from weeks spent unwashed. The water within, while stale, was still clear. It would suffice, for now, as bare minimum rehydration; just enough to stumble into the ensuite for a fresh cup.

once you start to spot redundancies in your writing, you can play around with phrasing, which is a great way to practice descriptive writing and develop your own unique style.

>>23103529
this may be far too much information. i'm bored at work, kek. anyways, good luck, anon. you have quite a bit to work with, and as the other anon mentioned, practice and you will rapidly improve.

if possible, i recommend starting with vague plot outlines or scene ideas. prose practice is great, but it can only take you so far without a sense of your narrative themes. if the narrator is you, that's fine, but compelling prose requires an understanding of what you want to convey through your work.

[Anonymous No.23104375]

Can't figure out what to write today, should I power through or just call it? Been here for about 2 hours

[Anonymous No.23104396]

>>23104375
write about this crocodile, anon. or about crocodile symbolism in history.

power through, unless you have important shit to do (and you'll actually do it instead of procrastinating).

[Anonymous No.23104405]

>>23104304
This is a not terrible answer. >>23104331
If you write someone as "woke" then you'd be writing a caricature, but if I understand the intent behind the question I can try to give another answer.
The MC in the main story I'm writing now could be considered woke because of certain traits.
>respects women more than men by default
>against controlling peoples action
>headstrong on some issues and refuses to see the other side.
But with some context, these traits make sense even if you don't agree with them.
>his lack of respect for men comes from having too many encounters where people in power abuse said power to either pressure, seduce, or outright assault women, and he grew up with three sisters who he is very protective of.
He doesn't hate men, and though his default is less friendly. He has an understanding that his problem is people in power, not men in power, so he holds women to the same standards as men when he finds that they've done something wrong.
>his lack of want to control others comes from losing control himself.
As much as he hates doing it, he is willing to control others for their benefit, he's a hypocrite.
>being so headstrong isn't always good, since sometimes a stubborn refusal actually makes things worse rather than better.
His pushing on some of these issues, despite being good for the greater good, caused push back that hurt a lot of people in the short term, to the point that perhaps if he was more willing to compromise and slowly solve things the total harm would've been lesser.
The important part is that you understand their point of view and aren't afraid to show how they can be wrong without also browbeating characters either way.
Basically, don't make a strawman, make a person.

[Anonymous No.23104420]

>>23104396
I'm touching up a story anon and this is all I've been able to muster in 2 hours. I did do some stuff about love on another chapter but I think I hate it so it's going in to bin in all likelihood.

[Anonymous No.23104508]

I feel like I'm reaching the other end of the dunning kruger effect and getting to the part where I realize how far I am from getting good at writing.
How do you write a character arc?

[Anonymous No.23104589]

>>23104508
Dream model:
Denial: there's nothing I need to change
Resist: I won't change what I may need to change
Explore: okay, what if I change only a little (this results in a positive outcome)
Accept: I do in fact need to change
Manifest: this are the things I do in order to change

This works for any form of intra (or inter) character interactions

[Anonymous No.23104599]

>>23104091
Try not to think of the bulk of a story as filler, and don't think too much about the ending (yet). Think soley about the beginning for now. Who's in the junkyard and why are they there? What do they do there? Do they meet anyone? Does anything happen? Where does that lead? Write the first chapter. Develop the first, then second, then third scene. And keep doing it. It doesn't matter if it's garbage, it's a first draft. Leave elements unfinished for revisiting if you must.

Your characters are the product of their setting, their actions are the result of the actions of others and the plot is the sequence of those actions. Lay them out. Perhaps one of your scenes doesn't focus on a car chase, but a man stumbling around a junkyard searching for something. Marvel movies are drab because they focus on the climax. Their scenes are filler, strining together a convoluted plot to reach a predetermined finale. Whereas a true narrative follows a series of logical scenarios, presenting how characters in a setting would respond to who and what they interact with, all built on cause and effect. Sure, there's going to be some degree of contrivity when writing a story, but how you mask that and how the end product is presented, is where the artistry lies.

[Anonymous No.23104717]

>>23104508
You don't. Most characters are static and just appear and go like actors on a stage. Some play more than one role. Your point of focus refuses to change until the tension builds and an ultimatum comes down from the gods. Change or Die. Then they express how exactly they fail to entirely do so in a kind of interpretative dance that someone narrates after the fact from a position of enlightenment. Then the book hopefully ends because the cleanup after such an event is only so poignant or interesting and everyone affected by it is only so poignant or interesting.

That's the modernist version of the novel that goes back to the greeks and removes a lot of victorian affectation and additions that were beautiful but superfluous.

[Anonymous No.23104722]

>>23104717
I spent my 4 remaining braincells for the day on a shitpost instead of working on my novel. Hope someone learns something from it because I'm headed towards strayan drunk after this.

[Anonymous No.23104760]

Why are so many villains in stories obsessed with immortality?

[Anonymous No.23104768]

>>23104760
It's the only thing someone writing fantasy can relate to. Not a bad reason for villainy, but not interesting when taken so literally.

[Anonymous No.23104771]

>>23104760
One of the chief fears of humanity in any period of time is death

[Anonymous No.23104782]

>>23104760
Imagine if you both believed in an afterlife, especially one that punishes evil people, but you also refused to be a good person for any number of reasons.
You would want to avoid that place of eternal punishment by any means.
Or perhaps you want to stay forever young because you wanted to remain strong.
There is any number of reasons for wanting to live forever.

[Obama No.23104789]

>>23104768
Why can they only relate to that one thing? Sounds like lazy writing to me.

[Anonymous No.23104800]

>>23104789
Writers strive for immortality through their writing. Fantasy writers pretend they had other options like kids.

[Anonymous No.23104825]

>>23104800
The most popular fantasy writers are all married thoughbeit

[Anonymous No.23104862]

>>23104825
Groupie pussy they bagged after they were famous. Only the 70s chads and earlier wrote stories for their kids or just needed to wind down from wwii or nam.

[Anonymous No.23105026]

>>23104760
Striving for immortality is seeking to overthrow the natural order

[Anonymous No.23105056]

I wrote 4 versions of the same thing
Which one do u prefer?
A. The dishonor of motion, of putting your bareness at hest from what whichever new corner of the world will intrude on your surroundings.
B. The indignity of having worlds slushy underparts drizzled over your minds eye.
C.the minds gatemen treasonous allowence for realities kinder scribbling.
D.Reality was a chubby rainbow haired adventure time slashfic writing middle schooler and your perception- the well intentioned humanities teacher who proposed they read some at the school assembly

[Anonymous No.23105066]

I think it's cruel to make people read indulgent word salad without serving them drinks first.

[Anonymous No.23105116]

>>23105056
Only A is decent. The vocabulary and ideas in the others have questionable style. Just my opinion.

[Anonymous No.23105127]

>>23105066
I'll try to explain things in simple words for you.

The natural world follows certain patterns. One of these patterns is that living things die. In fantasy stories especially, these patterns are often treated as laws laid down by God or the gods. Trying to live forever is a way of breaking out of this cycle and rebelling against the law of the gods. The law of the gods is the highest and most just law, so rebelling against it is the most evil act of rebellion.

[Anonymous No.23105128]

>>23105127
Serve some drinks and apps before the salad course, presentation is everything.

[Anonymous No.23105140]

>sex scene
>wow this is great I'm having fun and the characters are really opening up
>she's barely gotten her top off and he's still fully dressed
This is how you sex scene right?

[Anonymous No.23105154]

>>23105140
>sex scene
Unless it's an afgan boy in shawls, some reminiscence of your own childhood, or a show of how empty a pump and dump is when a marriage is over: what's the point?

