Writing

[Anonymous No.7254964]

Are any of you actively trying to write?

I don't just mean the kind of thing that gets bandied about as "literature", just in general are any of you trying to write? As my birthday gets closer and I'm one year older without having anything completed, I'm struggling with organizing my thoughts and I'm looking for advice. I can think of a plot, I can set a scene, but getting from one to the other seems so difficult at the moment.

Pic related is taking notes to have them written down. I'm really bad at notes and journaling, even though my higher brain is more than aware that you can't just bang on the keyboard and spew forth a completed work fully formed.

[Anonymous No.7254969]

>"defeat of bandits"

Stopped reading

Fuck off

[Anonymous No.7254987]

>>7254969
That advice is literally from Michael Moorcock
http://www.wetasphalt.com/content/how-write-book-three-days-lessons-michael-moorcock

>Very often it's something like: attack of the bandits -- defeat of the bandits -- nothing particularly complex, but it's another way you can achieve recognition: by making the structure of a chapter a miniature of the overall structure of the book, so everything feels coherent.

Don't be fucking dense.

[Anonymous No.7255013]

bump for actually writing being accomplished by peoples on lit

[Anonymous No.7255046]

I'm currently working on a novel draft that I was having some difficulty getting it to go anywhere. I've always left my drafts unfinished, but I proposed to myself that at least once in my life I would finish a novel draft and hopefully by the end of the year I'll have it done.

So yeah... I guess my overall problem is my short attention span and my tendency to not know how things are gonna go or tie together in the end.

Also, a tip that I have found very useful: use subplots. Subplots make it a lot easier to tie one scene to another because it gives the story a sense that you're reading something useful and not just slogging through words to get to the next big scene. At least for me it has been useful, especially if you keep the subplots organized so you can keep track of them.

[Anonymous No.7255105]

>>7255013
I'd say the point of the thread is that I'm having trouble ACTUALLY writing.

But in terms of what I'm doing, I'm trying to write urban fantasy. The main character is a magical detective, though one of the things I'm trying to avoid is solutions to the cases that are just "magic did it". The intent is to make the magic feel logical, so that the reader could also deduce the clues. The whole thing is based off of /tg/ games I've played in or ran, or wanted to run, but in a lot of those games things happened in a way that isn't very satisfying to read about (like bumping into the killer and other happenstance) but is easier to not notice in play.

The current problem: The main character is tracking down a serial killer who's targetting people in the magical community who are on the fringes. They're psychics and seancers, as opposed to full blown witches and vampires and whatnot. The killer is someone who feels jealous of these people who have their little support network (she's been abused by her family for being a ̶l̶e̶s̶b̶i̶a̶n̶ witch) and is killing them after a mysterious stranger tells her how to do it and get their talents. I know whodunnit, I know why they did it, and I know who their victims are (a group of people in a sort of "book club"), but the hard part is figuring out how to make it feel reasonable and logical that the detective puts the clues together.

Peppering the plot with dead ends, false leads, and red herrings is giving me trouble as well. I'm in a position where because I know the ending I'm having a hard time making fake bread crumbs.

I'm also tempted to have a side case where the woman's parents hire the detective, but that seems too convenient, and too obvious.

I'm half tempted to scrap this and go with a different case from the ground up made to take the advice in >>7254987 from the start, instead of trying to backfill from a plot I already had.

[Anonymous No.7255125]

>>7254964
Yeah I write every now and then in between school and other interests. Problem is I havent actually finished a novel since I was 18 (24 now, and yeah it was pretty shit). I have a few short stories that Im thinking about trying to get published, but my 3-4 ideas for novels exist only as openings right now and I can't seem to get any flow in the process

[Anonymous No.7255174]

I actively write shitty erotica to make quick dimes on top of being a student. It's great and undermines my whole sense of being a misunderstood artist.

[Anonymous No.7255181]

>>7255174
I should really write shitty erotica. How do you publish, through Amazon? How easy is it to get something up on there? I imagine there isn't much quality control with such greats as "Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt"

[Anonymous No.7255186]

>>7255181
I do Amazon but just doing that will get you zero units sold. I have a small empire of social media accounts that are all indirectly linked and all slowly push my product. It's honestly not even close to worth the time I put into it, but I'm hoping after a couple more months it'll start to perpetuate itself just a little bit more.

[Anonymous No.7255191]

>>7254987
>Michael Moorcock
>Moorcock

[Anonymous No.7255241]

>>7255186
That sounds depressing. I don't want to have to sock puppet to get things sold.

[Anonymous No.7255305]

>>7255241
But that's how you get stuff sold today, anon. Invest in shoutouts or build your little social media empire with bots and stuff. Whole world is in one place called the internet these days.

[Anonymous No.7255384]

>>7255305
I don't mean I don't want to use social media, I just don't want to "cheat" and use sockpuppetry.

[Anonymous No.7255407]

>>7255105
It sounds like your problem is that you're investing too much thought and effort into the planning and structure of the book. If you have an idea for a scene that you particularly like, sit down and write it. You don't have to start at the beginning of the novel and work on a linear basis until you finish. Even if you end up scrapping the scenes you write, they're still a good exercise to explore your characters and writing style. Just keep writing scenes that you think are interesting until you have enough to work with in the editing stage. Writing should be a pleasurable experience and if you focus too deeply on the more "obligatory" aspects (like worrying that character A has to do X, Y, and Z so that G will happen) your product will feel obligatory too.

