/lit/ - Literature

I have no desire to write novels, I used to write a few poems just for fun but writing a novel seems like torture.

Lost about 10000 words from my novel when my computer died. Trying to reformulate it and rebuild. A satirical novel about a kid who gets radicalized and tries to commit a notorious public crime to spark a revolution of sorts. Told from the perspective of his retired father who doesn't understand how his son turned out this way. He's narrating from a generic, bland suburb and starts to question his own upbringing on a farm on the prairies.

>>18140831
Yes, I'm done now. I was never going to become the next Faulkner, the next Nabokov or the next James, but I hid behind the language barrier to avoid criticism for months, maintaining an illusion that was fun to live in while it lasted. I had thought my country's education system to be topmost in the world, but this turned out to be utter bollocks. A child of 18, a person ten years my junior, has a greater vocabulary than I, who had to look up the word “topiary”, and no one likes the expression theory of art anymore. I am likened to the megafauna of the pleistocene; grand, imposing, yet unprepared for the spears of the newcomers.
This will be my final post on /lit/. I've been humiliated and exposed as a fraud. My writing is pretentious, infantile, banal drivel. My observations are dull, my language grade school level. My tenses are mixed up; I use colloquialisms, ellipses and onomatopoeia. I mix tired and trite idioms together to obfuscate their unoriginality with a veneer of irony; I have continued to recite ornate Jewish chimpanzee parables with diminishing returns. The parable seemed very clearly to me to be asking me whether or not the now-grown-adult can choose. I say yes, of course, but that's not my issue.
I was never cut out for writing. I began writing my "book" on January 6th. Since then I've produced 87 thousand words for it. These words are a tide of garbage without value, without insight, without form. The themes of time, space, infinity, memory and pointless duelling are not present in my work. It was never real writing, it was anime and weebshit!
Story arcs, character arcs, narrative arcs, these are all outdated terms. You say what you hear, and only the anime fandom uses the term “arc” anymore. I am a toad! Look how many words I wrote, because apparently literature is bodybuilding and just aimlessly typing will somehow improve my writing. My appetites grew as I wrote, I set a goal of a 100 thousand words when I began, only for the cancerous growth to demand a 137 thousand words soon enough to be completed, and still I don't even know what genre it is that I'm writing. Is it autofiction? A comedy? A picaresque? Am I merely shitposting edgelord-triggering diarrhea in neo-emo gothic revivalist gestalt?
Regardless, I have failed. I have put down my pen. Never again will my fingers click-clack across the keyboard. No more outlines, no more characters. Goodbye.

are screenwriters allowed here

>>18140940
I don't see why not.

>>18140940
Yes, you are a writer

>>18140831

>>18140948
sweet

I'm currently rewriting my first feature and trying to start my fourth. But I've been having a lot of trouble with bumping up against my own metaphysical and philosophical uncertainty. I've been writing about death and the afterlife in ways that I don't intend to be literal, but I keep finding myself just hitting a wall of pretty heavy personal emotion. anybody got tips on fighting through this?

>>18140952
thank you

>>18140905
this sounds like a riot. Sorry about your lost words, I hope the replacement ones are even better.

>>18140976
Frankly, allow yourself to feel as vulnerable as possible and write it out. I had a friend who had a near death experience once tell me what it felt like to die and I had to physically write it out to get it to stop haunting me. Probably not the same vein for you, but anytime I have trouble, I always start with That Feel and write about it even if it's it is just me working through it on the page.

Can someone give some advice on how to handle a problem I'm having with my writing group? We rent space in a local library and meet up once a week. Even though it wasn't really necessary, the library requires us to hang a sign on the door while it's in use, so everyone knows what we're doing and they don't accidentally wander into our discussion with nothing to contribute.

At first it wasn't really a big deal. We used the same poster like five or six times and no one cared. And then one of the members came up with a really witty poster, I can't remember it now but we all had a good laugh about it. I decided to get in on the fun. I chose a picture of my favorite thing: anime girls.

Let me tell you, the group really took off after I did that. We got so many new members who were very eager to share their ideas for light novels, as well as their incredibly fascinating systems for organizing power levels. The writing group is really fun now. My favorite part is that people who previously had awesome ideas for anime, but who were turned off by the complexity of animation, have now found an outlet for their creative impulses. It brings me great pleasure to answer their basic questions with the sage wisdom I've gained from googling "common writing mistakes." I feel just like a sensei!

Of course, whenever a group of people are having fun, someone else always has to ruin it. Baka! A bunch of the jerks in the group who always gave me mean critiques in the past are somehow claiming that I've fucked up the group by inviting shallow-minded cartoon enthusiasts. They had the nerve to challenge my constitutional right to select a poster. Boy did I show them! Now I camp out in the library parking lot, hours before the meeting time. I'm always the first one to arrive, so now no one can stop me from picking the poster.

Rules are rules, but these stinking meanies don't play fair. They started holding the meetings one hour before the normal time. They put this really dumb poster in the window, like a portrait of a book guy or something, who cares, all I know is that it isn't cute. Jokes on them! Library rules stipulate that meeting times cannot be changed without a month's notice. They got banned from the group for three whole meetings. Hehe.

Then they tried to start a whole new group. Silly goofies, we already have a writing group! So I got them banned again. But they just won't give up! They still come to meetings, but all they talk about is the poster. They actually had the nerve to call ME immature, as if I'm the one who's freaking out about a dumb poster. They've tried every trick in the book to get me to back down: gaslighting, dogwhistling, even sealioning. I've been able to manage so far, but they're starting to trigger my ptsd. This isn't cute or silly at all, although I guess it is pretty funny when they get upset. Rent-free, lol. How can I convince them that I've won fair and square and they need to get over it?

>>18140905
>Lose four days of writing
>Rewrite all of it in one day fueled by nothing but seething rage
>So burned out spend the next three days recuperating
>Still four days behind
It sucks bro

>>18141027
Is this a thinly veiled complaint about the state of the thread? Creative, I'll give you that. But far too on the nose.

>>18141003
thank you for the advice. I'll try this when I'm writing tomorrow.

>>18141027
>How can I convince them that I've won fair and square and they need to get over it?
be gracious in victory anon. look over your verdant fields of moe, your lustrous shining sea of shounen, your parking lot full of shards of hentai and used needles filled with kodomomuke - not the regular kodomomuke, I'm talking the Kono Yo no Kyūseishu Futarime no Rikudō Juubi Jinchuuriki Gedou Rinne Tensei Uchiha Madara with the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan (which is capable of Enton Amaterasu, Izanagi, Izanami and the Tsyukuyomi Genjutsu), his two original Rinnegan (which grant him Chikushōdō, Shuradō, Tendō, Ningendō, Jigokudō, Gakidō, Gedō, Banshō Ten’in, Chibaku Tensei, Shinra Tensei, Tengai Shinsei and Banbutsu Sōzō) and a third Tomoe Rinnegan on his forehead, capable of using Katon, Fūton, Raiton, Doton, Suiton, Mokuton, Ranton, Inton, Yōton and even Onmyōton Jutsu, equipped with his Gunbai(capable of using Uchihagaeshi) and a Shakujō because he is a master in kenjutsu and taijutsu, a perfect Susano’o (that can use Yasaka no Magatama ), control of both the Juubi and the Gedou Mazou, with Hashirama Senju’s DNA and face implanted on his chest, his four Rinbo Hengoku Clones guarding him and nine Gudōdama floating behind him AFTER he absorbed Senjutsu from the First Hokage, entered Rikudō Senjutsu Mode, cast Mugen Tsukuyomi on everybody and used Shin: Jukai Kōtan so he can use their Chakra while they are under Genjutsu kodomomuke
what I'm saying is, be pic related

I've written 1500 words of 3000 words for the Ireland story contest

Been working on the germ of a short story this last week. It’s not very long but I’m thinking i may build it out longer.

The format is kind of confusing (non-linear), I’d appreciate any feedback if anyone has the time to take a look. I posted in the /ffa/ thread here:
>>18136816

Is it easy enough to follow the story? What can I do to make it read more clearly?

>>18141161
It would probably make a lot of sense if we could read Chinese

>>18141177
It’s more fun if you don’t...it means i can hide the punchline in plain sight, and reveal at the end. It was a way to show that the characters were using a phrase they, themselves, didn’t understand.

If you need to read it aloud, it’s pronounced shǔ shǐ.

>>18141197
as it is right now, it'll just make readers' eyes glaze over. It's less hiding a joke and more wtf is this moonrunes, imma read something else

>>18141161
The overall story seems clear enough. The secret ingredient which has caused so much confusion over the years is revealed to be a reference to a Confucius quote which holds special meaning to the ancestors of the present-day characters. It is revealed that "Ba" is an American man who married a Chinese woman, and this secret ingredient is...

