/lit/ - Literature

>>18738458
You fucks just can’t let this General die in peace? You really have to do it dirty by treating like /crit/?

>was managing to write 500 words a day pretty consistently
>had a crash the last week where I've written nothing
Should I try to force myself or should I just let the writer's block pass with time?

>>18738558
How is this even a goddamn question? Jesus Christ.

>>18738564
Calm down, anon. Do you want to tell the class what you think we should discuss?

>>18738609
What the fuck are you on about? Stop being a little bitch with that class bullshit.

>>18738558
Force yourself to write something else than throw it away once thrme black has passed.

>>18738791
*the block

Chapter 41 released.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40361/erased
Its great when everything sort of clicks. Editing this chapter with a simple name/title change I managed to unify the few remaining disparate hanging threads for the ending of the book. Every string is accounted for, every minor little plot dangling chad neatly sorted away. Hope everyone else is getting the words out. And don't get discouraged if something seems a little off on your first draft. You've got a lot of work left to do after that and it'll get fixed then.

In the last thread (not the Turtle one) one of anon say to me that Google docs spying on my work, and the anon say to me that i should use Skiff. So my question Is, do goggle docs spying on my work or it't just some schizo thing?

>>18738933
are you really going to take the words of people on this site for proof? Are you stupid or something?

>>18738933
Nobody at Google cares enough to look into some random guy's fiction folder. They'll only look at your shit if their filter suspects you're up to something sketchy.

>>18738938
We're talking about Google, so I'm quite worried

>begin story
>first page is good
>go back later
>it's horrible
>try to edit it/start again/keep going
>get disheartened and walk away
>sit back down a week later with a beer
>okay I see what I'm doing now
>start again from the beginning
>all words fall into place
>about 3 or 4 pages a day/every second day (I work nights)
>finish off the draft
>rewrite it a couple of times word for word, tweaking as I do to get the final result
>DONE
>feeling really great off the back of it
>open a new doc
>first page is good
>go back the next day and realise it's horrible
Quite depressing this cycle. It always get there in the end but I swear I'm doing things the hard way. When it's straight off another story too I always find the period of aimlessness lasts longer and I'm usually depressed for those couple of weeks while my computer stays open to it on the desk.

>>18738956
Use your fucking brain for once.

>>18738966
That's pretty much me for the past 5 years. Better than the alternative of writing a million words of garbage - assuming you're improving while doing so. I think I'm a decent writer now despite having finished like 2 things in my entire life.

>>18738967
Alright friend, sorry to bother you

How do I get people to go over drafts of my work? I pass it to my friends but they almost never get back to me. I'm not sure what communities are worth a damn, and most overrun with other people's submissions to the point where I feel like mine would get lost in the flood.

>>18739001
Goodreads has beta reading groups, but they aren't guaranteed to finish your book. Much better chance than friends and family, however. You should never try to get an opinion from friends and family on your writing.

I paid some people on Fiverr to beta read for me (look for "tough love" readers and not yes-men). They're basically guaranteed to finish your work, and they come pretty cheap for what you're getting out of it.

ive been writing a few graphic novels this past year, but i worry about my ability to write diverse character personalities. im not the most sociable so my experience with real personalities is very low.

ive been writing people just to serve the narrative, but i have a few ideas brewing that absolutely rely on the characters personalities as opposed to their actions and expressions. when i try to write someone it feels so superficial, like, i would never say things like that, and there's almost no need for me to display some of these traits to serve the narrative. so why would i write something in thats so meaningless for me?

id like to get a better understanding on how to write characters, i just dont know where to start. i understand if i could make some really good characters then the conflict would naturally arise, as opposed to my habit of creating characters solely for conflicts and reactions that may just come across as even more superficial than my lack of understanding on how to make characters in the first place.

would anyone have any resources for this? ill take just about anything you can give on it.

>>18739001
Send it to the publisher, dumb-dumb.

>>18739035
Critical thought is the heart of improvement. What don't you like about your characters? Try rewriting it. Watch people in real life and take note of how they act. Read books and pay attention to how they act and what they do, then try figuring out how that helps what the author is trying to accomplish.
Like everything else, just keep practicing and researching. Most writing resources are garbage unfortunately, the good ones I know of don't focus on character development.

how do I know if I'm a pseud? how do I know if I'm an anime writer?

>>18739071
When you ask useless questions.

>>18738974
>Better than the alternative
No it's not

>>18739052
well crap.
the only thing i dont like about my chars is they never seem to say much, anything they would say would be pointless exposition since im very visual, no need to write that at all. most of the conflicts ive written lately have been external, not internal, i could try writing an internal conflict to force some deeper characterization, but it doesnt feel genuine when i put those things to page.