[Anonymous No.7255452]

>>7255407
I feel like planning is important and useful. All the advice I've seen talks about planning.

But I do think that I really need to be able to write out of order better. If nothing else having a really good scene later in the story ~actually written~ might help me get through the difficult parts of writing.

[Anonymous No.7255460]

>>7254987
>Moorcock

He probably had a swell childhood.

[Anonymous No.7255522]

>>7255191
>>7255460
Isn't moor pronounced like poor and not like more?

[Anonymous No.7255573]

>>7255522
What? Poor is pronounce like more with a p. Pore, poor and pour are homophones.

[Anonymous No.7255656]

Here is what I do, original poster. I create a file for each day and I write. I write anything I could write. I prepare there my answers on 4chan and the other websites I go to, I translate things, I write jokes, short stories, copy sentences I liked or note down an idea I had. I write what I should do, what I done and what I thought of the last book I read. I often teach everything I could talk about to the wall in front of me and as I speak alone, I make up a plan, write down examples, create assignments or ask questions. This makes no sense but I keep writing yet I kept doing it for something like three years. If I browsed through it and skimmed it properly, I'm sure I would have enough material to publish three or four books. You should do it. It's amazing how much my writing skills rocketed.

[Anonymous No.7255663]

>>7254964
I don't know if it works the same in the literature world, but if you want to get published in SF/F (which I do) you need to build up your short story cred first, so I've mostly been writing short stories.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies even offers notes with every rejection, so I think I'm a lot better than even a year ago. Apparently my pacing is my weak point while my characters and settings are spot on.

[Anonymous No.7255676]

>>7255573
Depends on the region

[Anonymous No.7255677]

>>7255573
Disgusting.

[Anonymous No.7255682]

just start writing friendo

carve out half an hour/an hour, where you just sit in front of paper/your screen

even if nothing's coming out, just sit for the whole bit of allocated time

remember that it will be absolute shit, but you just gotta keep going

writing regularly is the only way you're going to get good, but there's still a long way to go before writing regularly means you're good

[Anonymous No.7255711]

>>7255105
How many detective novels did you read before your own endeavour?

[Anonymous No.7255738]

>>7255711
Probably not as many as I should have, but I've seen a fair bit of detective shows.

[Anonymous No.7255746]

>>7255738
>Probably not as many as I should have
List some of them. Your top 10?
>http://www.wetasphalt.com/content/how-write-book-three-days-lessons-michael-moorcock
I read through that page. It's nauseating advice.

[Anonymous No.7255748]

Writing a collection of shorts to try and get published. In between that, any fleeting ideas are written as flash fiction, only a few paragraphs in length, that i plan on uploading to Kindle/Amazon/whatever just to get my name out.

I have a clear idea of what I want to do. I spend a lot of timing writing on my Samsungs memo app that i upload onto my laptop.

[Anonymous No.7255769]

>>7255748
>Writing a collection of shorts to try and get published.

terrible idea

it'd be far better to submit them to literary journals

[Anonymous No.7255802]

>>7255769
Well that's liable to change. Ive gotta get them written first. Its just something to work towards so I'm not meandering.

[Anonymous No.7255809]

>>7254964
My ideas tend to sprout from a single scene, and then the characters affected by that scene, whether directly or indirectly, become easy to write about. Someone dies: follow the killer, the detective, the witness, a family member, an inanimate object in the room, a relevant deity or spirit or even the victim. Simple cause and effect can very quickly lead up to some intricate story weaving once you let yourself follow the strands.

True, I end up writing scenes that are later entirely scrapped for being extraneous to the plot that eventually emerges, but it's better than sitting on your ass. Keep it simple and let the rest work itself out.

[Anonymous No.7255811]

>>7255746
>It's nauseating advice.
It's advice from a well liked, popular, famous, praised author. It's also the kind of story I want to write.

>Your top 10
Honestly the only things I've read in recent years are the Dresden Files. I'm currently reading Greywalker.
I'm sure the advice will be "read more", but reading more doesn't actually help me to have written.

>>7255769
Honestly, self publishing seems like a much better way to go in this day and age. Maybe coupled with some smaller publishers holding contests where you actually have a chance at getting published. But those don't seem to actually pay well.

[Anonymous No.7255841]

>>7255811
>self publishing

Id feel like such a shill advertising my own work.

Dont actual publishers monitor what does well on there any way?

[Anonymous No.7255859]

>tfw working on a short story collection, a novella, an episodic novel, an epic novel, and three other novels with a shared multiverse and metaphysics
And of course they're all barely started. I pretend to publish one of the novels in three years (because if both Pynchon and Mann got published at 26 then so can I, fuck you). Probably the worse thing about this is the itch to take notes while in class or reading.

[Anonymous No.7255870]

>>7255841
>Id feel like such a shill advertising my own work.

Have you ever subscribed to an author's blog or twitter or something along these lines? It's non-stop shilling. 'Hey guy! Just stopped by Atlanta for my book tour! Great Crowd!'
'Looking forward to seeing my fans in Macon!'
'Check out this picture of the special rainbow themed cover of my book to support gays!'

[Anonymous No.7255875]

>>7255870
But that's not shilling, that's just self-advertising.
Shilling is when you pretend you are a disconnected third-party.