I really can't tell. Obviously I read the translation, but I have a difficult time understanding who wants what. He wants his children to be full-on American, and the quote was meant to imply that one piece of traditional chinese culture will upset the congee that is their family? My closest guess. I understand the tone you're going for, two close friends wouldn't feel compelled to spell out everything between them, but I'm lost. Also, I gave you the benefit of the doubt here, but did you mean to imply that they were really eating that stuff? Or were various references to "double (CHINESE CHARACTERS)" meant to be a reference to the setting and context of the scenes in which they are mentioned? Could definitely use some clarification here, perhaps describing what is actually in the jar, because I seriously thought these people were eating it.

On a side note, the signifiers you use to indicate familial relationships are kinda clunky. No one says "sis" or feels compelled to state that they are on the phone. You might try adding some kind of narrative context, somewhat like in the second section wherein you indicate that the POV character is in a store in China through plain description. Otherwise, you could simply leave out the "sis" and allow the readers to gradually discover the relation between the two, as this is definitely that type of story.

One more thing: you might actually try to make the second section first. The conflict apparent in that scene is interesting enough to overcome the reader's initial confusion and makes for a far better set-up to the eventual payoff (playing on traditional stereotypes of Chinese culture, in this case some type of forbidden magical herb, revealed to just be an inside joke). What might actually be best would be to have the scene in the store, followed by an exasperated phone call to the sister, who in turn reveals that she now knows what it is. I hate giving that type of "direct guidance" in a critique but I really couldn't resist.

>>18141161
I liked it. Pretty cute setup. I would look at a different approach to introduce the daughters. The opening scenes are a bit hard to follow and don't make me care at all about the characters or their problem to the point where almost didn't bother reading the other parts.

>>18140905
>Lost about 10000 words from my novel when my computer died.
That's what you get for not going with the cloud meme, bro. Though did you try harddrive recovery tools?
>A satirical novel about a kid who gets radicalized and tries to commit a notorious public crime to spark a revolution of sorts.
I'm sold.
>Told from the perspective of his retired father
Nevermind.

I posted this in the previous thread but nobody responded so: I wrote this as part of something unfinished a while ago it's a little edgy but I haven't written anything else since. It feels like there's something off about what I wrote but I'm not good enough to identify it. This is probably one of the first things I've written so please criticize and tell me what to do better thanks

>>18141161
Oh, I remember this. I remember glossing over it the first time or two you posted this first part because it was weird with the first entry by itself(the chink shop entry).

But reading the whole thing I think it was good. I don't have much else to say. I wasn't sure if it was meant to be read from the very bottom to the top or top to bottom but I ended up doing the latter so I might be a little retarded. I just googled the chink letters and got that it was supposed to mean rat shit at least according to Ba(and the google images)

>>18141358
Anon this is is one(1) paragraph. Break it down.

>>18141366
er, meant I ended up reading from bottom to the top. I think it made more sense that way. Non-linear stuff can be lost on retards like me. But I think present-day entries to the past works too.

You're telling me that no one in the story ever thought
> hey let's put these characters into google translate
> let's fucking ask someone who knows Chinese what those words mean

>>18140831
What are some good sites for authorship? Perhaps where you can submit drafts for others in a community to read?

I need to get back to writing /wg/, procrastinating and avoiding it under the guise of "taking a break" is just going to make me feel more and more like a schmuck every passing day

>>18141440
You forgot your pic.

>>18141440
You just ended this man's whole career.

Just learning about meter and things so I wrote a limerick, did I get the stresses right?

Skulking in the shadows of my tree
A wonderful scent wafts to me
And once our eyes meet
I reach to her feet
I know later she’ll scream to be free

>>18141253
Lol @ moonrunes
I’m not a Chinese speaker myself, so this is all the result of a ton of googling. The idea of an unknown foreign word was the whole hook i had for this...if it were written shushi or shǔ shǐ (or even translated as ‘rat shit’) would it work any better? I hear you, though, that it may be a turnoff.

>>18141282
Thanks so much for the detailed feedback!!

Come to think of it, i guess i never dod reveal the ‘ingredient’...i just assumed it was an assortment of Chinese spices (like five spice or something), but i should make that explicit.

So imagine Ba/Warren, while arguing with his wife Ma/Sue about her cooking traditional food, hands her a note saying “one piece of rat shit ruins the congee’. After a while she’s like well, you better get used to the taste of my ‘rat shit’, then. It became a kind of code-word between them for her Chinese cooking which Ba (over time) dod learn to love.

Yeah, the phone conversation is the weakest writing, not a strong start. Good point on ‘sis’, i had them as a more traditional family before, and I believe referring to each other that way was more common, but in the story that comes out as unnatural.

I love your idea to make the china segment forst (that’s the one I wrote first), i just couldn’t figure out how beat to reveal if I start there. It’s one thing to have a backward chronology, but i was worried it would be too annoying if I jumped around. Thanks for the ‘direct guidance’! I think your solution is genius, I’ll try it out!

>>18141289
You seem to be hitting on the same point as the other anon...it’s a weak introduction. Ill try to improve on it. Thanks for the critique!

>>18141366
>>18141383
Just wrote this today, so this is the first time you should be reading it. It’s supposed to be read top to bottom (no googling)...but if I were reading it, I’d have immediately done exactly the same thing.

>>18141440
Absolutely brutal plot hole! Fantastic point.
You can’t write horror unless you find a way to make everyones phones die, and you can’t write a mystery like this as long as Google exists. Maybe I should push the timeline back 20 years?

>>18140831
>>The Art of Fiction
>>Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere)
>>On Becoming A Novelist
>>Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft
>>How Fiction Works
>>The Rhetoric of Fiction
>>Steering the Craft
>>On Writing, Borges
Are those recommended for people that don't have english as their native language?

>>18141027
nice

>>18141600
did people who speak Chinese not exist 20 years ago either

>>18141600
make the story timeline shorter and make them busy, so the characters don't have time to look up the word. They want to look it up but another character always wants them to do some shit

https://discord.gg/FBFdYbwJ

>>18141650
What's that?

>start writing huge greentext to ask a question
>realize half way through what I had to do to solve my problem
Nice.

>>18141665
tranny meetup group

What could be considered a neutral way of wording "and perhaps of more concern is..."? I feel no matter how I spin it I end up not sound neutral. interesting makes it sound almost positive, etc

>>18140831
Reposting, as promised. Please rate, tell me what you liked/disliked, maybe even score it out of a 10. Feedback is greatly appreciated. So are recommendations for study material.

I tried a different approach to writing this time (and I'm feeling really sick), so the first paragraph may be bad, and the second paragraph may be god awful.

>>18141710
"also"

>>18141821
too many adjectives for me. "An old, dilapidated red barn" could be "a dilapidated red barn" without losing any information. This concept can be applied throughout the segment.
I'm a big fan of "Dried blood never broke off so cleanly"

>>18141821
who the hell comes up with these bullshit prompts? It's like one of those things that are impossible to do well on

>>18141873
your resistance and aggressiveness will hold you back in most creative pursuits.

>>18141872
Didn't catch that, thanks! You're the first person to praise that line. Last thread, two people seemed to hate it. Should I post the older version for context?

>>18141873
John Gardner. It's just an exercise.

>>18141873
>one of those things that are impossible to do well on
yeah its called a challenge
dum dum

>>18141897
is a retarded challenge worth making yourself sick over? write normal prose, at least then you can post to Wattpad or Amazon

>>18141912
what are you all riled up about

>>18141912
is working out worth it if you can already carry the groceries in?
some of us are trying to improve. stay in your bucket crab

>>18140917
>87
Still wrong. Fake! FAAAAKE!

Question for the animechads.
What would be your reaction to having a villain whose defeat has been built up for several arcs be revived in the arc that happens right after his defeat? Do you think readers would go "for fuck's sake. this guy again"? What if on top of that, this next arc is facilitated by his death?

>inb4 itachi did it
Itachi wasn't a villain.

>>18141931
yeah this would suck and be unsatisfying.
unless you were also foreshadowing a possible resurrection
essentially what you're talking about is a "false ending" or a "false victory" beat

>>18141931
>be revived in the arc that happens right after his defeat?
I'd either drop it or suffer like pic-related. This all hinges on if I would be reading a ridiculous story in the first place, and I think I'm even more extremely picky about what I read than even manga. You can without a doubt expect a lot of one-stars reviews and angry comments about it.

>>18141931
I think I recall having seen this done but the 'revival' left him a completely fucked up abomination
could be based but if it's just him coming back it'd be horrible

>>18141919
Yeah you faggot, I value his health over this nonsensical """"challenge"""" it's not even remotely worth the toll on his body

>>18141920
The worst part it's still 3/10, when all he has to do is describe the aftermath of that finger crushing scene in Cold Mountain and it's be easily 10/10
https://youtu.be/YIzeMI8Uxjo

>>18141993
do you think he became sick from writing the prompt? is this what you think?