>>18739096
What does Quentin Tarantino do to create such perfect characters and natural dialogue? He's heavily autistic but is an expert at simulating humans. Maybe you should see if he's ever discussed the process somewhere.

>>18739114
I actually know this! Quentin mirrors interactions and dialogue that he's observed both in movies growing up and around him

>>18739080
What are some useless questions so I know not to ask them?

>>18739114
I'll take a look, ive seen some things on his process but not too much. thanks for the tip

Nothing I write feels inspired and I have no good ideas. I’m just forcing myself to write for the sake of doing it at this point.

>>18739084
You don't want to be Jason or the faggot who keeps shilling his shitty amazon book.

>>18739096
One thing I learned from some blog is that you should keep in mind each speaker's goal when writing dialogue. That is - what is each person trying to get out of this conversation? This dude wants to vent about his child's death. This lady is trying to appear coldhearted so she can blackmail this person into submission.

Another thing I've learned (I forget where) is that in fiction, every sentence spoken must have a purpose relevant to the plot. In real life, people often talk just to talk - to share information and whatever. Not in fiction.
It's basically Chekov's Gun (if you've somehow never heard of this, google it) applied to dialogue. Chekov's Gun is a little short to get across what it really means - the gun doesn't necessarily need to be fired. It needs to support the plot - it can serve as a symbol (guns are a symbol for the true evil of mankind!!!), it can help characterize a character (wow she's badass), or it can have other direct relevance to the plot that doesn't involve being fired.
Apply that to dialogue. Everything a character says should reflect their personality to help the reader better get a sense of who they are (or who they are pretending to be), since a character's personality is relevant to the plot. The topics they talk about should help develop the plot or build up towards it. So on, so forth.

Hope that little bit helps, but of course it's going to be up to you to really figure this one out. Like everything else in writing. Writing styles are basically how a person figures out how to do things like write characters and plots, hence why everyone has a different one.

>>18739138
You're already asking them.

>>18739259
I am?

>>18739370
Yes, you retard.

>starting to hate Google Docs and Microsoft Word.
>Anything that I find is incompatible with my Linux distro.
Fuck it, I'm gonna use EMACS for now on. Also anons, post writing software.

>>18739432
>Also anons, post writing software.
no

>>18739432
gedit

>>18739388
Should I stop?

>>18739481
What do you think retard? Are you even capable of even basic bitch thinking?

>>18739481
No, that anon is just the pseudspammer and is livid because the OP post is making fun of him.

>>18739432
>post writing software.
Scrienever 3

>>18739492
He really lives in your head rent free?

>>18739619
No, anon. But the pseuds live in "his."

>>18739680
Sure, anon, whatever makes you feel better. >>18739680

>>18739619
>Shits up thread berating people for asking questions.
>comments on him shitting up thread.
ZOMG HE LIVES IN YOUR HEAD ANON

>>18739724
Yes, anon, it’s what I just said: he lives in your head rent free. I don’t see why you had to repeat it.

>>18739432
just use libreoffice
I use the copy of openoffice I downloaded maybe 6 years ago and which just keeps jumping from computer to computer when I copy over my files

>>18739732
Because your comment is stupid. “Rent free” doesn’t apply when the person is participating in the thread. “Rent free” is like /po/l saying the Jews are the reason a trans person went to a restaurant.

>>18739817
Agin, anon, whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

>>18739246
Pseud 100%

>>18739246
>Another thing I've learned (I forget where) is that in fiction, every sentence spoken must have a purpose relevant to the plot. In real life, people often talk just to talk - to share information and whatever. Not in fiction.
kek

Let's try to get the thread back on topic and ignore the angry anon trying to ruin it.

How have your projects been coming along? Mine just passed the novel threshold of 40k words. I'm hoping to have it finished before my city's writers conference in December.

>>18739834
Omg he is

>>18739882
Been unusually slow on this chapter wip, two words off from being 8k and might top off at 9k or 10k. Just one more chapter which I can make it a fraction of, then I can stop writing for a while.

>>18739882
/wg/ simply attracts the bitter, depressed pseuds who produce nothing themselves

>>18739882
I've been writing. Trying something emotional this chapter, and I'm trying to make it longer too.
Hopefully it doesn't come out as cheap

Has /lit/ ever produced any published authors?

>>18739861
Is there a problem with that?

>>18739992
This place is full of unhappy and bitter people.

>>18739992
Depends on what you mean by published I guess. Selfpub? Tradpub? Free serializers? There's F. Gardener and that Mormon guy coming to mind. At least a couple others selfpubbing as well. I think there was that one who had stories on his blog who also publishes them on his amazon page.