[Anonymous No.7255898]

>>7255811
>As my birthday gets closer...
How old are you anyway?
>It's advice from a well liked, popular, famous, praised author.
Appealing to authority doesn't make his advice any less bad.
>It's also the kind of story I want to write.
Why do you want to write?
>I'm sure the advice will be "read more"
The advice would have been to read better. Alas, I'm not here to give you advice: I'm but here to laugh at you.

[Anonymous No.7255903]

I have had a few short stories published in regional and college mags, and have a pile of ideas for more. But I never really strongly wanted to be a writer professionally, I just enjoy it every now and then and sort of work in fits of a month or so then stop.

Music is much more my passion. Problem is I am god awful at writing lyrics. It's extremely frustrating, where as prose comes very easily to me and is enjoyable to write. Writing lyrics is like trying to hammer in a nail made out of Play Doh. It actually makes me angry. But I can't stop making up melodies.

[Anonymous No.7255910]

why on earth would you hack write in 20-15? unless you are prolific and self-publishing Romance

[Anonymous No.7255928]

I write, and write, and read it over, but it all goes in the "shit" folder. Maybe once my pile of shit is tall enough I can stand on it and see myself writing a decent story.

[Anonymous No.7255929]

>>7255903
As far as advice - the process is probably way different for a novel, but for my stories I don't really outline in much detail. I just have a basic idea of the events that will occur and the setting. Characterization and mood mostly happen as I write, then if something is inconsistent afterward I'll change it in editing. It's also a lot easier to write in first person to me, but I don't think it reads as nice.

[Anonymous No.7255933]

>>7255811
>self publishing

ur actually fucking dumb

[Anonymous No.7255940]

Jesus Christ people from /tg/ always have the worst brain damage.

[Anonymous No.7255943]

>>7255928
It just means you have good standards and are not a delusional idiot which is necessary to become actually good at something.

[Anonymous No.7255947]

>>7255870
Im not that kinda guy; it wouldnt be sincere. Id be more of a "posts a blend of incomprehensible shit and Simpsons quotes to his Facebook / twitter" kinda guy...

[Anonymous No.7255955]

>>7255841
>Dont actual publishers monitor what does well on there any way?
From what I've heard: No. Most authors I've spoken to have said that if you self publish, it's actually harder to get a big publisher to back you afterwards.

They don't have the time or manpower to monitor ebook self publishing charts when they have literally thousands of unsolicited manuscripts per day to go through.

[Anonymous No.7255962]

>>7255929
One more advice - when I'm trying to finish something or feeling inspired, I find it is way better to work first thing in the morning. You aren't as self-critical then, you aren't as anxious about other things you didn't finish, and generally your head is more clear. It helps to stick to time blocks too, so you don't feel like you HAVE to finish anything, and just get done what you can in an hour or whatever.

I've never written anything good staying up all night. I'm sure many have, but at the very least it's pretty unhealthy.

[Anonymous No.7255977]

>>7255955
>>7255841
You'd have to have someone do it.
>Dont actual publishers monitor what does well on there any way?
Yes. That's why self-publishing is a good first step. It's like making a really good mod or indie game (or movie) before you get picked up by professional publishers.

I've seen a lot of people go from being self-published to being traditionally published, and a lot of people have advocated that. Hell, a lot of the stuff you see getting published starts out in smaller press to begin with. Though the only concrete examples of that I can put titles to are Eragon and 50 Shades...

>>7255875
Ah, I would still call the first shilling, actually. And in that case get friends to shill for you.

>>7255898
>How old are you anyway?
27 on Halloween.
>Why do you want to write?
The kind of thing you seem to laugh at.

Oh, you said why, not what. Because I like telling stories and honestly it's the thing I'm best at, even if crippling self doubt and anxiety seems to stop me at every turn.

[Anonymous No.7255982]

I write a journal of sorts and try to write about books I've read. Essentially just writing for personal reflection and pleasure.

I'm not interested in writing an actual book though. I'd rather just read what other people have written in that regard.

[Anonymous No.7255997]

>>7255977
>Because I like telling stories and honestly it's the thing I'm best at
Post some excerpts then.
Since you are 27 years old, what kind of professional training did you have?

[Anonymous No.7256002]

>>7254964
I'm also having some trouble and help from people who've done higher word counts would be amazing.
I have every theme and motif of my story essentially planned out, I truly think they are worth reading, a lot to do with present day social/political forces, but I'm having trouble creating scenes and dialogue around my ideas that I think are great.

I've never written anything long before and I find it can be weird sticking all these bold ideas into the mouths of my university characters

[Anonymous No.7256014]

>>7255811

>I'm sure the advice will be "read more", but reading more doesn't actually help me to have written.

But it'll help you to write. Once you read a range of detective stories you'll get an idea of what a satisfying mystery is and how that is achieved sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter.

You're like an engineer trying to build a bridge after only studying two kinds of bridges. The fact that your story isn't holding up shows me that you don't know how the build the kind of bridge you need for this gap.

https://www.librarything.com/bookaward/The+Top+100+Mystery+Novels+of+All+Time+Mystery+Writers+of+America

Read 50 or so of these.

While you're doing it, write as much of your novel as you can. Write mystery stories on the side trying out new techniques.

You're not going to like this advice but at the end of the year or so it takes you to do this you should scrap everything and start from scratch.

[Anonymous No.7256069]

>>7255105

I'd say firstly, you're overthinking things. Secondly, the idea doesn't sound very good and it's pretty cliche. It can be hard writing something if you know deep down that it sucks. Focus on writing something original, something you.