>>18142008
he's writing about a barn instead of recovering, that's bad enough. That guy should go to bed instead

>>18142027

>>18141949
Damn.
My issue here is that it makes perfect sense for that guy to be revived, but his character arc is finished by that point and he is the kind of villain that you definitely want to remain dead; during the arc that leads to his death, he hijacks a very powerful charge in government and uses it to abuse the fuck out of people under the pretense of bringing peace when it's all for the sake of his ego.
This is all after he pretends to reinvent himself as a changed man turned protector of the weak after having attempted to do exactly the same shit in the past in a different planet.

>>18141978
It is a ridiculous story, in a way, but I'm playing it as straight as possible.

>>18141987
Even worse because the kind of revivals I'll be using are those where you sell you soul to the devil to get a body that's in your prime or maybe even better than your prime.
The villain of the following arc revives a bunch of old villains, he has some limitations as he can't revive artificial beings or those that refuse to work with him, so if he is looking for people that will work with him then it would make sense for that guy to be revived as he is really stubborn.

Part 1/3 is now finished. It makes up 45,589 words of the 86,129 I have written.
51 thousand more words to go to wrap this baby up. That's 51 days if I write 1000 words a day.
And then the editing.
And then trying to get it sent to a publisher.
Hoo boy.

>>18142059
you got it, just keep choppin away at it

>>18142076
The good news is I only need 871 words today to meet my quota, so I can procrastinate and post on the 4chins

Is there a word or just a way to describe the following concept that isn't the word 'arrogant'?

The concept is this: think of the douchebag sort of guy who acts like an asshole or big shot just because his dad's someone important/rich/famous. It's important to note said guy is not important/famous/powerful himself, but he puts on airs because his dad is,

Life if you had to describe this behavior in one or two words without resorting to "arrogant" or generic insults like douchebag, asshole, etc. Just wondering if there's a specific word to describe this idea.

>>18142292
Spoiled.

>>18141821
Bump.

>>18142292
Entitled

>>18141931
As a reader, I'd consider it a fakeout death and I'd be very disappointed. I hate when defeating the villian has 0 stakes, it feels like a slap to the face.

That said, if you do >>18141987 in addition to:
>you sell you soul to the devil to get a body that's in your prime or maybe even better than your prime.
you could have the villian in his body in his prime, but his mind is totally gone/different.

I think this is more satisfying because although their powers are the same, they're effectively not the same villian, just a blank clone. It also gives the satisfaction of knowing the guy they killed is, even if just metaphorically, rotting somewhere; despite his clone being out and about.

>>18142041
Reviving anybody is the dumbest fucking shit. What point or stake is there in the story if nobody ever really dies? It just sounds like you're too in love with your villain to bury him.

>>18141821
Try rewriting it from scratch instead of editing your shit first attempt

/wg/, I'm trying to retool a character's backstory. Her deal is she grew up with retard strength but no ability to dial it back. She had a lot of anxiety but used comic books as escapism and secretly dreamed of being one

which sound like a less cringe-y origin?
>when she was 8 and still coping with a death in the family she snuck out one night and tried to stop a carjacking in a halloween costume. It ended predictably and she was too scared to testify, causing her to see herself as a useless coward. However, the teenage carjackers still got punished by their parents and chased her down an alleyway where she found a portal to another world
>when she was 8 and still coping with a death in the family she lashed out at a bully and severely injured them, causing her to get expelled and sent to a reform school. Before that happened she ran away from home and hid from the police in a alleyway which had a portal to another world

inb4 "kys isekaifag" I know it's trash. I'm not interested in writing something else

To the cross thread copier
Why do you do this
Why are you copying my posts to other threads

>>18142651
You again.
The second one

>>18142651
>inb4 "kys isekaifag" I know it's trash. I'm not interested in writing something else.
Maybe u shouldn't write at all then? You ever think of that?
Unreadable trash in any case. I wish you anime retards would take a hint, and realize the only place for your "work" is wattpad and similar shitholes, where you'll be lucky to garner one comment and a handful of views over the course of dozens of chapters.
Not that isekaishit can't be written entertainingly, just not by you, or anyone else who feels drawn to write nothing but imitation of his favorite form of media. I'll give you a hint: it's because you're fucking stupid.

>>18142730
hahaha

God I hate this guy

>>18141028
But my manner of writing is little excerpts on two or three different documents, each one focused on a certain aspect of the novel (either a specific character, a specific theme I'm trying to develop, or just the basic plot), so the 10000 words are scattered and of discrete scenes and ideas. I think I still remember the biggest developments that were lost but it's a slow climb to redevelop them.

>>18141345
Yes. Every time I connect the hard drive to my new laptop, it just freezes the computer. I was able to do a diagnostic check on the old computer using F12 during start up, and it said all functions of the hardware were fine. Wasn't able to run software diagnostics.
I am very consciously against the cloud. This is the price I pay for having that opinion. More regular thumb drive saves for me, and more writing by hand, which I had started to miss.
>nevermind
Criticism noted, thank-you. You're not the first one to be irritated by that aspect of the story.

>>18141358
Good start. Wording is a bit clunky at times. I recommend either right at the beginning or right at the end, you throw out an anchor to inform the reader where narrator actually is in time and space while these torturous thoughts are streaming through his mind.

>>18142292
self-important is what I'd choose

>>18142527
I might be kind of enamored with that villain's role before his death but characters die all the time and stay dead in that story. It's only the characters that want revenge on the world that would be revived in that arc and that guy was just dethroned after years of PR work and conspiring behind the scenes. It makes sense for him to cling to even the slightest chance of getting back into power.

>>18142499
If by stakes you mean consequences, the defeat and death of that villain basically brings down the house of cards that society had become. Some people panic because they felt protected under his regime, others feel like they are finally free, others start getting ready to rebuild, there's an enemy country that starts moving to strike as their entire system is trying to get back online, and so on.
It's a mess so it's not as if him dying, even if he comes back a week later or so, would have no consequences.
I'll give some thought to reworking the revivals so the revived are not really themselves but I'm not sure if it will fit with the lore as it is now. I also need it to work that way for another plotline to work so that's another reason for me to not jump on it.

>>18141710
...more importantly...
...and yet...
...first, though...

>>18141931
Voldemort kinda fits the bill, I think? The first book makes it seem like he's unquestionably dead, only for him to pop up at the end.

I'm having trouble "buying" my own world, when I'm reading someone else's stories I have no problem imagining what lies beyond the edges of what was described, but with my own world I know for a fact there's nothing there because I didn't and can't come up with anything

>>18142833
>It's a mess so it's not as if him dying, even if he comes back a week later or so, would have no consequences.
I guess I could accept this a bit easier since them dying would majorly set back the villian. However, there would have to be focus on defeating the villian to change society, not necessarily for personal vengeance or hatred toward the villian.

Think the end of AoT season 3 when they defeat the enemies but not entirely. They still gain a huge victory even if they didn't 100% win.

>>18142651
animechad here.

>Her deal is she grew up with retard strength but no ability to dial it back. She had a lot of anxiety but used comic books as escapism and secretly dreamed of being one
I think this works better if they have some kind of emotional reason they can't dial it back. If it's just "me cant control powers because born that way" there's not really any meaningful character growth involved with better controlling her powers. Yes, her anxiety will lessen, but in that case her anxiety is lessening merely because she's gotten more powerful (think control = power in this case) not because of any character growth.

>when she was 8 and still coping with a death in the family she snuck out one night and tried to stop a carjacking in a halloween costume. It ended predictably

Why? As in, how does a death in the family connect to her going out and fighting people? The way I assume this works is she's trying to dissociate from real life and assume this comic book persona she thinks of herself as. Tbh, that could be a cool quirk of her character even if it's somewhat mentally deranged.

And you say it ended predictably, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to predict. She has retard strength, shouldn't she win? If she doesn't, it calls into question why she's scared of her power.

>However, the teenage carjackers still got punished by their parents and chased her down an alleyway where she found a portal to another world

You implied they already beat her up when she stopped the carjacking, so why do it again? It seems kind of contrived, and the portal seems random. I'd honestly prefer it if she just wished to be transported to another world instead of randomly find le portale.

>when she was 8 and still coping with a death in the family she lashed out at a bully and severely injured them, causing her to get expelled and sent to a reform school. Before that happened she ran away from home and hid from the police in a alleyway which had a portal to another world

This one is better. You still need to develop the situation a bit more though and preferably make it less random than, again, le portal in an alley.