[Anonymous No.23105162]

I'm gonna go ahead and self-insert as the first person narrator, at least to get the ball rolling.

[Anonymous No.23105416]

>>23104760
it's the ultimate act of cheating

[Anonymous No.23105746]

>>23101282
I want make enough money that I will never have to work and worry about money again.
I want to have fans who read anything I put out in excitement. Not because I relish praise, but because I want others to feel like I do when my autism finds something enjoyable as a target.
Or at least have someone read something I wrote and chuckle to himself and say "hah, that's clever". Like I have done many times.

[Anonymous No.23105786]

>1
>Z silently begged her friend to get up
>2
>He couldn't go out like this
>3
>Not to someone like that man
>4
>So she prayed
>5
>What followed, everyone in that room would remember for the rest of their lives.
>A sound echoed throughout the arena. Like rubber stretching. The source? Lape's seemingly unconscious body. She stared closer, only to realize that he was somehow digging his toes into the slight rubbery covering of the floor.
>Suddenly, he shot up, with a sound almost akin to a plane breaking the sound barrier.
>Within mere moments, every single fighter watching felt it. The difference in Lape, that was.
>Normally, he gave off a somewhat morose air with how he carried himself and acted. Like nothing could faze him, yet instead of it being a result of discipline or stoicism, it was because he was just kind of... Sad.
>But now? Now there was something else about him. This barely constrained feeling of pure unadulterated hate.
>Lape wasted no time. The moment his foe took a stance, he charged forward.
>Within a split second, his opponent was on the ground with what appeared to be a shattered ribcage
>What did Lape just do, everyone wondered.

Dunno why I wrote this lol

[Anonymous No.23105884]

I'm giving up on fiction. It's non-fiction for me now again. Most of my fiction was bits and scraps that combined anime-tier plot bullshit and autistic wayfinding.

[Anonymous No.23106297]

>>23101648
He's a coward, he allows terrible things to befall even his close friends so long as he can keep himself out of danger.

[Anonymous No.23106314]

>>23101282
Writing as an only means of expressing my self, dying alone, in a cabin somewhere, sharing my view of the world.

[Anonymous No.23106493]

Any ideas on redemption arcs? One of the characters tried (and failed) to rape another character. But I wanted him to show up years later and have had a 180 flip and ask for forgiveness. I just don't want it to come off as ham-fisted

[Anonymous No.23106527]

>>23106493
What else can you do but say sorry? It's not like performing some noble heroics will make it less awkward.

[Anonymous No.23106545]

>>23101282
to finish the first draft of my novel
i aim really low, i just wanna be able to say i wrote something people can read. i don't care about getting published or anything, i'd give the pdf for free

[Anonymous No.23106669]

>>23101282
>realistic
Publish one novel and have a few dozen sales
>unrealistic
Become a famous novelist somewhere between Martin, Howard and Wolfe

[Anonymous No.23106798]

>>23101265
I like to tell stories and I want to share those stories with other people.

[Anonymous No.23106810]

I have this pretty cool sequence of events in my head that would make a pretty nice story, except for the fact that I have absolutely no idea as to what the theme is or should be. What lesson the main character should learn from these events that will transpire to them.

[Anonymous No.23106914]

>>23106810
>What lesson the main character should learn from these events that will transpire to them
You should be thinking what is the lesson the reader will learn from those events. Sometimes the main character not learning or changing in any way can be a point of its own.

[Anonymous No.23107088]

>want to write
>have had vertigo for 12 hours
AAAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEE

[Anonymous No.23107260]

>>23101282
>Sustenance for my family on both sides for a thousand generations to come

[Anonymous No.23107261]

>>23101648
He is a moody, melancholy sod, focused solely much on the past and hates what his race has become. He does not hesitate to sacrifice people, despises his father and others in the ruling class because they're lazy degenerates. Has no qualms about burning down houses with people in them. He's also a bit of a brooding edgelord emo

[Anonymous No.23107265]

>>23106493
Marxistically make him work and toil for it and show through his actions that he is redeemed.

[Anonymous No.23107276]

>>23105026
But we're not living innawoods Anon, most of us live in cities. The natural order is found on the savannah.
The cultural answer to the question is
>Immortality is being striven towards in order to come close to God, who is also immortal. One wants to know God, whether he is deemed evil by his peers or deemed just.

[Anonymous No.23107489]

>>23105884
sounds like youre afraid of being genuine

[Anonymous No.23107493]

>>23106493
There's literally nothing wrong with rape.

[Anonymous No.23107496]

>>23105154
>reminiscence of your own childhood
You had sex as a child?

[Anonymous No.23107521]

>>23107496
Statutory sex.

[Anonymous No.23107773]

>>23101265
If I post my writing to YouTube narrated by me, would that be a good way to draw attention to my writings?

[Anonymous No.23107777]

>>23107773
>have to learn to be a narrator on top of being an author

[Anonymous No.23107786]

>>23107777
Hey Quads! And I just realized that I would need good recording equipment and a will to actually write.

[Anonymous No.23107872]

I am worried I am boring my reader to death.

After Mary gave birth to little Lucy in May of their first year of marriage, Lance made an effort to work closer to home, gaining employment in the packaging plant instead of the factory ships. He would awaken long before sunrise, no later than four o' clock. He was not required to arrive so early by his albeit-austere employer—most arrived between the hours of six and seven—but did so because it allowed him to finish all of his work by the early afternoon.

He followed his schedule for home activities with similar exactness, arriving at quarter past three, and fixing Mary and himself some toast with dry meat while asking about Mary's day. Holding Lucy in his arms, Lance would lay on his back, separated from the old oak floorboards by nothing more than a tattered woolen blanket and browned pillow until both were snoring soundly. He refused to let go of Lucy, who fussed very little in her father's arm, even preparing meals and organizing what he could with a free hand. Eventually, matching the descent of the evening sun, he laid Lucy down in her bassinet, pecked Mary on the cheek, and succumbed to the exhaustion of the day.

Mary and anyone else who truly knew Lance attested to the exceptional consistency by which he tended to his family. None would have doubted his ability to persist in the enthusiasm of a young father. Even before he met Lucy or Mary, Lance had a characteristic optimism for life, zealously reporting on his daily activities and sharing his pursuits with any who would listen, though such listeners were hard to find. Lance was slow of speech, actively fighting for meaning in his words through a thicket of stutters and stammers. These made him difficult to understand, though he otherwise spoke with great passion and control of pitch, singing as it were at times. His frequent exhaustion after Lucy's birth seemed to dampen his display, there was no question here, but at home his fervor for life remained as dominant as ever.

Lucy, three months after her birth, began to be repulsed by milk. She and Lance believed this was the result of overfeeding early on, or perhaps a temporary slowing of her growth. Their local doctor, speaking to Mary, dismissed the concerns as "motherly overscrutinization". By early November, however, her belly had swelled, her eyes had yellowed, and her movements delayed, bearing at that point minimal resemblance to their infant. Medical treatments within the last month, despite slowing their development, had failed to eliminate any of her symptoms. Though slow and weak, Lucy seemed to hold to Lance even more tightly in these evenings as her breath crepitated.

[Anonymous No.23107880]

>>23107872
Why worried? It seems very deliberate.

[Anonymous No.23107929]

>>23107872
That's not how albeit works

[Anonymous No.23107983]

>>23107880
Did it not lull you to sleep? Maybe I'm just tired, although I also just had a kid and writing about a baby dying is extremely difficult right now.

>>23107929
Perhaps simply "otherwise austere" should suffice? Do you mean that albeit should be placed between two at-odds characteristics?

[Anonymous No.23108037]

>>23107872
Change "Even before he met Lucy or Mary" to "Even before he met Mary." And make their last name Gilley if you haven't decided on one already.