>>18739992
There are a bunch of people here working on books, unsurprisingly they are relentlessly attacked

>>18740005
I don't really post much on /lit/. But are you guys writing full on novels? It's probably better if you keep it short, or better yet start with some short stories.
All the
>I'm burned out
stuff leads me to believe you brainlets are trying to write actual novels, unless it's all bait. Gotta crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run dumb-dumbs.

>>18740021
I was the guy last thread who said he was burnt out. You might be right, but I was writing just about every single week of the year on just one series, which is about two and a half books. I'm taking a break from it like I said then, might dabble on some short stories in the meantime or I might not. I just need a little break is all.

>>18740021
The culture we are in needs more novels. We are immersed in a foreign, inorganic culture that is chosen by those who control the (((media)))

>>18740046
yeah, novels have definitely helped society in the past! nothing fixes societal problems like some faggot jerking his limp dick for 100k words. dont be a fucking retarded faggot, if anything good novels need a terrible society

>>18740043
I didn't mean you specifically, I've been on here an hour and I've seen 3-4 anons talking about burnout.

>>18740059
Dude I guarantee you would never post a photo of yourself because:
>you look like shit
>you are not confident
>you live at home in your mom's basement

If you had any balls at all, you'd be creating content, that is how the culture war needs to be fought.
>not by being a little faggot like you who doesn't build, creates nothing, and adds zero value to the culture while being replaced since you don't even have any children.
>imagine being you

Yo, I'm the dude who was shilling his travel writing about France a few months ago. I've started up again, this time covering my time in the Balkans.

How's this for a start on my draft? Is there any intrigue to continue reading?

I need to practice my writing so I can work my skill up to the big writing project I have in the back of my mind. Any anon got a prompt for me?

>>18740096
>The average Serb earns 140,000 dinars per month
Nice satire.

>>18740090
1. probably, maybe not as bad as you imagine but yeah im fat, currently wearing a shirt with multiple queso and beer stains. but i am over six feet and have a big dick so it's hard to care too much
2. sometimes, sometimes too much so
3. nope, im blowing money on a shitty apartment
4. i do. but also 'content creation' is extremely zog so i have to assume you also add zero value

>>18740121
how?

>>18740130
You are the typical /lit/ loser on the sidelines, you create nothing, you look like shit, and you hate those who create.

>>18740145
? i do create things, i just think art is ultimately apolitical. i don't hate those who create at all, even if i do look like shit (which imo is an exaggeration even if i dont look good)

>>18739432
just use latex your larper

>>18740164
Yeah, you're just a background NPC.

>>18740193
idk why you say this though. it seems you're just pissed i called you a fag and you're not addressing anything else i've said. you made multiple false statements about me. stop projecting

>>18740232
Why are you even here?

Where do I go for writing advice if /wg/ is dying?

Yet another shit /wg/. Maybe we can try again in a couple of days.

>>18740259
Royal road forums?

>>18740276
Isn't that meant for fanfiction?

>>18740283
No. There’s plenty of original content there. And writing fan fictions isn’t unrelated to writing.

>>18739432
look at this faggot
>guys i'm eating logs of shit and i'm starting to hate it

>>18739882
is there a point in going to a writer's conference? can you get picked up there? or is it just a bunch of cringy wankers trading their poorly written /sffg/ rags?
serious question

>>18739882

congratulations lad

>>18740259
What we're witnessing here is the poisoning of the cultural well. Do you think people who are taking creative writing courses at the University level have such a hard time finding support, advice, critique, and a community?

Outside of the mainstream, there are very real forces at work that have completely suffocated the ability for atomized, bright minds to connect. Those who are in control deliberately manipulate the stock market, as we have seen with GME.
>big music
>big film
>big book
>big vidya
Anyone with the time to spare can research how all of the above are completely manipulated to push the narrative of globohomo. What we don't see is the degradation of the communities that would normally bubble up cultures from within subcultures. Subcultures are themselves being targeted for assimilation, you see it every day. The social singularity is coming fast to western nations, and if you haven't noticed, those who are the "free minded" are probably not going to take the vaccine, while the hoards of easily-angered, low IQ Wal-mart shoppers and pseudo-intellectual leftist progressive urban types will, without a doubt, gleefully impose a vaccine passport on you if you do not agree to their upcoming bi-annual vaccine boosters.

This place is full of the types of people that have already submitted to the system and hate themselves for it. It manifests in the vitriol and disdain they have for people who pour their hearts and souls into a craft that is not only extremely hostile towards alternative viewpoints, but controlled by a majority of women who are already conditioned to support the system as best they can. Remember that post with all the literary agents begging for "BIPOC" and alphabet people?