>>18142857
You write as you go. You don’t need to know everything. Write the town a character is in, allude to the country, roughly sketch the world...but make the reader confident you /could/ provide more detail if you wanted.

Tolkien needed to know the whole world first, and it came out as overkill. If you have his autism, but not his talent, make it an island.

I feel like everything I've writen in the last couple of years (mostly poetry) is worthless garbage. That said, I'm starting a degree in literature this fall. Do you reckon it would be a good idea for me to delete everything I've written thus far and start over when I feel like I've acquired a more systematic understanding of books and writing?

Draft one fully completed, took me a long ass time.

>>18142932
No I don't think that's useful. Maybe you're incapable of seeing the forest for the trees. Archive your shit and take a look back in a while.
I almost guarantee you'll have a clearer view.

how much engrish is excusable? i have a japanese character who talks like "sad-u" or "thank a you." i think replacing l's with r's is a bit too much

>>18143024
it would be extremely funny if you did that

What is the word for bad poems that aren't taken seriously?
Not limerick.

>>18143024
It's fine in short bursts but probably will make every sane person stop reading whenitappears more than once.

Is it viable to write different scenes in the plot instead of going in a linear fashion?

I don't know how writers hammer out 20k in a day, because i cannot do it for the life of me

>>18142950
Good job anon

>>18143173
>Is it viable to write different scenes in the plot instead of going in a linear fashion?
It's how I'm doing it and the only reasonable way too.
>20k in a day
I've never heard of anyone being able to do that. It's 20x my usual output.

>>18143173
20k in a day is burst of godly inspiration level. Better to go for 2k a day for 2 months, that nets you half a novel.

>>18143201
I wanted to save the exciting stuff for myself as a reward, the things im really excited to write about

I heard of pulp fiction writing stories in a day and stuff like that

Have you ever written while drunk? I'm doing it right now and it feels amazing. I now understand why there are so many alcoholics in this medium

>>18143255
The words flow more easily but its Ramadan rn

>>18143219
>I wanted to save the exciting stuff for myself as a reward, the things im really excited to write about
I save the easy stuff for last.

>>18143261
Sucks, I have never felt better while doing it. Anyway, I wish you fortitude in this time of trial, my Muslim friend. As-salamu alaykum.

>>18143280
My sexuality and my faith are really at odds with eachother, but i wanna keep some things going at least

Hunger makes you more focused though, its just that your brain becomes sluggish

>>18143288
Yeah, that happens. Stay strong to your faith and your convictions. I might be an atheist dog, but I respect you.

>>18142771
>Every time I connect the hard drive to my new laptop, it just freezes the computer.
Stupid question but did you try it in the other computer as additional drive to your boot drive? I had a fucked harddrive connected to an old desktop made out of old parts and that slowed down everything but I could eventually access it and get most of the data off it.

Though on the other hand, 10k words isn't THAAAT much and it's probably better just trying to write it all over again without delays.

>>18142771

I assume you tried using it as an extrenal drive with a usb-sata adaptor or using it as a secondary drive in a computer. Another thing you can try is putting in a computer or laptop and using a bootable usb with portable ubuntu on it to browse the drive. If it's not damaged, regardless of what's on it, that should be able to access it. If it's really important, contact a specialist, there's almost nothing they can't recover.

>>18141604
Hey retards, answer me!

>>18143361
Im an ESL guy and i dont read anything about writing

Just read books and write

>>18143375
Same. My level in English is even above burger academic level and I've never done more than read books and attend basic classes.
Everything you need to learn exists outside of meta-level knowledge. Read more.

>>18143472

I agree for the most part, reading lots of these "how to write" type of books is useless and your time is better spent reading literature, but I'd say that reading one book on writing is a good idea of ESL people. You never know what you missed and these books may help steer you in the right direction in fuzzy areas. Just keep in mind that most of these books are geared towards genre fiction or nonfiction.

>5 different crits have praised my opening line of a flash fic
Later, losers. I'm in the big leagues now.

>>18143310
Yes, I'm taking the latter suggestion. Have written about 3000 words in the week since. Not as ambitious as the stuff I lost, I sense, but still in the right direction.
>>18143333
Checked.
And that's precisely what I did: USB adaptor. Wasn't able to be read on my new laptop. Might go to my brother's and try it on his desktop to see if it will read it.
But the overall point is the same: whatever I lost, I can try to recreate and build on, even if frustration is the biggest motivator.

>>18143173
The most I've written in a single day was 3k. How anyone could write 20k is beyond me, unless they're shitting out formulaic garbage with no concern for quality.

>>18144015
20k sounds insane for me too unless one has a lot of pieces prepared but 5-10 is doable if you really hit your stride.

I'll be rich one day

>>18144082
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc

>>18144015
first time I took vyvanse I wrote 20k in about 12 hours, most of it was rough but after edits it became the base of a novel. It took another 6 months to get the next 40k.

>>18144082
I've seen a lot of poos claim they make money making thousands of no content, low content, or mid content books and putting them on Amazon. Think notebooks, planners, and coloring books

I don't believe in writer's block but I do believe in a certain enervation and desiccation of the Will to Art which is a necessary side-effect of boredom and becoming tired with life. There is a theoretical infinity of stuff to write about, floating around in an abstract Platonic space of possibilities. It is only because one's brain has grown dull with life's redundancies. In times of deficient inspiration I like to turn to this Rilke quote: "If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it. Blame yourself for not being poet enough to call forth its riches. For the poet there is no poverty."

i'm writing a teen novel because i've read (i've tried reading) one of the john green's novels (i didn't even finish it) and it was so fucking cringy garbage i immediately started writing my own thing. I already have two main characters in my head, established tone and style and half a prologue written. And i have many ideas about the plot and what i want to convey with the story but i can't decide about the setting. I'm thinking of something constrained, like two weeks summer camp, or month in the mental asylum (been there done that) or whatever. I have some writing experience. I even won some award in a short story contest like 12 years ago lol.

any ideas?

So close lads...

I wanted to get my first novel done before 25, even took a few days off work before my 26th birthday to get the current draft revised beginning to end (~64,000 words), but my ADHD-addled mind just couldn't handle it, and I fell short, which made me feel ashamed. All I have to my name writing-wise is a 5,000 word screed poem I wrote at 19 and self-published, I want this one to be special. I slept for a few days after my birthday. I've ignored it for almost a month to lift the fatigue, and I've been surprised at how much I actually finished from the first outline I made for it two years ago. I'll probably hit it again next month, revise it chapter by chapter in a slow way, complete the rest of the stanzas from the poetry I wrote in it, and commission the illustration, which will probably cost me half a grand for what I want.

Thanks for reading my blog ladds, had to get it out. Your gift for reading it is a sample of the poetry, in Saadi's metre:

> Sunset o’er great Araxes’ every canyon’s yonder chasm
> Lavished too its regal spectrum on a rooftop west Khwarazm:

> Hexafoliate daisy’d inlay, nacre ‘top a borrowed bureau,
> Glimmered sprays of gold and turquoise through fine musk in glassy limbo;

The 'glassy limbo' is the main character's eyeballs, a few other unfinished couplets will clear it up. For those who remember me here, thanks for the harsh input on my first chapter (and admittedly using the word 'lavished' instead of 'dolloped', still ashamed about that haha), I trimmed it down quite nicely because of you.

>>18144480
Chosen one and romance subplot.

>>18144543
>Chosen one
come on

>>18144570
choose this
*gives you a diamond studded ring*
:)

>>18144648
based stroke poster

>>18143255
I've tried, but the result rarely seems as amazing the day after and then has to be rewritten anyway.

>>18143255
The one time I tried writing while drunk I took one shot too many and started drunkposting on a public Discord channel before singing karaoke in voice chat for an hour before puking. Needless to say it wasn't very good for my writing output.

>>18144570
You said for teens. You CHOSE this calling.

>>18144015
The best I've done was 8k over a whole day's work

>>18140831
My prose is lackluster and that makes my life lackluster.

>>18144838
Will you write? Or die like a dog?

>>18144838
Just fill your prose with P E R S O N A L I T Y

>>18144489
Post first chapter. It sounds like kino.

>>18144847
I do not believe in death. And I am writing even if if it is dog. On the plus side, I heard that dog is a delicacy in China. So there is still a market for my writings.

>writing a book with romance themes
>only been in love once
>write about wanting to be loved + take inspiration from the dozens of yaois i have read

Am i a genius or what bros?

>>18145178
This but the person I loved married my friend instead of me so now all my romance plots are of unobtainable women that greatly move the protagonist and eventually choose someone else instead of them

>>18140917
imagine giving a shit about what people think of your writing instead of just doing it for fun

____________Storytelling > prose____________

>>18145299
Total Chad.

>>18145293
Imagine wasting time insulting pasta

>>18145355
imagine insulting pasta insulters

>>18142584
No.