As for me, I've written one novel, I'm about 80% done with a first draft of a second novel. I have a dozen short stories or so I've completed. I'm trying to get my first book published, if you think writing a book is hard, selling one is a motherfucker. My short stories i've never tried to get published, as I don't really like any of them and they were all just kind of experimental stuff.

[Anonymous No.7256197]

>>7256014
>You're not going to like this advice but at the end of the year or so it takes you to do this you should scrap everything and start from scratch.

Not OP but I always think people who say things like this or anything along these lines are pants-on-head retarded.

[Anonymous No.7256210]

>>7256014
this might be true for books that are stories and are not about something

it is perfectly possible that one's earliest works may be beautiful concepts held back by their at-the-time mediocre prose

don't scrap your work

[Anonymous No.7256220]

>>7256210

You're really expecting to find good prose in supernatural detective story?

[Anonymous No.7256230]

>>7256220
books should just be a way for narcissists to masturbate in front of as many people as possible, genre means nothing

[Anonymous No.7256251]

>>7256230
Yeah? So i bet you find a ton of wonderful prose in YA then, huh?

[Anonymous No.7256266]

>>7256251
what are you arguing with?

I came into this conversation a few posts back to say completely scrapping all your previous work isn't necessarily a great idea

YA isn't a genre, it's a demographic, a demographic generally assumed to have lower levels of reading comprehension and less ability to comprehend complexity, symbolism, and the overall message of a work than the demographic "literature" is aimed at. Naturally the prose is going to be shittier.

[Anonymous No.7256302]

>>7255997
That sounds like the set up to one of those "you're shit and everything you do is shit" posts. What makes you assume I've had professional training? What makes you feel professional training is necessary?

http://vindae.tumblr.com/tagged/writing
Here, though. Most of that is pretty old, and unedited.
This is the most recent thing, which is a rewrite of an older thing. http://pastebin.com/HZ9p3dWu

I also do ERP, and I've been told I'm good at it by people I have reason to believe.

>>7256014
I'm going to go with >>7256197 it's frankly dumb advice. I mean, yes, reading more is good advice, but it's on par with "write more" in that it's vague and unhelpful and amounts to someone asking "how do I fix my car?" and replying with "fix your car". It's almost a tautology.

>>7256220
>>7256069
>the idea doesn't sound very good and it's pretty cliche.
>You're really expecting to find good prose in supernatural detective story?
This might surprise you, but I want to write what I enjoy. I find the books I want to emulate have good prose, because to me "good prose" is not... well, what most of Literature seems to vaunt. I mean, I'm trying to match people like Jim Butcher, not Jack Kerouac. Because that's what I find fun.

[Anonymous No.7256322]

>>7256230
This anon truly gets literature.
>applause
>underrated

[Anonymous No.7256329]

>>7256302

Unless you post the actual novel, or a detailed outline of your novel, nobody can fix your car, we can only point you to the way to learn, yourself, how to fix your car. Can't fix the engine without seeing more than the engine block. "Yeah, that fits in a truck."

It's not dumb advice, it's just as vague as your question.

[Anonymous No.7256339]

>>7256302
>jack kerouac

Lel

Good for you anyway, stick to what you love.

Also:
>read more
>what it actually means is analyse construction of plot, pacing, rhythm of writing, style etc
>"reading more" makes better writing

[Anonymous No.7256357]

>>7256302
The way I wrote my only full-length (80k words) novel so far was by taking one day to write a brief outline of each chapter then sitting around in front of a notebook all day 5 days a week for 4 weeks until I'd written 3000-4500 words each day.

It's completely impractical but if you can afford taking a month off everything else you're doing and stick to it, it'll work.

[Anonymous No.7256371]

>>7256339
I'm aware of what read more means, though I don't think most of the people regurgitating the advice actually realize that. I'm currently reading Greywalker and taking notes on that.

>>7256329
Well, I did post an outline. Also, see above. I mean, heck, I pretty explicitly asked on advice on how to structure an outline or take notes and do journaling.

"Read more" isn't the kind of advice I want, "turn the last page and make a table of contents, then put a coloured dot on the line of your notes that corresponds with that line in your table of contents so you can see the colours when you look at the pages head on" is the kind of advice I asked for.

"Read more" doesn't tell me how to write except insofar as it tells me how other writers have put words on a page, but the putting words on a page part isn't the part I'm having trouble with.

>>7256357
I'm a useless NEET, which is why I'm trying to write in the first place. Taking a month off of everything else is what I do every month.

[Anonymous No.7256378]

>>7256302
>This might surprise you, but I want to write what I enjoy.

That's cool, but you also might have to accept that what you like could suck. You should probably never want to "emulate" something, the main key in writing is finding your "voice". It won't sound like anyone else.

I would also suggest you read a LOT more.

[Anonymous No.7256396]

>>7256371

Ok, here's how you write an outline: take each chapter and write a 1-2 page summary of it. Summarize the actions of the characters, the reactions of the world or the antagonists, and the (projected) change in the characters beliefs and attitudes and the reasons for these. Do this for the entire book.

Since you are dealing with an alternative world, write an extended overview of the physical rules of that world as they differ from our own, the major institutions the novel deals with, and the major groups the novel deals with.

Then go over ALL of this and make sure everything makes sense. Do changes in action line up with the beliefs and the reactions? Is everything proceeding according to the rules.