The funniest part is, half the dudes on here pseuding are actually looked down upon by the very people they admire, while those who write are actively trying to help people free their minds from the malaise of modern media. Keep supporting Amazon and GoodReads, just like the Lord of the Rings, all of your media will be pozzed and you will beg for more like a good goy!

>>18740317
Writer's fests are woke performances and you will not find a single bro with any hint of a bicep. It is queers, fat women, and pseud creative writing professors trying to sleep with their students.

The last Writer's Fest I went to, each speaker at one of the talks did their own land acknowledgement and some even ranted for 2-5 minutes about decolonizing literature.

Start lifting weights, write books, and go to these events to change the culture. Right now, it is a room full of the weakest faggots lapping up the globohomo soupe de jour.

>>18740345
>and go to these events to change the culture
I don't know if you're baiting, schizo or just autistic, but you ain't changing shit anon.

>>18740259
Actual writers’ forums.

>>18739121
WOW DAS JUS AMAZIN WHAT A LITERRERY JENIE!

>>18740363
>replies from incels who can't even get laid
Have sex and you'll realize how much you can change the world around you

>>18739481
The reddit question onions boy

>>18739490
The 4chan critiquing chad

>>18739817
Jews are literally the reason though as the Jews coerced the business into advertising to the degenerates in order to fit into the industry. The faggot walks into the restaurant because of the jew

>>18740478
Based.

>>18740478
In Canada, something like 18+ Churches have burned to the ground and it is a political non-issue, also it is memoryholed in the media as fast as possible.
>meanwhile
Imagine if a synagogue burnt to the ground. Imagine if 10+ did.
WORLD-WIDE OUTRAGE.
Joe Biden would have commented by now.
Trudeau would have activated the military to protect the synagogues and there would be massive police sweeps to raid anyone suspected of pulling off those arsons.

/lit/ is full of reddit-tier pseuds who follow the globohomo agenda

>>18740250
i like books and i wrote stories. /lit/ is a cozier site than others for this

>>18740345
so what i expected, a bunch of wokefaggots masturbating to who can obey the television the hardest. we live in hell on earth. every book published is either about wammenz or brown people. look at the titles. about 25% of titles published now have a word like woman, women, mother, sisters, girl, queen, etc directly in the title. it's out of control. everything is shallow pandering cashgrab garbage, no one is publishing a single thing of quality. god forbid you offend someone or you can never get published. and shit that was progressive 5 years ago is now literally hitler. it's a purity spiral. who can go the furthest woke the fastest and most retardedly?

i'm tired of it. i want to read good books. but all they want to push down my throat are books about stronkg wammens whining about hteir cunt or queer brown faggots taking it in the asshole.

Posting this short story I'm currently working on. It's still a work in progress so a lot of the dialogue is missing/placeholder text. What do you faggots think?

Can someone critique my writing? I'm looking for any technical errors, particularly with how I handle psychic distance. The actual excerpt is just an edited writing exercise so there's no real meaning or context you'll be missing. I'll post it below as a reply to this post since there's a character limit.

>>18740658
Deep within the Olympic rainforest, a thin circle of light was drawn between two trees with a crackle and in it formed a portal. Voices emerged.

“You won’t hurt anyone here if something goes wrong.”

Two bodies followed the voices, both tanned and muscular from years of training in the deserts of Africa. A young Bart walked behind his mentor, Hunter. Both surveyed the land as the portal disappeared.

Hunter looked back at his disciple and nodded. Bart nodded back. His mentor fiercely chopped once through the air around them; there was a burst of sound, a gust of wind, and all the trees around them as far as the eye could see fell one by one. Then they stepped back and turned to face each other: Hunter on the wet grass of the forest, and Bart on the ground scorched by the portal.

Hunter balled his fists and placed them on either side of his waist. “Follow me,” he ordered. As soon as Bart turned towards him, he lowered his eyes and tensed his legs. A small gust of wind came from him, and the thistles beside his feet swayed.

Bart obeyed, tensed his body, and gripped the ground with his bare feet. He looked at the rocks below him, then back at Hunter, who nodded in approval.

“It’s all in your core. Concentrate your power there.”

Bart nodded and closed his eyes. He pictured water, clear and cool as it dripped slowly from his head to his solar plexus. Then, slowly, he began to picture more gushing from his limbs to his center. Within seconds, every end of his body had become a wellspring in the image, and the image itself began to feel like reality. Pressure slowly increased at his core. His center was tense as steel, but the rest of his body was refreshingly cold.