[Anonymous No.23108052]

>>23101282
I want to become a master of the horror genre

[Anonymous No.23108126]

What's the best place to host an F1 blog?
I like the idea of neocities, but I also know it's a meme site

[Anonymous No.23108148]

character driven stories are so lame and boring
why do most readers say they're good and even better than plot driven stories?

[Anonymous No.23108184]

>>23108148
The best plot driven stories are actually character driven stories with a strong central motivation. "Plot" is the actions that other characters take.
Pure character driven, with no innate inciting incident, are harder to do, since it takes really compelling characters to make them stand out. But I believe that these stories better capture the essence of stories, which is to act as reflections of the human condition.

[Anonymous No.23108199]

>>23101282
I want to make everyone mad

[Anonymous No.23108200]

>>23108184
>>23108148
What a shithole /wg/ has become.

[Anonymous No.23108206]

the hardest part about writing is actually writing

[Anonymous No.23108207]

>>23101282
Finishing the 10-12 books I have started over the last 15 years.

[Anonymous No.23108212]

>>23108206

[Anonymous No.23108215]

[Anonymous No.23108219]

>>23108184
>to act as reflections of the human condition.
holy shit can you be more boring? who the fuck cares? I read books for entertainment not to fap becuz lyfe so hecking hard wahh

[Anonymous No.23108248]

>>23108219
Life is not hard you stupid fucking piece of shit. Life is good, fun, boring, exiting, painful, joyful, horny, chill, complicated, mysterious, clear, and all the I'm betweens.
Unless you have no self respect and consume literal slop pumped from a tube which you know not the source, your favorite stories will definitely comment on the human condition. Because that's what storytelling has been about since the dawn of humanity.

[Anonymous No.23108257]

>>23101265
Tie-breaking round for /lit/'s favorite children's books. Vote here:
https://forms.gle/QuSzQ6KgfGSex9uq7
Related thread: >>23108191

[Anonymous No.23108275]

it's over. god needs to send the flood

[Anonymous No.23108280]

>>23108206
It's not the writing that gets me, it's how to articulate my thoughts onto paper smoothly and piece by piece. Sometimes I can write up a story with no prior thought about it other than a general sense of the plot. Sometimes it's a hard hitting success, sometimes it's a demoralizing failure of work. It doesn't discourage me from writing

[Anonymous No.23108281]

>>23108275
What a strange way to self promote

[Anonymous No.23108285]

Tie-breaking round for /lit/'s favorite children's books. Vote here:

https://forms.gle/QuSzQ6KgfGSex9uq7

Related thread: >>23108191

[Anonymous No.23108286]

>>23108280
That part of writing is the part that gets better the more you practice

[Anonymous No.23108287]

>>23108281
I was trying to decide whether to post my story in AO3's original work section but I decided royal road is probably better lmao

[Anonymous No.23108330]

>>23107276
You are correct according to the modern definition of 'natural order', or 'state of nature'. Trying to progress past the state of nature is not evil, and indeed we see fiction with a modern worldview (mostly sci-fi) where those who seek immortality are not villains.
However, in a classical or medieval worldview, the natural order includes the current political and religious order, which goes something like
God > kings > people > animals
As you said, immortality is being striven towards in order to come close to God who is immortal. But not in order to know God and do His will (which would be good), but in order to take the place of God and escape one's place in the natural order, (which is hubris or evil, depending on the worldview).

[Anonymous No.23108333]

>>23108287
Ao3 is one of the few places on the open internet that's truly "anything goes", since it's run by a non-profit. Honestly there's way, way worse found there than what you linked.

[Anonymous No.23108406]

Do you guys spell it O, O', or OH?

[Anonymous No.23108412]

>>23108406

[Anonymous No.23108570]

>>23108333
I once found a /x/pol/ rant that had around 10 or so about jews, niggers, and beaners.

[Anonymous No.23108721]

>>23101265
I wrote a 1000-sentence paragraph in a month, most of it while standing up. I just finished writing it. We're all going to make it!
>Captcha:P4ST4

[Anonymous No.23108724]

What should I write about?

[Anonymous No.23108730]

>>23108330
Oh yes, I am familiar with the One King under God idea. Thank you for your contribution and clearance of precise wording.

[Anonymous No.23108737]

>>23108730
Not 'clearance', but 'making clear'. I am an ESL.

[Anonymous No.23108744]

>>23108737
Funny enough, when reading works in foreign languages, one comes upon usages of language and turns of phrase that work very well in english. That isn't one of them but I like it when I'm reading El Quixote or something and some odd choice of words is exactly how it should be said in english, but isn't by retarded contemporary speakers.

[Anonymous No.23108765]

>>23107489
Not really. I just don't think my stuff would be very interesting and compelling. I think "driving direction" prose and describing places and things to a T is interesting to me, but all of the examples I can think of are obscure, mostly local, and not very good works as a whole.

[Anonymous No.23108786]

>>23108724
Pooping big butts

[Anonymous No.23108830]

>>23108330
I'm the one you replied to. I'm also familiar with this thesis, as I've experience with both sides of the equation. From practical experience, and from a laymans viewpoint, the work still has to be done: if not by regal authority, then by the people, but danger is into mistaking those who are trying to work themselves out of the state of nature for someone who's trying to be God.

[Anonymous No.23108833]

>>23108744
>Funny enough, when reading works in foreign languages, one comes upon usages of language and turns of phrase that work very well in english. That isn't one of them but I like it.
Kek.
I am aware of the fact that your sentence doesn't end where I added the period. But It's funnier.

[Anonymous No.23108837]

I woke up laughing from a hilarious dream where I was the director of a struggling opera house in England. Someone had sent me a recording of a singer with the voice of an angel, resembling the castrati opera singers of yore. I figured I could put my opera house on the map by being the first one to showcase a castrato in over 200 years, so I travelled to the depths of Siberia, chasing rumours of hidden enclaves of skoptsy, an old orthodox sect whose members would chop their balls off to get closer to god. Would this be a good idea for a book?

[Anonymous No.23108841]

>>23108830
And, to make it more /lit/ and less /his/:
>And Jesus said to Peter: "You savour not the things that be of God, but of men"
I

[Anonymous No.23108847]

>>23108833
Lets call it artistic comedic license, but it shall not encloud the original message.
>t. Anon he/she replied to

[Anonymous No.23108850]

>>23108837
There are natural male sopranos who sing in countertenor today. I'd be interested in what makes it exceptional and what kind of deeper themes are at play. It sounds interesting but it's all about what it's really about, even historical thrillers like A Burnable Book had some meat that made it (only slightly) more interesting than the premise of reading about Chaucer as a detective/spy kind of deal.

[Anonymous No.23108866]

>>23101282
I want to make a tight multi part story that is satisfying and moving. I want it to be the kind of story you want to revisit every once in a while.

[Anonymous No.23108871]

>>23107493
Rape used to mean 'theft', and yes, there's somethinf wrong with theft. Use your conscience.

[Anonymous No.23108880]

>>23108866
>I want it to be the kind of story you want to revisit every once in a while.
I'd like to pick your brain on that as it's something I think about and wonder what makes me go back to certain books, but I don't know where to start.

I don't think it's that cheap Pulp Fiction narrative trickery masquerading as depth where some stoner tells you "you have to watch it twice to get it, man", It's more the Gene Wolfe depth where you have to read it twice because there's a third layer waiting for you when you do. What do you make of that?