[Anonymous No.7256401]

>>7256371
>"Read more" isn't the kind of advice I want

You might not want to hear it, but it might be what you need to hear. How the hell do you even know what "good prose" is if you've only seen a handful of examples of it.

There was a time when i was a teenager when i thought the move "Desperado" was the greatest movie ever made. The reason why is i really hadn't watched that many movies before, so at the time, it seemed like it was.

I'd also suggest a site like Query Shark too, you can see what a lot of other beginning writers are writing, and you might be surprised to see a lot of them are thinking exactly like you.

[Anonymous No.7256405]

>>7256396
make sure to do this for each individual major character too. come up with their entire personality, even the bits you don't think you'll need, so that you have something to work off of when you go to think "hmm, how would this character react to this situation? what would they say/do?"

[Anonymous No.7256412]

>>7254964

Hey OP.

Here's the thing - no one can tell you what you should do, how should do it, or anything else about the thing you're trying to write. "Your process" is yours and yours alone and you will have to discover it by yourself. Some writers like to plan every little detail of their book before they start while others like to just dive in. Neither is right and neither is wrong. They are just different.

So just try. Try doing different things and FEEL what works. If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn't, drop it. This process of discovering process will take a long time and will be constantly evolving but over time you will understand yourself and how you work and then things will be less confusing. This is the point where you've "learned how to ride the bike". At that point, you'll be able to actually do it but even then there will still be a million things to learn.

So. Read the stuff everyone's saying on here but don't worry about it too much or take it too seriously. Just think about what feels right and then sleep on it. Eventually, over days or weeks or however long, the right answer will come to you and that'll be that. The hard part is just waiting.

Good luck OP.

[Anonymous No.7256414]

>>7256302
>"you're shit and everything you do is shit"
Look, Buddy. All I know abou you is that you are "really bad at notes" and that you read "in recent years the Dresden Files". Do your attempts at writing really deserve the status of non-shit?
>What makes you assume I've had professional training?
I must have misphrased that question. Do you do some kind of job, do you work? Did you go to uni? Full NEET? Or some kind of apprenticeship? I'm just generally interested since your background will influence your writing.
>What makes you feel professional training is necessary?
I don't "feel" about professional training at all.

I'll read your excerpt after a good night's rest. Thanks for posting, fam .

[Anonymous No.7256419]

>>7256396
>Ok, here's how you write an outline: take each chapter and write a 1-2 page summary of it.

Even that's not really necessary. I'm >>7256357 and what I did was write a paragraph-long outline of each chapter. My view of outlines is that they're more vague guidelines/suggestions so expending too much effort on them is a waste of time. I even completely abandoned some of my initial outlined chapters and replaced them with completely different things because once I tried to write them I found that certain outlines didn't actually feel writable or worth writing to me.

[Anonymous No.7256438]

>i cant plan for shit: the thread
>chapter one: ill take on a large, intricate subject having had zero practice with smaller ideas

[Anonymous No.7256447]

>>7256419
Your view is wrong and unproductive. Youll suffer. Your loss.

[Anonymous No.7256472]

>>7256447
Nah. It's a process of filling in blanks and I find that bigger blanks work better than smaller ones for me.

It's all relative but it's not necessary to follow one system or another. The point is mainly to try a variety of things and see what actually works for you.

[Anonymous No.7256473]

>>7256378
>you also might have to accept that what you like could suck.
While that's a possibility, I've had enough people tell me they like my writing that I feel like it's decent. Plus when I think "my writing could suck" I just remember that Twilight sells. And by "emulate" I mean "write in the same genre as".

>>7256401
The difference between me and your teenager self is that I've seen more movies than Desperado (and if it's not clear I'm continuing the metaphor). I'll admit that I don't read as much as I ought to, but that's not to say that I'm some illiterate baffoon who one day said "I'm gonna write!"
The reason I'm saying that "read more" isn't good advice is because for most people it seems to be the only advice they know to give. It's the kind of advice that I don't really feel comes from people who know how to write. This goes back to "I don't think most of the people regurgitating read more actually understand that reading more is to help dissect and analyse existing works". Read more in and of itself is useless advice. It assumes that reading is all it takes. It's a platitude.

>>7256414
When you said "professional training" I assumed you meant writing workshops. I didn't think "was taken in by a fake college" and "worked at a sandwich shop" were relevant to writing.

>>7256438
What makes you assume I haven't had practice with smaller ideas?
I mean, I'm not going for thousands of words here. We're talking short story.

[Anonymous No.7256482]

>>7256473
>I've had enough people tell me they like my writing
your writing isn't masturbatory enough for greatness. you should have never showed it to anyone, even your conscious self, until you and the rest of the thinking universe were sure of its enduring perfection.

[Anonymous No.7256507]

>>7256473
>. Plus when I think "my writing could suck" I just remember that Twilight sells.

The thing that you're missing is the idiot who wrote twilight was sincere. They weren't writing it thinking "this is bullshit but i'm getting fucking paid!". She seriously thought this was as good as Shakespeare. You can't just emulate that sort of sincerity and if you're not sincere it isn't going to resonate.

You could luck out and your stuff might be shit but could hit a huge untouched market, sure. You could also win the lottery...but it's not very likely. It's also not a very great plan to count on winning the lottery in order to achieve success.