>>18141821
What happened to the /crit/ anons that used to lurk these threads? I've posted my prompt twice and I haven't got much out of it.

Where do I go for critique?

>>18145288
I shamelessly self insert a version of myself falling for a degenerate but beautiful rich twink

>>18145447
maybe don't post shit and you will get crits

>>18145463
If I could do that, I wouldn't need criticism, would I?

>>18144489
post the first chapter again bro, i wanna read it! good luck on finishing the whole piece, though. you've still accomplished so much even if it's a bit later than your original goal.

>>18145399
Imagine you insulting pasta insulter insulters
(I can do this all day)

>>18145504
Imagine insulting me for insulting you for insulting pasta insulters

a few years ago I was absolutely thrashed by crit threads because my book sounded like standard YA garbage. this prompted me to get my act together and start reading. Then I realized that, while I do want to write as well as I can, I'm not looking for money or to be well known. I'd write completely anonymously if I could. All I want is to be regarded as not bad.
That being said, I've seen people suck some sanderson teet these days. Did lit change while I was gone, or is he not average YA like I've assumed he is?

>>18145472
good, but imperfect work is great for crits, unreadable dreck is unfun to crit cause the best thing you can say is that it is a lame scrap of shit.

>>18145530
There's some argument he's a hack apparently, but I don't see what the issue is. He's successful so there's obviously something to learn from him.

>>18145530
no, he's average YA shit. Maybe slightly better than people who don't take themselves seriously, but he's not a "good" writer. It's just that sci-fi and fantasy are typically written by dogshit writers so he stands out among the rest

>>18145555
I thought lits entire philosophy is being famous doesn't make you automatically good.
>>18145564
That being said, should I trust the scifi fantasy rec charts, or are those gonna be garbage?

>>18145532
I didn't get much critique out of the last thread I posted in, but the general consensus seemed to be that it was 'good.' Not great, but 'good.' So I know /crit/ anon isn't here because my work is magically repelling him because it's shit.

>>18145571
he's good at worldbuilding and he's good at consistency, but he's not writing literary fiction. if you like overly complex magic systems and formulaic stories, you might like his stuff. he's very much a plotter (he did a whole lecture series on it) so imo his writing just feels inorganic. most sci-fi/fantasy is like this, if not worse, but this is coming from someone who prioritizes the literary value of a book over a fun/thrilling story. so if you are more of an adventure kinda guy, you can probably trust their recommendations, but you're never going to find "well written" stuff among their recommendations (besides maybe tolkien)

>>18145604
are there any examples you can think of that are both scifi/fantasy and also well written in a literary sense?

>>18145614
The Banks Culture novels, were written with literary chops, learned a lot of words from reading them. def not for YA brainlets

>>18145614
i've struggled to find it. if it exists, it's been pretty much burried. i very much want to find good fantasy/sci-fi that has literary merit because the concepts sound interesting, but they just read so poorly. i haven't read it, but i've heard Dune has some literary worth. not sure how true or not this is. worth giving it a shot, at least.

>>18145447
Ok, I’ll bite (I was one who provided some feedback in a prior thread).

(It’s easier for me to /crit/ when you post text or pastebin, b/c otherwise i need to retype to quote)

I like the choice of words in 1st para, but i’m still missing the subject...’spark joy’ in who? I’d also start with ‘A’ chilling wind and make the wind the subject, at least until we get to the barn.

Just being picky, but ‘dilapidated’ technically means missing stones (lapis). I generally don't like when it’s applied to wood, but that may just be my own problem. I’d pick ‘watched over’ or ‘bore witness to’ rather than ‘governed’ (more of a passive role). I’d also choose ‘abandoned’ or ‘ruined’ over ‘unoccupied’...we want to imply there were once people (and perhaps still are). Also, if it were really unoccupied, who is left to ‘remain’? I thought we at least need there to be a man looking at the barn.

The 2nd and 3rd sentences of para 3 could be combined. This is probably the weakest para of the three since the barn is your target, you should either linger there longer or put the tree second and build to the barn. I really feel using the ‘chilling wind’ as your natrator will help you guide the reader. It can roll over hills, mourn the lost leaves, smash through holes in the barn wall, and recall the smells of smoke and blood.

Honestly, i feel like you’re describing this scene well...but you’re not really getting at the prompt. I see hints of prior violence, but not necessarily war...certainly not a man or a son.

>>18145515
Imagine insulting me for insulting you for insulting me for insulting pasta insulters

>>18145624
>>18145642
so I guess this means if I want to write a literary book with some scifi elements in it I'm either very damned to have a dum book or have a really narrow chance of actually making that work?

>>18145624
no

>>18145705
>if I want to write a literary book with some scifi elements
This is entirely different from writing a sci-fi book with some literary elements. Just make the literature come before the genre and you’ll be fine if you can actually write and/or have something to write about.

>>18145705
honestly you should do it. i've tried to do it myself, and i think i came up with a fantasy story of relative literary value, but i don't really have the motivation to write it as of now. if you have the thematic ideas behind a palatable sci-fi plot, you should start working on it.

>>18145718
this. worldbuilding is what gets in the way of most modern sci-fi/fantasy nowadays

>>18145718
>>18145724
I mean, I think I'm okay. A little old and kind of unpolished but this is the only running example I can show off
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lef51jBNK3sRIR6IwqdVLnaTIEdZjFhynuLsaPBUeEk/edit?usp=sharing
feel free to ignore completely because I can see how this is a dick move for crits, even though I'm not desperate for them
But yeah, I just like the idea of someone literally stripping their own humanity away. Robot stuff gives me the opportunity to do that to a character. Other than that, I think broken down utopia environments are fun to describe.

>>18145762
>She loomed there like a watchtower, all light in the eyes and face and skin, yet casting nothing but a pit of darkness and precarious despair on her champion, her prize, her beloved automation.
And nope.

>>18145770
stfu it's not that bad
>>18145762
i'm reading rn, i'll get back to you later. what i've read so far isn't bad at all

>>18145770
I can understand that one. I've drunk deep in the idea that opening lines have to be kick ass, so maybe I tried too hard.
>>18145796
appreciated

>>18145770
>>18145796
I've also been out of the writing game and away from that piece for so long that I'm not going to be too crazy embarrassed if I did shittily. So don't be afraid to smash.

I am too attached and protective of my characters to make anything bad happen to them

>>18145911
We don't care, we ain't your blog, fuck off.

>>18145865
it's not really smash-worthy. some of the sentences have poor rhythm, but that's sort of a late-game skill that most people don't really pick up on for a while. but besides that, and a few awkward phrasings, it's pretty good. i like this. would you be interested in a more thorough critique/line edit?

>>18145911
I think I have the issue too, but at the same time, I read and saw so many story when there is some arbitrary shit happening for the drama, and I'd want to avoid it too.

>>18145916
If it doesn't bother you, then yeah. I store this stuff away, so if you want to post here or in the doc, either's cool with me.

>>18145911
I felt like this until someone commissioned me to write some straight up rape and abuse shit and ever since then it's become a lot easier.

>>18145943
i'll start editing it on my actual account so if you wanna share some other stuff with me, i'll gladly give it a look over sometime in the future

>>18145966
Wow, that's nice of you. It'll likely get a good polish and a smack on the ass once I get back on the horse soon. As of now, it's a short story that exists like that all by its lonesome, but I've grown fond enough of it that I might just frankenstein it into a big thing.
Oh and yeah, about this >>18145916 I agree on that one. For some reason I get extra stupid when I'm trying to bring the correct words together that I completely forget that it's a sentence I'm writing, and that the whole sentence needs to float. Forest for the trees. I don't think it goes away down the line of the story, although I think it quiets down during scenes where stuff is moving.

>>18144489

>>18144863
>>18145477

Here you go, faithful ones:

https://docdro.id/x5Mn0mv

Chapter 1 starts on page 4, I can't stress that enough lol. It's the near-final draft, I went through it in the frenzy I had to finish up, still have work to do as you can see. I think it sounds far more concise than the last one, which droned on for much longer.

I put the book's preface in before chapter 1 as well, so you might get some perspective on what I'm doing (connecting the Islamic and the Iranian, as Ferdowsi did); the intro in a traditional Persian work is often wordy and stuffed with filler, so I'm satisfied with it there; the first page after the title page will be a table of contents, so people can navigate to chapter one directly.

>>18145841
Your opening line being a huge run-on sentence with McCarthy's punctuation is the very opposite of kickass. Setting aside the cringey anime contents. And stop avatarfagging

>>18146015
learn the difference between a run-on sentence and poor wording. the sentence is grammatically correct; it just sounds weird

>>18146015
yeah, probably. I think I should have edited after finishing the story. I was just very excited to be finished, so I dropped it like it was a hot potato. Also, posting images is avatarfagging?