[Anonymous No.23108902]

>>23101648
Self-absorbed to a fault
Gives little thought to the opinions or feelings of others. Despite this, is driven by the search of prestige instead of passion.
Doesn't go out of his way to screw people over, but his reckless actions have had dire repercussions for himself & others. Refuses to assume responsibility over this.
Despite coming from humble origins and benefiting from the benevolence of others, shows little empathy for other people in a simmilar situation.

[Anonymous No.23108913]

>>23101816
Literally me except for the dressing subconsciously as a jew part

[Anonymous No.23109063]

>>23108724
Most writers have something to say. Why do you want to write, if you have nothing to say?

[Anonymous No.23109166]

Do any of you anons not care about 'having something profound to say' and just want to write something people like to read?

[Anonymous No.23109178]

>write a fantasy story as my first piece
>ongoing for 2 years now (I stopped for about 6 months at one point)
>earning a couple of bucks a month from it
>got a few chapters added to the backlog
>thinking about using that gap to work on a proper novel instead of continuing to work on my main story
Bros...

[Anonymous No.23109186]

>>23109166
I write what I want to read but that tends to have some small profundity or pith. I think a pleasant, jaunty tale has a place but it doesn't entertain me enough to bother writing it.

[Anonymous No.23109188]

>>23109178
If your current story earns only a few bucks a month and you aren't passionate about it, why are you writing it at all? Move on, friend

[Anonymous No.23109208]

>>23109186
At least in my case, I do try to write something that moves the reader, of course (it's the basis of a good story), but not in any grand or unique way. I don't 'have something to say' that can only specifically be told by me. And I'm fine with that. If that makes sense.

[Anonymous No.23109214]

>>23109188
It's not that I'm not passionate about it, but I'm wondering if it's even worth the time to write something new while I'm getting closer to the ending of my main story.
I would say that my proper novel, despite having a basis in a short story that I've already written, might not even have enough thought to do much with in this exact moment, and I'll just write a couple hundred words before realizing that fact.
It's a matter of decision paralysis, which I also encountered when I started, gave up on, and then went back to the short story that I'd like to base the novel on.
I think I should at least try to do the first chapter of the novel before I go back to the main story.

[Anonymous No.23109220]

>>23109214
I don't see a problem with fleshing out the first chapter if that's where your muse is leading. Just don't get lost during the detour; finish what you start with your main story.

[Anonymous No.23109355]

>>23109178
>>23109214
It has been 13 years Martin, finish your fucking novel

[Anonymous No.23109356]

>>23109166
I want to advocate for the complete and utter dismemberment of the idea of China as a complete nation?

[Anonymous No.23109365]

>>23109355
Sorry, but I have no extended shitting scenes in any story I've written.

[Anonymous No.23109449]

>>23108219
filtered

[Anonymous No.23109539]

>>23108215
I'm the only one posting writing in this thread. Respond fags.

[Anonymous No.23109545]

>>23109539
There's some not-awful stuff in there, but it needs to be less wall of text.
The enter key
is
right
there.

[Anonymous No.23109557]

I'm writing a story where the main character is a Vietnam vet cum sheriff during the 1980s.
What are the chances that someone would get up in arms for using the term charlie?
Obviously somebody is going to be, but whats the over under that enough people bitch that it becomes an issue.

[Anonymous No.23109631]

Are there any erotica publishers that focus on a male audience and take submissions?

[Anonymous No.23109636]

>>23109557
>What are the chances that someone would get up in arms
100%, no matter what you're doing. Fuck 'em. Write what you want.

[Anonymous No.23109644]

>>23109631
>Are there any erotica publishers that focus on a male audience
all of them

[Anonymous No.23109649]

>>23109644
So if I send Avon a harem story they'll publish it? Somehow I doubt that

[Anonymous No.23109680]

how do i make a character still be heroic after making him have a collection of ribbed bad dragon dildoes in a box stashed somewhere, i just couldnt take it seriously almost turns into a comedy

[Anonymous No.23109697]

Why is my deuteragonist always better developed than my protagonist? I don't even know what I'm doing wrong here.

[Anonymous No.23109706]

>>23109697
Do you write your protagonists with certain rules?
You could be constraining yourself, and the more freely written deuteragonists are better as a result.

[Anonymous No.23109707]

>>23109697
You're probably unconsciously trying to make your protagonist "likeable" or "relatable", which may end up with them being generic or boring

[Anonymous No.23109724]

I don't think I'm a bad writer by any stretch, but I do think I am guilty of "overwriting", a concept I have never fully grasped.
I think overwriting can be reduced to two aspects.
1. Writing more than needs to be said, even if it is well written.
2.Using language that does not fit the overall aesthetic.
#1 is whatever , kill your darlings and all that blah blah. #2 is the real challenge.

[Anonymous No.23109739]

>>23109706
>>23109707
I think that might be the problem. I'll try to loosen up in regards to my protag

[Anonymous No.23109810]

>>23109545
>Enter key
Why? I don't understand paragraphs desu. I just keep writing till I run out. Can somebody else go through my writing and do that part?

[Anonymous No.23109845]

is having the villain be a pedophile murderer too disturbing? i plan to have the protagonist realize it later in the story while heavily foreshadowing it. the pedo stalked the protag as a child but the protag never noticed until they remembered as an adult. also i'm probably on a list now for asking this now

[Anonymous No.23109852]

>>23109810
>I don't understand paragraphs
I don't understand how it's possible to not understand paragraphs

[Anonymous No.23109853]

>>23109845
Stephen King literally wrote a book about a pedophile space clown with a child orgy in it. Go nuts.

[Anonymous No.23109873]

>>23109845
I've done worse

[Anonymous No.23109883]

>>23109845
It's boring.

[Anonymous No.23109886]

How long are your writing sessions?
What time frames do you expect of your reader to be immersed in? History? Big long binge reads?
How do you unplug from the ongoings day to day to make your book last the test of time?

[Anonymous No.23109923]

>>23101282
there is no end, the goal is to write
yes, I am highly autistic

[Anonymous No.23109928]

Anyone know a good place to get honest but fair crit on short stories? Have a story done that I don't love but might be good for a few magazines

[Anonymous No.23110020]

>>23109852
They have no well-defined rules.

[Anonymous No.23110071]

>>23110020
A paragraph is essentially one unit of thought. Sentences that can be seen to relate to a particular topic. For example, in >>23108215 you'd want a paragraph break between
>Consider it, my friend, then you might know why some choose silence.
>The words cross his mind again

The first part addresses the reader directly with an idea, and the point of view then switches to "him", which necessitates a paragraph break. Sure, there are no hard rules, and many abuse breaks for stylistic purposes, but this is how my high school teacher explained it to me.

[Anonymous No.23110073]

>>23101265
what would be some good things a female groomer might say to a younger male?

I was intending her to be a shoulder to cry on and to have a nurturing, motherly sort of love that she uses to control him.

So I think stuff like "wow you're really mature for your age" wouldn't work as well

[Anonymous No.23110279]

Twitter bots serve as a great free name generator. I couldn't come up with names as unique and interesting on my own.

[Anonymous No.23110316]

How should I write a genuinely kindly person who's still pretty imposing? I'm a ESL speaker and don't really know how to translate the personality to english.

[Anonymous No.23110325]

>>23110073
grooming only works on people who are vulnerable to manipulation. either they are too naive or they lack stability which makes them needy. a groomer fills in the hole in their target's life and isolates them from everyone else so the target can't see the groomer's intentions. then the groomer negs the target to make them insecure and prevent them from leaving

[Anonymous No.23110400]

>>23109697
My deuteragonist is a stand-in for the antagonist. Same thing happened to me. I started giving her more POV and realized how much I liked her and that her situation was more complex than I first imagined. I say if you notice this, showing the character more may enrich the story.