>The reason I'm saying that "read more" isn't good advice is because for most people it seems to be the only advice they know to give

The reason people always tell you that you need to read is BECAUSE YOU NEED TO READ MORE. It's pretty fucking obvious to anyone, that's why everyone tells you it. You can ignore that advice if you want though. Reading more means a little more than reading and extra book or two a year, it's more like reading for several hours a day for the next decade or so, before you get a good idea of what's out there already written.

As it stands, just by reading your outlines, your stuff looks awful. That doesn't mean that you won't ever be good, or that you couldn't find a success with your crap, but it's painfully obvious that you're much too inexperienced for this and your system of outlining or whatever you're fagging about is not the problem.

[Anonymous No.7256509]

>>7256473
>>7256302
M8 youre far more arrogant than you should be - if that "recent" work is anything to go by youre shit at writing and i can wager the people who said its good are either the tumblr weeaboos writing equally as shit RPGs or your family / friends who wont hurt your feelings.

[Anonymous No.7256556]

>>7256302

>It was a bright, sunny day

I hope for your sake this satire of "it was a dark and stormy night"

[Anonymous No.7256582]

>>7256302

>It was a bright, sunny day in early autumn outside Crescent Garden Avenue, the kind of day where you'd need to reserve parking if you wanted to picnic in the park, with weather that just invited soccer fields to fill up. It wasn't the kind of day you'd associate with a brutal murder, but then again if every day with a murder was horrible, it would always be overcast.

Your writing is weak.

>starts with weather, season, landscape

extremely cliche

>"bright, sunny"

a bright day is sunny; a sunny day is bright

>first sentence rambles on past its welcome: we get it, the park is nice.

>"weather that just invited soccer fields to fill up"

Sounds like a mom trying to get somebody to go outside.

> "It wasn't the kind of day you'd associate with a brutal murder"

Is this supposed to be a slapstick comedy? This passage is structured like a joke.

>but then again if every day with a murder was horrible, it would always be overcast.

Do you think this makes you sound smart?

This is self-evident. It's a waste of my time. The irony of the murder and the sunshine would suggest itself to any decent reader almost immediately.

[Anonymous No.7256614]

>>7256582
He's going for a cookie-cutter mystery. I don't think fans of those are that exacting.

[Anonymous No.7256628]

>>7256582

Yeah, you're basically falling into the beginner's trap that every single thing needs to be explained. Maybe this would have been interesting pulp writing 150 years ago...but it's been done much better than you ever can, and you're not even that good at it anyway.

If you think this is what passes for "Prose" then you're dead fucking wrong. Prose isn't very popular anymore, and this isn't even fucking it, it's just cliche bullshit that most 14 year olds can produce.

that's why you need to READ MORE. So you can see how people used to do it (and do it well), how shitty writers write (so you know what to avoid), and how good modern writers write.

[Anonymous No.7256781]

>>7256482
orz

>>7256507
I don't think she thought she was as good as Shakespeare.
>You can ignore that advice if you want though.
Let me rephrase. There are several people who read constantly who are not writers. My *mother* goes through a different book a month, and she's never even thought of being a writer or even attempted fiction. Clearly just reading is not the answer to "how do I write".

>>7256628
>Prose isn't very popular anymore
I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.

[Anonymous No.7256802]

>>7256781
>Clearly just reading is not the answer to "how do I write"

It's a big part of it. Another part is talent, but i don't think you even want to go there.

>I don't even know what that's supposed to mean

It means, for the most part, people don't read books anymore for their literary merit. People don't pick up a book because they heard it's wonderfully written. They buy books because they heard it's a good story. Look at just about any best seller for good examples of this. The Martian, for example, is written like a facebook post and it's a smash hit.

General rule, less prose, more story. I know a lot of beginners stick to prose because they really don't have a solid plot for their story so they try to add prose as filler, avoid this like the plague. They sort of think, "I really don't have much to say, but i'm going to blow them away with how I say it". Yeah, nobody cares about prose anymore, even if they did; 99% of the people who attempt this are terrible at prose anyway. Think up a good story, and write it in as few words as you can.

[Anonymous No.7256835]

>>7256802
This entire post is the kind of wankery that I should expect to see but always hate on /lit/. Basically if a book isn't written by a dead guy /lit/ thinks it's bad, and that everyone else who can't appreciate "literature"--as in a specific subset of literature that's called literature, the same way that people don't mean movies when they say "films"--are just slack jawed morons.

[Anonymous No.7256852]

>>7256835
what the fuck are you talking about queerbutt? That's literally the opposite of what I wrote.

[Anonymous No.7256863]

>>7256781

>There are several people who read constantly who are not writers.

It is a necessary condition that we suspect you aren't meeting.

>a different book a month,

Lol if you think this is "reading constantly." This is light reading.

If you're writing and you're not going through 1 - 2 books a week you're not reading enough to be a writer.

[Anonymous No.7256871]

>>7254987
>moorcuck

[Anonymous No.7256875]

>>7256781
>Clearly just reading is not the answer to "how do I write"

This is exactly the answer, and it is the only answer. Would you sincerely expect a musician to abstain from listening to music or a winemaker to have never tasted wine? Certainly you can draw inspiration from all things, and you should because even the mundane can and has inspired greatness in many a man. But to ignore the craftsmen of your craft? Utter lunacy. The mistakes of others are a lesson to avoid the pitfalls, and the greatness of others is a platform for which you can aspire to reach riddled with holds to help you reach it.