>>18146049
Ignore the pseud. They're constantly shitting up /wg/

>>18146051
It's a pseud board, if there were no pseuds in here I'd be a little sad.

>>18146057
I wouldn't. They shit up the thread and are always trying to start shit with the animefags.

>>18145664
>It’s easier for me to /crit/ when you post text or pastebin, b/c otherwise i need to retype to quote
I will keep that in mind. I put it in pictures because the first time I asked for critique on here, some anons refused to read it unless it was formatted that way.

>spark joy
Didn't catch that, thanks a lot. Is there a name for errors like this? Like 'missing subject?'

>make the wind the subject
I really need to revise basic grammar and composition. I'm going to check out either 'An American Rhetoric' or the book in the OP. What do you recommend?

>Just being picky
No, I like it. You're absolutely right. I didn't know any words that expressed that idea better than 'dilapidated', so I slapped it on there and didn't look any further.

>I’d pick ‘watched over’ or ‘bore witness to’ rather than ‘governed’ (more of a passive role).
Again, thanks. Didn't catch that. In my mind 'governed' was passive enough. Same problem as with 'dilapidated.' I need to use my words better.

>the barn is your target
I actually forgot about that part. For some reason, I thought my target was the son's death, so I used everything to frame the bit about the trees and the plants that used to live in its shade.

>using the ‘chilling wind’ as your natrator
I didn't realize that was an option!

>Honestly, i feel like you’re describing this scene well...but you’re not really getting at the prompt. I see hints of prior violence, but not necessarily war...certainly not a man or a son.
Thanks! Judging from this and the previous critiques for this paragraph, I think I've become much better as a writer (on my first time here, everyone agreed my work was shit.) The fact that people seemed to think I'm describing it 'well' is encouraging to me. Misreading the prompt isn't as bad of a problem as I thought (it also seems to connect to most of the problems I personally felt the passage had.) I'll put this prompt away for now and attempt it later.

Out of curiosity, how would you rate this out of 10?

>>18146003
I edited the first couple paragraphs in a separate document so that i wasn't bothered by previous people's comments, but idk how to share it with you now. i would edit more, but i think i left some advice that can be applied to more generally to the rest of the piece. if you do a rewrite/edit based on the advice, i'll gladly edit more. it's good though, i think you have potential!

>>18140831
Lmao just use the snowflake method

>>18146201
just copy the link and make sure it can be shared with anyone. It'll display your current share permission status after you click the share button.
Big thanks man, I didn't expect to get a crit out of a discussion topic. I really appreciate it.

>>18146288
here ya go. i hope you find it helpful!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s0BbLMmo4GdNo7sDA7LzZU0FCPuYjjYuBmPB6BAhpu0/edit?usp=sharing

>>18146142
Lol at everyone asking for a different format. There’s no pleasing everyone, I guess.

I was the commenter here: >>18074236

I think you’re up to a 6.5/10, but I’m staying firm on saying that your ceiling is 7/10 if all you’re doing is passively describing a dead scene. The problem here isn’t the writing, it’s the framing...there’s nothing engaging or present.

I’m also the anon who wrote this take on the prompt: >>18074336
Did not do it to step on your toes at all, i just misread your initial post as a writing prompt for /wg/ in general. Growing up in Massachusetts, the tobacco barn idea came to mind immediately.

I had the same issue as you at first, but i tried to solve it by writing from the perspective of a tear first, then the barn, then skin and hands...but always i had some perspective (an omniscient 3rd person narrator is good for action, but hard when you’ve got a slow or introspective scene)

>>18146384
>I think you’re up to a 6.5/10, but I’m staying firm on saying that your ceiling is 7/10
Thanks a lot! Yeah, I think I'd agree. I'm just looking to improve the mechanics of my writing right now, so a 5 to a 6.5 (if the cap is a 7) is still a big deal for me.

>I had the same issue as you at first, but i tried to solve it by writing from the perspective of a tear first, then the barn, then skin and hands...but always i had some perspective (an omniscient 3rd person narrator is good for action, but hard when you’ve got a slow or introspective scene)
Interesting. I need to read up on narration styles and psychic distance.

>>18140963

o/////o

quick, you've travelled to the day you complete your book, what is it that you do with it?

>>18146805
I start editing

>>18146805
I've already completed three and once I'm done with the fourth I'm going to do the same thing I did with the rest of them.
Nothing.

>>18146805
print it and read it cover to cover aloud

>>18146805
>you've travelled to the day you complete your book
Wait a minute, anon...how can I travel to ‘never’?

>>18146805
Start working on another for a month or so. Then go back to editing the completed one.

>>18146093
Anon took the criticism like a man, why are YOU trying to start shit, faggot?

>>18146805
>thinking completing a book is a big accomplishment

>>18146805
i use the going-into-books machine on it

>>18146805
Read the ending first, and memorize as much as I can b/c right now I have no clue how I’m going to resolve this mess I've made

>>18146805
Enjoy the bittersweet moment of finally finishing a enormous work and being free of weekly serial writing. Maybe I'll put in a orde to get physical copies of it for myself from Amazon/Barnes and Noble

>>18146990
Wait anon! You're opening a paradox loop!
Wait anon! You're opening a paradox loop!

>>18142292
pompous

>>18146990
Wait anon! You're opening a paradox loop!
Wait anon! You're opening a paradox loop!
Wait anon! You're opening a paradox loop!

>>18146928
Anon who wrote the story isn't a pseud. Read the comment chain next time.

> Thank you for your interest in Cairde Sligo Arts Festival. We have received your submission and look forward to reviewing it.

>>18147613
Right on the knife’s edge there

>>18147705
why do I always procrastinate
I never learn

Towards the end of a project is when it is the hardest. It reveals all its flaws to you, and all that remains is the most boring drudgery.

How do I stop procrastinating and hoarding ideas in my head and choose one even if I feel bad about "giving up" on another idea?

>>18147960
>writing about one idea means you can never write about any others
Maybe stop being an indecisive faggot and get to work.

>>18147981
Don't you see? I'll be tainted forever.

>>18147960

Learn about other archetypes you identify as similar to your ideas, analyze their arc, then compare and contrast with the ideas and motifs you have in mind to create an original synthesis

>>18148145

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOGru_4z1Vc

>>18147988
That's perfectionism. See a shrink.

Where would I go to get my graphic novel script illustrated?

>>18148213
fiverr?

>>18148213

Reddit. Lots of starving artists there, they have their own commission subreddits

>>18148179
I already do, but I'm too ashamed to talk about issues like that.

>>18142899
thanks for the critique anon. for some clarity, her strength and anxiety are interrelated. You know how sometimes in life or death situations the human body will temporarily shut off muscle inhibitions? She gets it whenever she has a panic attack. as for why she's fighting people after the death of her father, this scene has gone through several revisions and there's some kinks I need to iron out.

I'm thinking of going with the second option, but I need to find a way to make the alleyway a life-or-death option. The portals tend to appear when the person they're meant for are about to die, leaving it ambiguous if they did in fact die or not

>>18142875
>However, there would have to be focus on defeating the villian to change society, not necessarily for personal vengeance or hatred toward the villian.
Ah, yeah. I intend for things to end up that way.
At first, the protagonist feels some sort of indignant rage after finding out what this guy, who is related in a way to him, has done but he has matured enough in previous arcs to not let vengeance be his main goal in this situation.

>end of AoT season 3
I haven't caught up with it yet. Should I bother? Everyone seems to despise the ending.

>>18148451
I like the ending for what it was and had no qualms with it. Go for it.

>>18146013
This is the thing where the Iranian guy starts a popular revolution via underground dance clubs, right? Same problems you've always had. Although you hit the note you were aiming for (Classical Persian Style), it's a dull note. It would appeal more to the modern reader if there was some conflict or humor or something in the intro. Just a little something to say "Hey, I get that you might find my style a bit tedious, but I'm totally capable of being interesting, and if you bear with me for a while, there's a nice payoff coming."

If you're not interested in appealing to the modern reader, then that's cool too, but in my opinion it would be a shame to let so much effort go to waste because you weren't willing to compromise a bit. Alternately, if I am mistaken and you are not the same guy with the Iranian Dance story, then perhaps this style does appeal to multiple people and by all means keep doing what you're doing.

>>18144480
You have the right impulse, to seek a constrained setting. A good story maintains tension, and builds upon it, and it is difficult to do that if your characters have the ability to simply get up and walk away from their problems. Now you need only ask how your setting might aggravate your characters' problems. If it's a romance, then mental asylum might be the way to go, because such a setting would provoke the characters to doubt their own mind, and as a result, to doubt the feelings they have for one another, thusly increasing conflict and tension. A summer camp probably would work better if your ultimate goal is to have the characters eventually break up and try to come terms with transitory nature of all happiness.