[Anonymous No.23110418]

I want to start writing short stories for fun (but also to be able to articulate myself more accurately)

I have trouble deciding between writing in my native tongue or English. I feel like I'm just as proficient in English as I am in Norwegian (that's not to say I'm a master in either) and I feel more comfortable writing fiction in English.

Should I just get over it and start writing in Norwegian? Or could you still see success writing English literature despite it being your second language if you just read enough and write enough?

[Anonymous No.23110431]

>>23110418
Write in the language you feel is the better read. You can translate later, if you want to.

[Anonymous No.23110439]

stop writing gay things

[Anonymous No.23110442]

It's insane how important sleep is for anything creative. I can still handle work mostly fine, but I legit can't get a single word out on the paper if I've slept for less than 6 hours.

[Anonymous No.23110507]

>>23110325
>negs
Hmm I'm not sure if I like that.

But that point about filling a hole is good.

[Anonymous No.23110521]

>>23109680
This, my friend, came out of the archive. It symbolizes the 'boon' part of Campbell's Hero's Journey. This was a widely adapted meme back in its day. You can turn the ribbed bad dragon dildoes into something that helps the character, the hero, defeat the actual dragon. Usually, with dildoes into play, the dragon (the adversary) is the inner working of lust and isolation. In order to combat this, the protagonist could for example use a ribbed dragon dildo and transform it into something that is useable for all people, say, a tool with which to garden or defend oneself, and contribute to humanity, thereby overcoming the inner dragon.

[Anonymous No.23110528]

>>23109680
>>23110521

Or, lets try a different approach: the hero turns the collection of ribbed bad dragon dildoes into an art object, using his drive to create for art brainly instead of penile. He overcomes his bodily instincts, which previously were to coom, and now is an artist.

[Anonymous No.23110627]

>>23109886
I lose track of time when I write, thát's how much I like to write.
Reading the clock is mathematics, writing is language. They sometimes overlap, but they don't neccesarily always overlap.

[Anonymous No.23110631]

>>23108215
One of the tendencies that I found out about writing is this:
>Nobody will say that you're doing well, but you'll get paid for it.
I found it a good piece of text, but I am a nobody. It's very apt in describing the natural.

[Anonymous No.23110680]

Then the writer said

Is not the words that are smart

[Anonymous No.23110750]

How would you have a character describe their backstory to another character? The setup is that they’re in a bar and a friend asked her to explain WTF her problem is. I see three ways of doing this. 1) Have an extended dialogue sequence between the two. It’s an option that doesn’t interrupt the narrative flow, but I think it would be clunky. 2) Tell, don’t show it. More like an extended narration of what she tells her friend (no dialogue, limited description). 3) Write a flashback chapter (almost like she’s reliving the experience at that point). I think this would be the most disruptive way of doing it, since there hasn’t been a “flashback” anywhere else in the book.

[Anonymous No.23110766]

>>23110279
For me its Japanese Engrish games

Good fiction I tell ya

Jimothy Jimbleberts
Stanathan Daniels
Long John Johnston
Rich Dickinson
Dick Buttkiss
Anthony McHookermeyer
Samuel Stankoven
Juan Obeso
David Delgado

For dogs:
Doge
Dogue
Dogger
D'guerre
Donger
Dongérre
Nonger (peak chewing)
Donguito chiquito
Nonguito ninguito
Chonker
Chonkgurt (very fat dog)
Gogger
Gongurt
Gongérre
Gonger
David Goggins
Dogert Doggerson

[Anonymous No.23110819]

>>23110680

[Anonymous No.23110851]

>>23109631
isn't erotica mostly a self published scene anyways? in fact I'm nearly certain it is lol

[Anonymous No.23110858]

Do you guys have any recommendations of books or academic papers on character and character voice?

[Anonymous No.23110896]

Do you ever freak out because you realize that you fucked up

[Anonymous No.23110921]

>>23110896
Nope, I simply make good decisions

[Anonymous No.23111002]

>>23110921
then why are you here?

[Anonymous No.23111009]

>>23110921
how do you make good decisions? I would say this is my biggest issue

[Anonymous No.23111022]

>>23111009
Write more. It takes intuition to manage a project like a novel. Once you have an approach you are comfortable with, you can make more manageable tasks in order that help you the most. Don't try to take on too much per draft if you are new.

[Anonymous No.23111024]

>>23111002
To learn from the accomplished and successful authors of this esteemed general, of course

[Anonymous No.23111029]

>>23110851
It seems to be. My problem is that I'm terrible at self-promotion and I'm really done with self-publishing, it just goes nowhere when you can't sell yourself.

[Anonymous No.23111065]

>>23111024
but there aren't any successful authors here

[Anonymous No.23111077]

The words are slaves to power

The secret exists between words and action

[Anonymous No.23111173]

Has anyone read People in My Neighborhood by Hiromi Kawakami?
It's a collection of semi related bite sized stories (just over 1k words per story typically) in a surreal realistic fashion. It's very comfy and pretty well received, at only ~36k words.

If I made my debut novel in a similar style and length, would publishers accept it? She was already a prize winning author when she published people in my neighborhood, so even though it was well received I'm worried a publisher wouldn't accept my theoretical short book. I'll write it regardless of the answer, but it'd still be nice to get it published.

[Anonymous No.23111201]

>>23110073
>wow timmy I love it when you pwn those noobs on halo 2

[Anonymous No.23111206]

>>23111024
>the accomplished and successful authors of this esteemed general
baka desu senpai

[Anonymous No.23111214]

>>23110750
Do you want us to shit your shit for you or something? This place is pathetic.

[Anonymous No.23111284]

>>23108215
Worthless gibberish.

[Anonymous No.23111306]

>>23111065
There’s Gardner, but because you people are so jealous of him you’ve basically banned discussion of his work.

[Anonymous No.23111309]

>>23111306
No. The only successful person on here is Trailer Trash Anon.

[Anonymous No.23111314]

>>23110750
Do you want us to write it for you, too? Fucking loser.

[Anonymous No.23111337]

>>23111306
No one is jealous of you, Frank. You're a sadcringe lolcow who has no life and lives in a gay studio apartment your mommy and daddy bought. Anyone can download your sad excuse for books from https://files.catbox.moe/d9sukc.zip and see the truth.

[Anonymous No.23111352]

I want to know if this is acceptable. It's past tense.

"Thank you," she said, stepping out from behind a slot machine.


Do I need to write it as "she said and stepped out" instead? Because I feel like the first one suggests she is speaking while moving and the rewrite suggests she spoke then moved.

[Anonymous No.23111361]

>>23111352
Does it really matter if she said "thank you" while stepping out from behind the slot machine, or just before?

[Anonymous No.23111370]

>>23111309
I haven't seen him on /wg/ in literal ages, so I wouldn't call him a /wg/er

[Anonymous No.23111379]

>>23111361
In this case, no. If this was a tighter action sequence with a man slashing a sword? Then it might. I'm trying to understand the grammar at play here.

[Anonymous No.23111383]

>>23111352
It's correct usage of past tense but yes it does suggest she's speaking while moving.

[Anonymous No.23111436]

This anon here: >>23107872
I just spent an hour watching and reading stories about taking care of lost children/babies and it has just about broken me. Tell me, if a couple were to lose a baby, and upon having a second one years later, the experience of having another kid brought these emotions back to such an extent that one of the parents, specifically the father, would break and leave? I need to introduce a catalyst that causes the father to abandon his family but also avoid disgusting the reader towards him. So, hopefully providing him with a more sympathetic reason that still doesn't justify the behavior

[Anonymous No.23111443]

>>23111379
In that case, yes, it does imply that she's saying it as she's stepping out from behind the slot machine.