[Anonymous No.7256879]

>>7256852
>People don't like [good writing]
>The Martian is popular and reads like a Facebook post
>Nobody cares about [good writing]
That comes off as really dismissive and fits in the vain of "modern works aren't as good as older works".

[Anonymous No.7256894]

>>7256875
There are clearly several people who listen to music but aren't musicians, and people who go through wine by the bottle but aren't making their own. I reckon that most of /lit/ hasn't even attempted to put pen to paper.

You see "that's not the answer" as a sign that I'm somehow *avoiding* reading or something. This is 2015, reading is my primary method of communication with the world. Even if I somehow avoided books entirely, I'd still be reading thousands of lines a day, much of that fiction. If "read more" was the answer, I'd have written a book when I was in middle school and always had a book on my desk. "Read more" is the advice that people who don't know how to write give. Meanwhile the people who do know how to write tend to not do much better, with "write more", but at least that's more accurate, if just as vague and unhelpful.

[Anonymous No.7256915]

>>7256879
The Martian IS shit though and you're fucking retarded for equating it to all modern works.

[Anonymous No.7256916]

>>7256894

You wonder if the OVERWHELMING RESPONSE that you need to read more isn't wrong, and maybe you are?

Go read interviews given by writers you like, lots of them.

[Anonymous No.7256936]

>>7256894
>There are clearly several people who listen to music but aren't musicians, and people who go through wine by the bottle but aren't making their own

And I would never argue otherwise. Those who do make music listen to it, and those who make wine imbibe. The majority lack a desire to create, that much is certain, but the creators must draw upon the past labours of their craftsmen. As the previous poster said; talent is best left out of this discourse. There is no innate ability to breathe life through words, it's learned and only learned. So again I'll assert that "read more" is the only answer whether arrogance or foolhardiness allows you to conclude it is out of my reach.

What is there to create without a mind filled to the brim with inspiration and lessons abound?

[Anonymous No.7257026]

>>7255811
He doesn't think very highly of the books he wrote using this method though. This is just his advice on writing commercially. When he was doing this he was trying to keep food in his pantry. He hasn't written a novel like this in 40+ years.

[Anonymous No.7257186]

>>7256894
>This is 2015, reading is my primary method of communication with the world.

There's another big ass problem, and can explain why you have trouble relating to other people with your writing. If you want to write about life, you have to live life.

[Anonymous No.7257187]

>>7256916
>>7256936
I'm not saying I don't need to read more. I'm saying that "read more" is mindlessly repeated advice given by people who don't really understand writing. Reading more won't help anyone put pen to page. "Read more" is a non-advice given out when you don't know anything better to say. No one ever wrote a book just by reading, no one ever wrote a song just by listening to the radio. No one becomes a sommelier by getting drunk. I could read two whole books a day and at the end of the year I wouldn't have anything written because reading can help writing, but it doesn't cause writing.

Even then, you've all already spammed "read more" as much as you can, so that's useless advice. Okay, I'll read more. What *other* advice do you have?

>>7257026
I'm aware. But I'm a first time writer. Things that no longer challenge a world famous author aren't going to be as simple for me. One of my other ideas was to just straight up bang out 3000 word pulp fantasy short stories inspired by video games every two weeks. "Write the crap out because everybody writes crap" is more legitimate advice than "read more", because at least that has to do with actually writing.

[Anonymous No.7257192]

>>7256915
>I'm not an e/lit/ist
>I just think that book everyone loves is shit
This is what I'm talking about. I haven't even read The Martian yet. I'm just saying that attitude is a big problem with /lit/. It might just be that your definition of "good prose" isn't universal. But, nah, I'm sure everyone else is wrong.

Unless it turns out The Martian is written like a Cormac McCarthy book. Then I guess I'll just eat crow.

[Anonymous No.7257216]

>>7257187
With the amount of time you spend typing rambling nonsense on here, you could be actually writing your shit and doing something productive.

You got your answers, now shut the fuck up and go do something.

[Anonymous No.7257384]

Is this a thread to discuss writing? Random anon looking for advice.

[Anonymous No.7257938]

There is no way someone can be this fucking retarded. This is a troll thread right?

Someone who writes this bad and won't read and who wants to write twilight detective stories?

>my mom says I'm cool
Oh fucking hell

[Anonymous No.7257961]

>>7257938
>won't read
No one said they won't read.
Reading is not the way to write, though. To write something you need to write more.

How many of you people have even actually written anything?

[Anonymous No.7258078]

>>7257961
Most people who are arguing the point here have tried or actively write. I fall into the latter. Its not advice we're throwing at you, its through experience

[Anonymous No.7258135]

>>7258078
Okay, let's say I'm reading a book a week. What then? I'm no closer to having written anything.

[Anonymous No.7258164]

>>7258135
And what books are you reading? Are you sticking to one genre written by a select amount of authors from the same country, same time period? Or are you sampling different genres from different countries at different times? Because even if theyre not from your genre the writing is up for analysis and applicable for your own work

[Anonymous No.7258179]

>>7258164
Let's assume I'm reading everything from the fiction section.

[Anonymous No.7258202]

>>7258179
And youre not getting anything from it?

Who are you fav authors and what do you see in their work that inspires you?

[Anonymous No.7258214]

>>7258202
I have inspiration. I have nothing written.