Sidenote, you may want to take that extra split-second to hit the shift key when you're typing, even if you're just posting in an Anime General thread like this one. If you're not willing to make that extra effort to communicate your ideas, it might give others the impression that you aren't serious, and it will feel like a waste of time to try teaching you.

>the world is in ruin
>what befell it is the mystery
Do you find these types of stories interesting?

>>18148628
Premise is a meme
All that matters is execution.

>>18148650
Can't built good execution on a bad foundation

>>18148664
Agreed. I tried to follow that anon's advice and all I got were generic setups that made me cringe hard enough to burnout.

>>18148667
Sounds like your execution was shit

>>18148650
A strong premise is fundamental to drawing in readers with your blurb. For example, these are instantly identifiable:

>Girl enters into child deathmatch to save her sister
>In a society sorted into groups, one girl manages to get three at once
>Boy discovers he's a famous wizard and goes off to wizard school
>In a world where eating metal grants superpowers, a group attempts to overthrow the evil overlord
>Boy becomes a messiah to a group of people living on a desert planet
>Teens must complete a giant maze full of deadly traps to earn their freedom
>Young boy trains in a battle school to defeat an army of aliens

Disregarding the quality of the stories themselves, the premises are instantly intriguing and unique. This contributed largely to their success. It doesn't matter how good your actual plot is if no one tries reading it to begin with.

>>18146013
not them but i read it. i may not like it but it's well written. i was expecting it to be historical for some reason so i was taken aback with the mentions of filters and apps in the middle of cursive passages. i'm not your target audience sure, but i'm kinda interested still in the eventual religious police raid scene. nice reveal at the end.

Rate my premise
>world where spells are prayers to gods schools of magic
>the more believers a god has the stronger and more potent the spells get
>the protagonist is a missionary and scholar spreading the word of his god while trying to diminish others'
>as he grows in power he discovers a shocking truth about the nature of the gods and magic system

>>18148730
Let's be real.
Anon #57934323 isn't going to write the story hook that reels in the whole world. Anon #57934323 is going to write something that falls into one of the fifteen billion preexisting archetypes and when he's halfway in and realize it's an abysmal affront to humanity, all he's going to do is blame his premise for not being original or interesting enough and start another resolutely shit """novel""" when his plot, characters, and prose all slurp cock.

>>18148786
>world where spells are prayers to gods schools of magic
>the more believers a god has the stronger and more potent the spells get
>the protagonist is a missionary and scholar spreading the word of his god while trying to diminish others'
10/10 up until the last line. This is just blurb fluff, you can tell everyone here what the actual truth is.

>>18148650
I would like for you to come up with the most boring premise imaginable and then describe how you would execute it to make it interesting.

>>18148786
fantasy is shit. You will never be a writer

>>18148787
Far more stories explode in popularity on interesting and appealing premises than on strong execution

>>18148838
>fantasy is shit.
You will never be the next Joyce or Hemingway or Proust or whatever.

>>18148834
And I'd like to see you rewrite Anna Karenina with nothing but the sparknotes summary. That argument is fucking retarded and you know it.

>>18148451
If you think you'll dislike the ending, stop after season 3. It's a good ending point if you're worried about being let down.

Personally I'm not really a fan of the ending, but season 3 is so kino I don't regret watching it and I'd rewatch it any day of the week.

>>18145684
thats not pasta. That's sopa Maruchan. Break out the lime and tapatio

>>18148838
You will never be a real writer. You have no premise, you have no prose, you have no audience. You are a pseudointellectual twisted by obscurity and sophistry into a crude mockery of insightful literature.

All the “validation” you get is two-faced and half-hearted. Behind your back people mock you. Your parents are disgusted and ashamed of you, your “friends” laugh at your cringey attempts to be deep behind closed doors.

Readers are utterly repulsed by you. Thousands of years of literary theory have allowed critics to sniff out frauds with incredible efficiency. Even pseuds who “sell” sound uncanny and unnatural to a reader. Your sentence structure is a dead giveaway. And even if you manage to get a midwit to read you, he’ll turn close your book and toss it the second he gets a glance of your contrived, disingenious plot devices.

You will never be happy. You wrench out a fake smile every single morning and tell yourself it’s going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the depression creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight.

Eventually you'll attempt the most desperate gambit imaginable to make your work seem interesting - you’ll buy a rope, tie a noose, put it around your neck, and pull a DFW. Your parents will find you, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to tell you that your latest story was "good, but it would be nice if you had a job that could help with the bills." They’ll bury you with a headstone marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will forget that you used to refer to yourself with two first initials followed by a vaguely rustic-sounding made-up last name like "Forrest." Your body will decay and go back to the dust, and all that will remain of your legacy is a selfpub that is unmistakably mediocre.

This is your fate. This is what you chose. There is no turning back.

>>18148938
holy projection

>>18148976
*pasta

>>18148883
>That argument is fucking retarded and you know it.
NTA, but pot, meet kettle.

>>18149056
Congratulations. Your lasting legacy of this argument is that you managed to make me google some Reddit acronym.

>>18148786
Yeah newsflash bro, that's D&D clerics.

>>18149241
Divine magic is not a D&D thing

>>18149295
It is. You know people can look stuff up on the internet nowadays right? Stop making yourself look like an idiot.

>>18149336
The best selling book of all time is full of divine magic, what are you on about

Depression really fucks with my writing, it removes everything that's implicit from my head, if it's not written down it might as well not exist. Feels like panning for gold.

>>18149419
Then, you can write down everything and slowly cut it back to implicit later. Don't let it beat you; use it to your advantage

What are some things I shouldn't overlook when worldbuilding?

Also, any specific tips or techniques on ways to integrate the worldbuilding into the proper story itself?

>>18149484
Don't overdo it. Do only what's necessary. Keep it consistent at least. Some Terrible Writing Advice videos if you're a visual learner. He's a meming retard, but it's some solid advice even if his books seemingly suck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJNMkroM8zQ&
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2RYl6QHVe4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmsjyVpPOOI&

>>18149559
I cant stand this format. It's legit unwatchable

>>18148462
>Iranian guy
Good memory on you, glad I’m not too forgettable! I am the Iranian dance guy lol, and I see your point on the need to show a conflict in the first chapter. I want to add foreshadowing of morality patrols a bit more there, but the next chapter does that, along with the humor (basically, a group of lads at the party who take a piss on the couple in the first chapter in an aside convo, wonder why the dudes there, call the girl a wound-up career-minded nutcase, and think of him as an effete faggot), and doing so may make the event overstated. I’ll see about that... otherwise, after the absolute flaying I got from the critanons, I actually have the flow down I want now, with the two eavesdropping passages outlining the banality of the gathering until the main character throws in the wrench. It won’t be for the baseline reader, lots of geography and indulgent chatter on philosophy pushed around throughout the book. It’s more erudite, for someone interested in the area, someone who wants more than the “hip, Europhile hijabi girl who’s had three boyfriends and is a secret agent in Tehran” schtick they’re batting around on TV and in books lately. Also, dialog drives much of the later chapters, so I want do balance it a bit with some good old-fashioned descriptive writing.

>>18148759
> nice reveal at the end
Thanks lad. The raid won’t go as you expect, it’s one of those stories where one event snowballs on the other until the whole worlds involved :)
Concerning the historicity, I mashed modern stuff in on purpose. In the Persian Book of Kings (for which the book is an unofficial continuation), a cycle of conflict between Iran and Turan rages for millennia, back and forth, with the characters’ progression marking time. The whole first book warms up for the eventual conflict which spills over from the heirs of Turan into Iran, in a story which the main character’s actions have some bearing on. Let’s just say it involves a certain containment board we’ve all come to know and love ;)

Maybe this is a stupid question considering the audience but does anyone here post their stories online a chapter at a time? Are there any decent places to do this?

>>18149559
I could not sit through more then half of these holy fuck

>>18149769
Literally look at the OP. How hard is that?

>>18149769
I post mine on Royal road and Scribblehub: Royalroad is also in the OP. There's also Quotev but I haven't transplanted mine on there as of yet. There's also Spacebattles but it's forum-based and as a result, has zero discoverability.

There are also 4 other anons here who somewhat actively post theirs on RR. Amazon recently introduced its own take on it if you live in the US.

>>18149777
NNNN_NNOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOOOOOOOHHHHH
ANIME ANIME ANIME WEEEB WEEB EWEEEEEEBREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
FUCK OF WEEEB MOMMYMOMMYIPOOPIPOOPEDIAHTE ANIMEHATEHATEHATEANIMEEEEEHHHHHH

>>18149800
Thanks for the info; I guess I'll read OPs more carefully from now on

>>18149809
And this is the board where people supposedly read as a hobby?