[Anonymous No.23111467]

>>23111370
theres no reason to stay once the money starts coming in. besides, most of you havent finished anything and refuse to expand beyond this site

[Anonymous No.23111493]

>>23111467
I've already started to expand through networking, but I don't know if I could leave here for good. Maybe /wg/, but not /lit/ or otherwise. Lord knows I've tried.

[Anonymous No.23111540]

A handful of political extremists carried out a terrorist attack on my nation and killed thousands. They would have killed my dad as well, who worked in Tower 7, had it not been evacuated and fallen under questionable circumstances.

A very wealthy multi-millionaire tech entrepreneur in Vancouver employed me as a writer for some years, paying well enough and taking me out of the ghetto and into this modest house on the edge of the forest. We met by the virtue of my labor, quickly climbing the ranks of the corporate ladder.

After moving here, he commissioned me to write him a book on investing in energy derivatives offered by the commodities sector of financial markets. I later learned that it was his intention to become a billionaire by profiting on the spike in oil prices caused by the invasion of Ukraine. Already having a background knowledge in advanced financial derivatives, I began to study the oil markets to research the book.

I began with the oil giants of North America, the empire built by John D. Rockefeller that is Standard Oil. Charting the development of the oil market, I studied the rise of the oil giants and the discovery of oil in the Middle East, in Iran, by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which would become British Petroleum. During this time, we also sold millions in stock in independent wildcat oil operations in West Africa on the tail of Royal Dutch Shell.

The things that I would discover in the course of writing this book would change my life forever.

[Anonymous No.23111558]

>>23111540
>They would have killed my dad as well, who worked in Tower 7, had it not been evacuated and fallen under questionable circumstances.
>Tower 7 ... evacuated and fallen under questionable circumstances
Hmmmmmm.

[Anonymous No.23111566]

>>23111540
cool it with the antisemitism

[Anonymous No.23111595]

>>23111540

Studying the history of these derivatives, the authoritative texts on the market, the prices history itself, I discovered something:

The governments of the world were inciting wars for crude oil markets and lying to the people via the mass media to justify them. The companies I worked for, and the companies they worked with, were openly pushing the war in Ukraine in the media while secretly profiting on them.

These were people who praised 9/11 for its effect on gold prices, who incited endless slaughter for billions in the financial markets, who exchanged the blood of my Christian brothers and sisters for lines and numbers on a screen that filled their bank accounts. My labor froze as obsession developed. I depended on this man to pay the necessities of my life, but I could not obey him.

I was undergoing a spiritual transformation that froze my labors. Praying incessantly for mercy, weeping and shaking in ecstasy, obsessing over the holy scriptures. Trying to resolve this internal contradiction that I depended on to sustain the basic necessities of my life. As a Christian, I sought, I needed, to understand these people in the Middle East. So I befriended some Muslims and began an intense study of Islam, as well as Shia Islam specifically.

Eventually, I reached a breaking point. I wrote a long diatribe to my employers and quit. Soon after, I was threatened with eviction. As years of my labor and experience were now rendered moot by this complete inversion of life, I went to the labor office and sought to survive by hard, unskilled labor. At the same time, I began to propagate anti-government propaganda against the same zionist establishment that had employed me.

To do my best to expose their crimes against my Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East by this unholy union of state and corporate power, as well as to propagate a movement of armed resistance against it in conjunction with the anti-government movement sparked by the war veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

During my labors, I would make two new friends. One, a black Sunni Muslim and federal informant, working under cover as a road worker. The other, a redneck war veteran from Iraq and Afghanistan, working as a truck driver.

[Anonymous No.23111602]

>>23111595
>>23111540
Is this going to be a novel or a short story? This is a lot of info all at once.

[Anonymous No.23111614]

>>23111602
agree. exposition dumps are a sign of not having organized a story beforehand and writing as you go

[Anonymous No.23111659]

>>23111595

These war veterans, disillusioned by the zionist betrayal to the US military and the American people that was the post 9/11 wars, had incited an anti-government movement by utilizing the 2nd Amendment right to arms and militias in a revival of the Patriot revolutionary movement of 1776 that birthed the nation and the US military itself.

In their eyes, revolution was a means to right the wrongs of the post-9/11 wars, redeem themselves and the nation itself, and liberate the USA, no, the world, from the power of zionist domination. Immediately, I was inspired. What I saw in this growing, rag tag band of rebels was great potential. In some ways, particularly the Christian anti-government militias in the USA, were inspired by the Mujahideen they had faced in battle in the Middle East. A sort of bloody respect between warriors and sworn enemies, ratified by their legal defenses of their right to exist in the Supreme Court.

Deep in some warm Summer night, I was hit by a flash of inspiration and began to write incessantly the beginnings of a new book, sitting outside in my backyard. In the traditions of guerrilla authors, I would write a guerrilla war book that would help transform this movement into a serious, deadly, professional, and successful revolutionary protracted guerrilla struggle against zionist federal government of the United States. The title of this book, still in progress, is to be published anonymously as this: Advanced Guerrilla Warfare.

Scraping through the trove of CIA documents released from Osama's Abbottabad Compound following the legendary SEAL Team Six raid, I'd discover another dark secret: The Afghan Mujahideen had acquired their IED recipe from Western intelligence to used against Western joint occupation forces. By no coincidence, by the designs of God, my redneck veteran brother in Christ had been traumatized by an IED ambush during his tours of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I began to ask myself: What had allowed these barefoot Mujahideen to triumph over the most powerful war machine on the planet?

Joining this holy crusade against the zionists as a Patriot, I realized that we must answer this question to do the same.

[Anonymous No.23111676]

>>23101648
He's a lazy piece of shit college zoomer that is being forced by circumstance to step up and be proactive after getting saddled with a surrogate daughter.

[Anonymous No.23111734]

>>23111540
>>23111595
>>23111659
back to /pol/ with you
also, it's no secret we're ruled by a global plutocracy. we have been for thousands of years. democracy is a sideshow.

[Anonymous No.23111803]

>>23111659

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was an American architect of German descent who coined a since-corrupted phrase, "God is in the details." It means that when doing something, especially something for God, it is very important to pay attention to the smaller details and to complete the bigger picture. If you are going to do something, do it thoroughly and take care of every important detail to ensure it is successful.

Equipped with an understanding of the war, its hidden motives, the perspective of its commanders and fighters, a religious understanding of Islam, an intense study of guerrilla warfare, and an IED recipe that has since been committed to heart, I reached a conclusion on the outcome of the war.

The Afghan Mujahideen had utilized a form of protracted guerrilla struggle modeled after Mao's resistance against the Japanese called protracted warfare down to a T. They had utilized the landscape, a sympathetic population, surprise attacks, and the more modern innovations of remotely radio detonated IED mines like their Tunisian counterparts, as well as guerrilla snipers like the Irish Republican Army. It followed the exact three phases of protracted war theory, culminating in a strategic reversal deep in the rural mountain outposts and towns.

These are the details, and God is in the details, but the bigger picture was this:

These were a people motivated by faith in God to struggle and struggle until the struggle was won.

I was reminded of the Appeal to Heaven and the Christian ministers that had incited the American Revolutionary War. If one struggles for the poor and oppressed, in accordance with faith, you can't defeat a people like that. They will never run out of fighters, their morale is infinite. If you strike one down, five rise in his place in indignation. They occupy the physical high ground of the mountains, but they also occupy the moral high ground in the hearts and minds of the people they depend on.

I realized this: If we are to defeat the zionists, redeem this nation, and end the zionist slaughter of our Christian people in the Holy Land, we must also carry out a protracted guerrilla struggle in the name of God. Not out of hatred, not out of bitterness, but motivated by a great and overwhelming love. Love for our land, love for freedom, love for our people, for our future, and a love for justice. God is love, as it is written in the holy scriptures.

