ITT POST WRITING ADVICES

[Anonymous No.23252951]

[Anonymous No.23252964]

Accepting that you are not a genius with such immense intrinsic talent that you never have to try, either commit to practicing or go do something else.

[Anonymous No.23253019]

>>23252951
My brother is a published writer, short stories and now his first novel... And he doesn't go on /lit/. I have tried to get him to check it out, but he's too busy with work (he's a college professor) and writing his next novel which his publisher's contract obligates him to write. So that might be a clue...

[Anonymous No.23253050]

Just read On writing.

[Anonymous No.23253168]

>>23252951
Firstly, get disciplined and actually WRITE. Stop reading about writing, stop making threads asking for writing advice. It's all procrastination. Timers are helpful. Set one and write for one hour a day, moving up to two, then three, then four. With writing, learning by doing is the only - I repeat, THE ONLY - way.

Secondly, be prepared to write dogshit before you write anything good. This phase may last years. (Or forever, in which case writing may not be for you.) As they say, writing is rewriting. As a beginner, you don't yet comprehend how much damn writing being a WRITER actually entails. Get used to the volume. Don't expect first drafts to be stylistically nice; just get it out of your brain and onto the page, vomit it all out, and don't worry about style. Sometimes a passage will come out great on your very first try, but not usually. Go back and rewrite everything. Do it as many times as it takes for you to be satisfied with the final result. (For reference, Tolstoy wrote 9+ drafts of everything he did. That's a lot of fucking writing, by hand at that.) Enough months and years of doing this over and over, writing and rewriting, writing and rewriting... eventually your dogshit will get better, and you'll start being pleased with what you've written, AND it'll take less time. Be patient.

Thirdly, aside from writing, spend all of the spare time you have READING. Be careful what you read. I believe in the adage that milk takes on the flavor of whatever's next to it. If you read nothing but modern, soulless pulp, that's how your writing will be. Read the classics, and you'll learn a lot. They're considered great for a reason.

Fourthly... I don't know. I'm not published, I'm just an intermediate hobbyist wannabe like every other fag here. But those are my two cents. Godspeed.

[Anonymous No.23253262]

>>23252951
Get off 4chan , how can you expect to write and know anything about life being stuck behind a screen ?

[Anonymous No.23253268]

>>23253262
Wait what, isn't this writing?

[Anonymous No.23253510]

>>23253168
After writing your first draft and story, then writing your second, you'll see incredible improvement, then it tapers off.

[Anonymous No.23253520]

>>23253268
Technically, this is typing.

[Anonymous No.23253538]

Ask yourself 'writer questions' like, Why would I want to read this? and be honest with your answers and assessment of them. That saves you a lot of time writing shit you don't even care about or shit some imagined audience is supposed to like. Newbs try and tell stories they've heard but don't know what they really like about them. What does some friendless loser know about the power of friendship? Idealized bullshit, at best.

Finding what you care about or what the theme is beneath the image takes time, and most of that time is spent not thinking about it. It's like making compost, you just throw shit in and turn it over every now and then until it smells good. Beginners get a flashy idea and try to force it into something instead of letting it connect to other things in the murk of the subconscious. Sorting out what they mean is the realm of higher order, analytical and intellectual feelings beyond base emotions. Presumably (and I'm often wrong, just not about anything bad), both the writer and interested reader operate on and are sensitive to this level of inner sensation. It's what is meant by interiority when speaking of the novel, the phenomenal sensation of interacting thoughts. I don't think it can be willingly created directly, but it can be observed and manipulated.

Leave some space and ambiguity for the reader to reach (Your) conclusion but avoid occultism. There's a balance between just laying out the conclusion of a narrator (which can be ambiguous and misleading, or more fuel for the fires of consideration), going further and explaining what just happened, and making an occult statement that isn't meant to be understood, or requiring keys outside the text itself. What the fuck did I just read? is a valid question that the reader should be able to answer and the answer should be satisfying unless you're a pomo dickwad writing for other irony poisoned fuckheads. Good writing allows the reader to both make their own conclusions in line with your intent and input their own experiences to come to different ones.

Most of all, have fun, but not at the reader's expense. You're creating a relationship that has a payoff, and readers are fickle but will go along if they're entertained or drip-fed something that makes it seem like the promise is worth it. You can play with expectations, but with care, and you have to set the expectations up front. We remember the books that rapidly diverge without warning and hate them for it. Bridge to Terabithia is usually most people's first.

That's all I can think of right now. Those are some of the higher level things that helped me write something that got a reaction.

[Anonymous No.23253559]

>>23252951
Keep it interesting from sentence to sentence. Give people a reason to keep reading. Don't ever try to impress or overawe or baffle the reader. Keep them engaged, keep it charming, keep it surprising.

If you think that that kind of appeal to reader is beneath the dignity of 'Real Literary Fiction', then consider that all the above advice can be found in Ford Madox Ford's description of the maxims for prose style that he and his bud Joseph Conrad jointly arrived at.

[Anonymous No.23253615]

What does /lit/ think about Lajos egri?