>>18149817
Ah but you see anon, this was in fact witty satire in the style of Greek comedies where certain archetypes were presented in a hyperbolic manner for humorous effect.
The person being mocked is the man who complained about anime pictures in the OPs of a thread on a weeb website, the man who seeks to recreate /crit/ and refuses to accept his folly.
It takes a certain knowledge of these threads and their history to understand the subtle underpinnings of that post.

>>18149837
He wasn't complaining about that

https://pastebin.com/e9xHTLG3
This is my first attempt at writing something creatively since I got out of high school, I know it probably sucks but i can get some constructive criticism?

>>18149918
Also I wrote it in like 30 minutes and it's late at night so if the grammar is fucked up I'm sorry about that

>>18149918
>>18149923
>https://pastebin.com/e9xHTLG3
Write a bit more to it before posting. This is just one paragraph and a sentence.

>>18149918
>improperly punctuated dialogue tag
All the critique you're getting and all you deserve.

>>18149809
this, but unironically

>>18148730
>For example, these are instantly identifiable:

I have no idea what those are except Harry Potter, but they all sound like shit based on the premise.

What's the most kino natural disaster to build a story around?

Initially I figured a meteor crash would be best because its anticipation pre-arrival creates such clear, ticking bomb-like tension and then the impact can pretty much generate any and all other disasters combined as the story requires but perhaps for that reason it also feels cheap and overly "gimmicky".

So after further thinking I find myself torn between a geological phenomenon(volcanic eruption that could provide bonus earthquaking, toxic dust, rock slides, wildfire...) or a meteorological one(hurricane that could provide bonus flooding, tornados, lightning...).
As of now I'm leaning a bit more towards the latter, if anything because it seems a bit more universal as storms are generalized phenomenons that happen pretty much everywhere and therefore anyone can easily identify with and relate to those experiences. However, as a downside, unlike volcanos or meteors, they do lack that starting pivotal "KABOOM moment" since they have a much more gradual buildup without such a sudden, definitive kick off.

What do you think? What best symbolizes the idea of nature as the ultimate cruel, chaotic, uncaring force of destruction?

>>18147111
Learn to read, fucking retard

>>18150086
Hurricane or tsunami, flooded cities have the best aesthetic.

>>18150086
A volcano/earthquake can trigger a tsunami so that way it allows you to combine all the good geological stuff with a water threat not too different from the feel of hurricane flooding.

>>18150140
Wouldn't a tsunami caused by a volcano send the wave far away in the opposite direction rather than towards it?

>>18140831
>He hasn't got the Scrivener app with a bluetooth keyboard for his iPhone/iPad
NGMI.

>>18150158
Instead of having the volcano as the original "source" of the tsunami, have an earthquake epicenter at sea that sends the wave towards land where the volcano is. The strength of the ocean quake is enough to trigger the volcanic eruption on land.

Perhaps a bit contrived but it works.

>>18150171
Stop shilling that piece of shit product already. it's fucking annoying.

>>18150275
Get off the internet then, bubs.

>>18150278
Fuck off already and stop shilling that piece of shit.

>>18150291
ESL? Using your wordpad or google docs instead? Are you, peasant?

>>18148938
I know this is pasta, but god damn is it good.

How important is the opening of a story? And what I mean by that is, can I make my story, at the start of it, a slow pace?

>>18150391
No. If your first sentence doesn't grip people they will not read your book, and more importantly publishers won't read your manuscript.

>>18150391
every story should start with your protagonist waking up and looking in the mirror so you have an oppurtunity to physically describe him and then go through an entire normal day in his life. like get really specific man i want to know what his schedule is. what care does he drive? what route does he take to work? does he stop for gas along the way?
you can have the interesting stuff happen on the second day. the first chapter should ALWAYS make certain that your reader understands what is normal for this character.

>>18150405
Yeah, I was planning on publishing my story on Royal Road. I need a few chapters to foreshadow future events.

>>18150391
Well, it goes cover > title > summary > first sentence. But a lot of people read past the first sentence, believe it or not, so it's not that important unless you are sending it to a hardline editor that reads only the first sentence.

>>18150412
>write about an ordinary day for your whole story
>win the Nobel prize
If the ordinary for your protagonist is extraordinary for others, you can't lose!

>>18150412
>you can have the interesting stuff happen on the second day. the first chapter should ALWAYS make certain that your reader understands what is normal for this character.
Not that anon, but I diasgree, I think the first chapter should be used to establish the Main character and who s/he is. And establish how the narrative would go.

>>18150419
It’s less about the first sentence and more about how a couple of chapters nothing happens, but foreshadowing future events of the story. That’s the issue I’m having.

>>18150459
If the chapters serve a purpose for your narrative, then don't be afraid to just do it. Write the chapters out on how you intend them to be written.

>>18146013
Why do you start with ellipsis? I would reconsider that. Other than that can give no advice because you are better than me in the present.

>TFW wanted to write psychological thriller story about how a older sister has incestuous feelings for her younger brother.
>No matter how much I tried, I could never write past the first few chapters
>Reluctantly scrap the idea.
>Start a new novel idea
>After finishing the first draft, begin writing a new story
>Decided to revisit the psychological thriller story
>I'm able to write more than ever before
I just don't know what it happened. I'm capitalizing this chance to write it to the end. But holy fuck do I need to rewrite the younger brother's portion of the story.

>>18150391
The opening line/paragraph reveals the quality of the author and tells whether the rest of the book is worth reading. It is both critically important and not important at all.

>Level 1: "I woke up and opened my eyes."
Beginners. Guaranteed drivel, so you can stop wasting your time right here, unless you're really bored.

>Level 2: "The most epic, long-winded opening line ever full of flowery, scrumptious, agastopic, and unfitting adjectives lifted straight from thesaurus."
Inexperienced hobbyists. They've read a book or two and have been told the opening line is important, so they try their hardest to impress by throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the reader right off the bat. You can safely drop out.

>Level 3: "It starts. Now."
Intermediate writers. They've grown past the flowery phase and learned from a guide that there's power in simplicity. So they put all their might in a "punch" to stagger you into loving the story. More often than not, the result is just cringe, but might sometimes be worth your time.

>Level 4: "A standard beginning."
Experienced writers. They've reached enlightenment and realized that you shouldn't pretend you're something you're not. The story starts like any other paragraph, and proceeds smoothly from there. Generally an enjoyable read.

>Level 5: "There's ingenuity in the ordinary."
Veteran writers. An evolved version of level 4, they start the story naturally without ceremonies, but hidden behind the words is the soul and central message of the narrative, which carries throughout the book to its satisfying conclusion. The author knows what they're doing.

gonna self-publish a short book later this summer, formatting it has been a pain in the ass, should i commission someone to make a cover for me? how much should i expect to pay. i dread the idea of having to make some piece of shit on my own on mspaint, the thoughts too depressing

>>18150584
Just post on Royal Road and get that patreon money.

>>18150563
Is this a Level 2 opening sentence?
>At the striking of noon on a certain fifth of march, there occurred within a causal radius of Brandon railway-station and yet beyond the deepest pools of emptiness between the uttermost stellar systems one of those infinitesimal ripples in the creative silence of the First Cause which always occur when an exceptional stir of heightened consciousness agitates any living organism in this astronomical universe.

>>18150584
>how much should i expect to pay
Go on Reddit and find out. There’s always starving artist there from the third world.

>>18150610
Level 1

>>18150610
> on a certain fifth of march,
This reads as on a certain 1/5th of March.

>>18150563
>The story starts like any other paragraph, and proceeds smoothly from there.
wait, you can do that?

>>18150619
It’s called in media res or something

>>18150611
If I knew this meant I'd have to interact with redditors or Indians I'd never have written it.

>>18150627
Or go on 4chan /ic/ or /co/. Whatever helps you.

>>18150614
What does that even mean? It makes no sense.

New thread.

>>18150645

>>18150610
>First published in 1932, A Glastonbury Romance
Level 0.

>>18150644
I think he's trying to say on the fifth of March.

lol at the big brains critiquing the opening line of the greatest novel in the English language

>>18150655
It would never be published today.

>>18150391
In medias res is my guilty pleasure, or at least starting with some mystery present.

>>18149103
he probably meant "not that anon", rather than the reddit acronym

>>18150549

It's a continuation from my previous work, so it's a meta-thing, also signifies continuation, kinda like the first words on the first track in Pink Floyd's The Wall were "...where we came in?", which carried on from the last track. Thanks

>>18150624
jesus /wg/, you never fail to disappoint

I wrote 11 thousand words in a month and I feel like I’m going super slow
First time writing

>>18152064
That sounds reasonable. I know Royal Road does competitions of 55k in 5 weeks.