It may seem a contradiction, how can you march through the mountain forests with a rocket launcher to do battle for love? When you realize that we struggle against a godless people who hurt children, who kill the little ones, you realize that war can be waged in the name of love. That is, in the name of God.

It will not be easy, it will not be quick, but I believe in the final victory of the American people over the godless zionist oppressor.

Not for some special weapons, tactics, or IED recipe. But for one simple and immutable fact:

We struggle for the glory of God.

[Anonymous No.23111905]

[Anonymous No.23111938]

>>23111803
>study conspiracies for years
>turns out it the jews
>tfw
many such cases

[Anonymous No.23111941]

>>23111905
This is from a suicide note, I'm guessing. Real or fictitious?

[Anonymous No.23111943]

Schizo hours.

[Anonymous No.23111967]

>>23101648
he's a murderer

[Anonymous No.23111981]

>>23111943
they'll call you a schizo, but they'll never say you're wrong

[Anonymous No.23111993]

>>23101648
My protagonist has a terrible fear of blackmail, because it made him commit crimes in the past. This makes the conflict in the story difficult for him because anything that remotely resembles blackmail to him he avoids, no matter how good it appears.
>>23111981
I don't necessarily think you're wrong, as I am an anti-intellectual (as in I feel logic isn't necessary when dealing with known liars) and a schizo-sympathizer. I believe some strange things myself, enough to be called crazy.

[Anonymous No.23112134]

[Anonymous No.23112141]

[Anonymous No.23112143]

>>23112134
>Will of Live
Anyway, I read about a third of it, skimmed the rest.
It didn't hold my attention, a lot of telling about things, but I don't care about what those things are, because I can't relate them to anyone or anything which gives me a reason to care.

[Anonymous No.23112157]

>>23112141

[Anonymous No.23112162]

>>23112143
ty

[Anonymous No.23112164]

>>23111734
>back to /pol/!
This board is all cross users from /pol/ kiddo.

[Anonymous No.23112268]

>>23085992
Haven't posted in a week, but I've still got it! I've got a firm majority of the story done now, and already know what I want to do with the rest. I'm very confident I'll finish this thing now. Editing to a top-quality standard and getting published are another matter...I think if I get 50 rejections, the plan will be to throw it on Amazon and include on query letters for my next book that I have already completed one novel.

>>23101282
Large, sprawling fictional universe, a la Discworld. I started developing this book's setting 2.5 years ago, and it's a springboard for any number of stories. This novel is really more of practice for when I start doing the primary story arc as a trilogy (Will likely start that either after this one, or with another side story in between). Absolute worst case scenario is that I end up with several self-published fantasy novels in a few years' time, which even if they sell poorly, is pretty cool.

>>23101539
I relate to this in a lot of ways, although I have about eight ready to go, and could probably keep telling stories in my main setting forever. It feels like something broke within me on the new year, and now I'm ready to write, and write, and write.

>>23101815
You want to write perfect dialogue, since realistic dialogue, with all its pauses and filler words, is implied.

>>23101825
Machines cannot create anything new. Besides, what would be the point of AI-written novels? Movies and video games, I could almost see a case, if AI were all it's cracked up to be. Gameplay and cinematic visuals are the real selling points there, not the writing. With novels, you, the reader, are trying to peer into the mind of the author. If there's no mind there, why not just watch a movie?

[Anonymous No.23112330]

>>23101282
I want to make enough money to buy a cabin in the middle of Montana, some land to garden and go innawoods on, and a Starlink sub.

[Anonymous No.23112335]

>>23112330
How much is that anyway?

[Anonymous No.23112362]

>>23111981

[Anonymous No.23112369]

>>23112164
not me. /pol/ is all dupes, thinking they know what's actually going on, believing they have a chance of changing it, when all the while the thresher grows ever closer.

[Anonymous No.23112447]

>>23111337
he couldn't even do antisemitism successful
he's that much of a goddamn inert loser
no wonder his parents sold the house and moved to Florida. i'd suggest his mom & dad move to the Moon but Gardner would probably follow them there and fuck that up too

[Anonymous No.23112452]

>Write what you know"

But i "know" nothing? Why is this such common advice and what do you do when you have about 0 life experience?

[Anonymous No.23112457]

>>23112452
You either get a life and figure out what matters to you in a very deep sense, or give up a silly dream you have no aptitude for. Otherwise it's like trying to play music when you can't hear that notes are different pitches.

[Anonymous No.23112466]

>>23112457
All im ever going to do is work a dead end job. Is it reasonable to write about things and experiences "you dont know" if you do enough research?

[Anonymous No.23112465]

>>23112452
You are selling yourself short. Brainstorm more carefully about you background. Even if you haven't been all around the world, you have probably had some intense feelings in your life. If you explore that, it's your backbone of what you can sculpt a story around. That's where the creativity comes in.

[Anonymous No.23112471]

>>23112335
No idea; I always figured it'd be something to look into once I actually managed to sell something.

[Anonymous No.23112475]

>>23112466
Yes, if you do research and use your imagination it's enough to write the story you want, don't listen to that anon. Just make an earnest attempt and learn from mistakes.

[Anonymous No.23112481]

>>23112466
I'm writing about
>that realization when you realize everyone you ever knew is fucked and full of demons, including yourself
>how teenagers are literal fucking clowns and rendering that in XIV century improvisational street comedy is more interesting than the reality
>what happens when you try to do the right thing AND get your dick wet at the same time
and a bunch of other mundane shit that consumes me. All from personal experience. Some of it is going to be tarted up, but honestly, I have to dial a lot of it back to be believable.

[Anonymous No.23112499]

>>23112475
Ty
>>23112481
I notice a lot of my characters and stories have to do with isolation and depressed dudes in their 20s working graveyard shifts with some horror elements. I think a horror story with somebody who doesnt rly care whether they live or not is interesting.

[Anonymous No.23112543]

>>23111173
Bump :-)

[Anonymous No.23112561]

>>23112499
In a sense, the plot and genre are just set dressing that support the theme. Once you find a strong theme that you personally know (what they mean by write what you know), the rest falls together.

An experience that stood out for me was taking a creative writing class in community college. You had the expected shitwit 19 year olds who don't know shit about shit, but because it's community college, you also had fuckups, weirdos and foreigners and those were the ones who quickly learned how to write from what they knew. They came with experiences and a kind of moral compass that your average asshole lacks entirely.

Writers are mostly boring, but that's why they write from the point of view of narrators who are also boring compared to the kind of people they end up surrounded by. It's called drug seeking behavior and back in the day, you had to go and socialize with other fucked up weirdos to score drugs.

[Anonymous No.23112657]

>>23112447
He waited until antisemitism was a mainstream position within the Democrat party, when it was no longer edgy, but positively normie. He's either a conformist coward, or incredibly stupid. Maybe both.
And so his parents deposited Frank in a garishly-decorated 540 sq. ft. studio apartment on the 38th floor, then left the state? BWAHAHAHAHA wonder if any of his family is still in contact. Based on how he acts here, I doubt it.

[Anonymous No.23112662]

>>23112141
>>23112157
Good lucid writing. Keep it up.

[Anonymous No.23112663]

I've been working on this for the last five years and I'm almost done with my second to last draft. I was at 40k words about a month ago. Almost there.

[Anonymous No.23112665]

>>23112164
Wrong, I am from /a/

[Anonymous No.23112668]

>>23112452
In the old days, writers were people who went out into the world, lived life, then returned from their adventures to write about them and the people they met. They weren't homebodies who fapped and scrolled all day long. You've never striven for anything in your life, and now you think anyone should be interested in what you have to say? Now the big publishing houses only take books written by woke intersectional types, but guess what, it isn't working for them.