[Anonymous No.7259035]

Random aspiring writefag; been working on a story for almost 8 years now, since I was around twelve. It started as a forced 'journal entry a day' thing by my parents, but it soon became a story of its own. I'm trying to rewrite it now and need advice. The story centers around three children and their growth as warriors during a war between Light and Darkness. One's motive is revenge for family slain, the next is to save her last family member from a horrible death. The last is a companion the other two meet on the battlefield. I'm attempting to keep a clear-cut line between the 'Good vs Evil' and 'Light vs Darkness', because it's common knowledge that good is decided the beholder and the winner decides who the true villain was. In total, the war lasts around five years, as the children grow up and become legends, drawing upon ancient techniques and evil rites to gain the strength necessary to defeat the Darkness.

[Anonymous No.7259337]

>>7258214
Why don't you try sitting down and writing one word after another until you have something about the length of a novel and then changing those words until you are satisfied with them?

[Anonymous No.7259406]

>>7259035
Sounds cliché as fuck. Hope the actual storytelling is interesting

[Anonymous No.7259424]

>>7254964
I wanted to write but everytime I get to one or two chapters I realise I really have nothing to write about. So I decided to postpone writing until I actually have something to write about instead of pushing out shallow, verbose bullshit with no substance.

[Anonymous No.7259504]

>>7259406
Not entirely sure how badly cliché it is. I posted my stories on a kids writing site five years ago; all of them tell me I'm amazing, but I know I don't hold a candle to real, skilled writers. Actually posted a part of the story online, but it's only a journal entry and barely up to snuff. If you're interested and have the time, anon, I'll post a link so you can roast me on here.

[Anonymous No.7259859]

>>7259504

just post a link faggoy

[Anonymous No.7259892]

>>7259859
http://www.quotev.com/a1234567890/journal/entry/2497785//
Here you go, anon.

[Anonymous No.7260063]

>>7255452
If you're really sold on the overarching story and how it's going to end and who's going to do what then you'd already be writing it. Writing isn't about moulding characters to fit themes and cramming them in to fill story, it's about taking a character and asking:
>What do they want?
>How far are they willing to go to get it?
>Who is the character?

Just take character A and B, lock them in a room together and see what happens. That's how you learn about them.

[Anonymous No.7260131]

30 pages into my first novel, going stronger than ever. It's a wild ride but i'm loving it.

[Anonymous No.7260164]

>>7260131
What's it about, anon?

[Anonymous No.7260189]

>>7254964
At the moment I'm sort of working on a korean war-era fairy tale but I'm kind of losing interest in it because I just got a bunch of bad feedback on it.

At this very second I want to try writing some non-dystopian scifi but I only have an idea for a setting, not a plot

[Anonymous No.7260213]

>>7260189
post excerpt
this sounds really interesting

[Anonymous No.7260237]

>>7260213
here's an excerpt from The One-Legged Soldier

Seven times the soldier awakened only briefly, his head feeling like it was full of mattress foam, and seven times he fell back into a poppy-scented trance. When he finally awoke for real he was in a hospital, and not one with tarp walls and dirt floors. A woman he recognized as his mother sat in a chair by his bed. She offered him a paper cup of water and he realized his throat was dry and faintly crusty, as if he had slept for days with his mouth open. After some terrible hospital food, pills the size of his thumb, and a nurse with a voice like the whirr of a lawnmower informing him he was a very lucky man, the soldier left the hospital in a wheelchair with his left thigh wrapped in plaster.
The one-legged soldier found that the return to civilian life was not as pleasant as he had anticipated. Though his room was a good deal more comfortable than the trenches he had slept in, and though pastrami on rye was a large improvement on hard tack and canned meat, bed rest was a tragically boring prescription in the days when television was a luxury. As it was his was a family of modest wealth supported by the salary of a lone rabbi, one with a single broken radio and an ice box in place of a refrigerator. The soldier had sent money home to his family, but only a small portion of it had paid for anything other than groceries and rent. Though the rabbi kept a rather large library for a tenement that small, most of the books were religious scripts, translated badly from greek, yiddish and polish if they were translated at all. Within the first two days, the restless soldier had read through the few gems that were to be found: several magazines on the sciences of the day, two pulp fiction journals and a poorly-translated french short story called Ball of Fat.
After a third day spent trying to repair the broken radio, the one-legged soldier was growing desperate for a way to pass the time. His eyes wandered to his father’s collection of scriptures. The texts, he found, were every bit as daunting as he had imagined they would be. biblical quotes and odd phrases were intertwined with strange charts shaped like cypress trees that burned with letters and pictures of intersecting wheels made of wings with eyes along axels. There were drawing of tiny men in the heads of tadpole-shapes and scriptures meant to be painted across the fingers so that with the bending of each joint new passages were formed speaking rephrasings of the same psalm.

[Anonymous No.7260250]

>>7260237
Good stuff. I like the opening sentence there. Some of the flow is a bit clunky but thats it really.

[Anonymous No.7260326]

>>7259892

yeah this is pretty cliched and basically fanfic tier lol

[Anonymous No.7260372]

>>7260326
It's pretty awful, isn't it? Any suggestions to make it less horrible, or just scrap the entire idea and start anew?

[Anonymous No.7260374]

>>7259892
>Battle of Twilight
should have stopped reading there
>Sakura
stopped reading there

[Anonymous No.7260405]

>>7260237
Needs more concrete imagery and much of the concrete imagery you have is ill-advised.