[Anonymous No.23112672]

Does getting institutionalized for a period of my life count as a "unique experience" or no

[Anonymous No.23112678]

>>23111941
It's from a story I'm writing about a man who gets obsessed with legends of gorillas and finally goes to Africa to search for them and gets sad when they turn out to be just boring old animals like everything else.

[Anonymous No.23112700]

>>23112663
congrats anon. keep it up.

[Anonymous No.23112702]

>>23112662
thank you very much anon

[Anonymous No.23112704]

>>23112672
given that most people don’t experience that, I would say objectively yes.

[Anonymous No.23112730]

>>23112668
>fap
>scroll

I read mostly

[Anonymous No.23112733]

>>23112672
Do you have anything new to say about it, over and above something like "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey?

[Anonymous No.23112736]

>>23112730
Not really any better. You don't have life experience; you read about other people's life experiences, or fiction derived from that. The best you'll be able to do is regurgitate what others have already thought.

[Anonymous No.23112742]

>>23112736
I get that I should get out more and shit but I'm such a pussy I can barely talk to people. I'm going back to school soon so I hope something changes. I want to make up for the lost time in my teenage years but idk maybe that's a cope

[Anonymous No.23112748]

>>23112733
My experience wasn't anything like that. I went there when I was 13 and then a second time when I was 15. It was kind of like school. It just made me more depressed than I already was because I found out the other kids had horrible shit happen to them like rape and horrific abuse while I was just sad, weird, and lonely. It made me feel like a bad person for taking up a bed someone who needed it more could use. Even in the psych ward I didn't fit in.

[Anonymous No.23112762]

>>23112736
Philosophers were able to push boundaries by synthesizing new ideas when they had the inclination that present ideas were not correct.
Anon is in the same situation. If his life doesn't fit the reality that is shown to him in lit, then he will find a way to write something new if he really cares about it.

[Anonymous No.23112763]

>>23112742
At least you realize you need to change. All by itself, that puts you in the top 5% of /wg/.

[Anonymous No.23112966]

>>23112452
You probably do have something that you know.
I'm 24, but I was crippled at 15, hardly get out, and I grew up and presently live in a rural area.
I can use those experiences to write about rural places, about farm work, being Mennonite, forests, construction, butchering, and so on.
So, what could I use this for?
Mennonite? Well, any religious upbringing can be used to write about religion, real or fictional.
I got crippled, so I know what it is like to live in extreme pain, day in and day out, to be strong then become weak in a sudden event outside of your control.
That weakness and pain that I've had for almost a decade taught me about depression, the real kind, where you stare at your shotgun and think about blowing your brains out, or stepping out on the roof and just jumping down head first, or go down to the creek and just get into the water, never coming back up, but you stop yourself because you don't want to burden your parents, so you hope that you just die in your sleep from whatever is hurting you so much.
In the one story I'm writing, my MC has an intense desire for freedom, which comes from my own feelings like my will has been subverted by the fact that even if I wanted to, my prospects in life are cut down a shitload by my condition.
I have a lot of violence in my story, and that comes from personal experiences, such as getting MRSA which caused my fingernail to fall off because a pus sack grew under it, and my aforementioned butchery, which has means I've actually killed things and I know what cutting things up feels like.
In my crippled state and lack of income, I won't seek out a relationship, though I do want one, it goes back to the whole not wanting to be a burden thing, which hey, maybe that's just me coping.
So, I observe people, and I think about who they might be, what my life would be like with them.
Obviously I've never been a werewolf who watches a jogger, kills her abusive boyfriend, then tries to date her.
But, I know what it's like to watch people, I have sisters so I know what it's like to be protective over them.
I once over heard my father talking with my younger sisters, and he mentioned that one of my sister's boyfriends beat her, and he didn't tell any of us boys because he was worried one of us might actually kill the guy.
Now, to be fair, my first thought was to do that, so he might've been right, though it could've also just been an intrusive thought because he mentioned the possibility.
Basically, you can recontextualize what you've experienced and apply that to traits and themes for a story.
By the length of my post and that, to me, it seems a little ranty, I also know what it's like to not get enough sleep and for my mind to not feel right.

[Anonymous No.23113062]

The world passed the Turners on, indifferent to their suffocating grief. With bills continuing to arrive for the home and treatments, Lance was required to return to work immediately following the week of Lucy’s death. The spring in his step was gone. He showed up to work along with his coworkers and would leave for home no sooner than six o’ clock. Meanwhile, Mary had grown completely detached through the vicissitude. She wept constantly and, in her sleep, howled raucously. Exhaustion eventually dampened these displays to a whimper, which then gave way to barrenness. So extreme was this change in her countenance that it prevented even the slightest display of sullenness or levity. Her eyelids were weak and colorless, and her cheekbones had sunken to give way to age. With little more than a stare and a nod she would greet him upon arrival, seldom sharing more than a dozen words in what little time was left in the evenings. The barrenness of his home, once providing a warm reception and responsibility to the husband-father, seemed almost to spit out its former patriarch. The meat he purchased would spoil, and the clothes he purchased would remain unworn.

[Anonymous No.23113321]

>>23112742
I was a shut-in as a teenager and young adult, started going out mid 20s. You can catch up. Secret strategy - go to graduate seminars at your university. Student life for older people.

[Anonymous No.23113397]

"You think you can win this fight? Even with your speed, you're no match for me. I am the
Ultimate Life Form. You are just an oversized rat."
Sonic tries to get up, but collapses back down.
"You've always been just a little rat. When I first saw you, you were a helpless little rodent
being dominated by the evil doctor. Then, you were just another rodent being dominated by
the military. Now, you're just a little rodent without any luck. You are no hero, hedgehog. You
are a selfish creature with no real ambition or hope."
Shadow takes another step forward. He looks down his nose at Sonic, looking at the pained
hedgehog.
"Your only purpose in life is the satisfaction of your base desires. You're a rabid dog with
only instinct to guide you. And when your rabies runs its course, you'll die like all dogs do."
Sonic looks up at Shadow with fury in his eyes.
"You'll pay for what you did to my friends, you sick monster. I'll give you the justice you
deserve. I'll send you down to the lowest hell. I'll make you hurt like I do, for the rest of
eternity!"
Sonic begins to pull himself up with his hands, but stumbles and collapses.
"You think you can kill me? I am beyond your pain, hedgehog. I am the end result of
hundreds of years of scientific research, distilled into a form stronger than any toxin, any
drug, any other weapon of destruction ever created. I am the perfect killing machine."
Shadow the Hedgehog says. "And you? You are only a disease, and I am the cure."
Sonic knows he can't give in, not when he has to avenge Amy and the others. He looks up at
Shadow with pure anger in his eyes.
"Never compare yourself to me, Shadow the Hedgehog. I am a hero. And heroes don't show
fear. They show courage. That's what good people do. They don't run away, because that just
makes the bad people stronger. They fight back, and they win. That's how freedom is won.
You're nothing but a coward, and your so-called superiority is an insult to all hedgehogs
everywhere. Now die!"

[Anonymous No.23113505]

>>23101282
To have some external gratification of my thoughts, to add a single small stone towards my direction of thinking onto the scales of culture.

[Anonymous No.23113536]

>>23101282
To make something that I am proud of.

[Anonymous No.23113979]

>>23113621
>>23113621
>>23113621

[Anonymous No.23113982]

>>23112762
But did these philosophers have any effect on the outside world? Or was their work only of interest to other shutins like themselves? These days, people with philosophy degrees either have to become professors, or work in a completely unrelated field (e.g. middle management, law, or politics).