“Now open your eyes,” Hunter ordered.

Bart opened his eyes. The veins in his forearms were visible from stress. He continued to concentrate on the image in his mind.

Hunter grinned. Bart faltered; so did Hunter’s smile, and Bart looked away. He regained and strengthened his focus.

“Good! Keep it up. Can you still handle the pressure?”

“Yes.” Bart grunted, then immediately buckled under pressure.

“No!” He stuttered. “This is as far as I can go!”

“That’s good enough... release it now!”

Bart yelled and the pressure spiked. The water turned red, split into veiny streams, tiding and storming, and burst through the confines of his body. The images of cold wellsprings blurred into a uniform orange heat as Bart released his pressure. He felt the false image and its heat in his eyes as he struggled to hold onto its details. Pressure became power that throbbed in his core.

Hunter stepped away.

He cupped his hands together. The pulsing power travelled from his stomach, through his pulsating arms, into his palms and then out as a burst of light. He stressed his palms, stretched his fingers, screamed, and the beam of light grew a little larger.

The light tore through a line of trees in front of them.

“Great work!”

>>18740663
I know it's really fucking anime, but I chose that theme as a joke/challenge. This is in no way indicative of my actual WIPs.

>>18740567
Some of us are working on producing our own culture!
>it will be so glorious when I go to the first writer's fest, maskless, in a tank top with my arms bulging, walking around drinking whiskey with a huge smile on my face
Pseuds on /lit/ have already submitted to their masters. They are double masking, vaccinated incel crabs who don't create anything other than their own little miserable worlds.

GO GO GO!

>>18740629
Once he draws the gun it gets too confusing to understand what you're describing. My first impression is that Phillip pulled a gun on Irwin for talking shit and Irwin tried to run but got hit by a car?

>>18740771
>My first impression is that Phillip pulled a gun on Irwin for talking shit and Irwin tried to run but got hit by a car?

Yeah. I want the argument to build up somewhat more gradually before Philip draws the gun.

The basic idea of the story is that a man enters the world (bookstore) and encounters disorder/chaos (Philip). He tries to reason his way through the situation at first. Of course, reasoning with an insane person is futile, so he looks to an authority figure (the manager) who turns out to be incompetent and selfish. Irwin then decides to respond to chaos and disorder in kind, by being an asshole himself, but ends up getting hurt because he is still a reasonable person.

>>18738458
Anyone have any resources on characterization? I would rather not write flat uninteresting characters that only serve to further the plot.

>>18740843
I recommend listening on people IRL and seeing how they act. And remember that every character only exists to further the plot in a story, but you still need to make them feel alive.

>>18740843
I write characters based on co-workers I had and customers I've been forced to deal with. Even random internet people can do wonders. This is absolutely one of those write what you know kinda deals. Honestly, I never understood the "just watch people bro" kind of advice it sounds really creepy and stalkerish. But hey, if you think sitting at a Starbucks and pretending to work on a laptop while you eavesdrops works for you, then go for it.

>>18740853
It is creepy but it works.

>>18740848
I'd second this, characters only feel like they "exist only to serve the plot" if they don't have convincing motivations or are wildly inconsistent from one part to the next.

>>18740848
>>18740853
>>18740861
Much appreciated anons, thanks.

>>18740843
Can you list off a few interesting characters you've met in real life? I can recall so many people I've known, from mild to wild, and everything in between. Here are some that I can remember just off the top of my head:

>bente dos, or 22, my taxi driver in Costa Rica who took us out to a shooting range where we got shot back at...
>alicia s., a small town girl who moved to Vancouver, I met her at an art show, while standing next to a piece of artwork made with individual dots from a horse hair dipped in ink, the young lady commented on my camera make and model. She was big into canon 5D MKII's at the time. At another art show, she was introduced to LSD and she ended up in the mental hospital for 3 weeks.
>John d., local business owner and fellow cokehead, we sat at the same table doing a whiskey tasting, he bragged that his tv show was being picked up by a major network. Months later, at his wedding reception, his fiance brought a laptop with a video on it of him fucking one of his employees on a hidden camera. Guy came from a rich family and this shit got memoryholed so fast.
>Donny, another small town kid who moved to Vancouver after making 100's of thousands in the oil patch. He had so much money to burn but would stay at the hostel above The Cambie, not surprisingly he was mugged for his $8000 dollar bicycle, which he then replaced with a $10000 bicycle. One day, one of the waitresses at the local bar was crying. Donny OD'ed from fent in his coke
>Gina, a disabled woman I used to drive around to get groceries. She enjoyed one song and one song only:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WUiJFCo9xk
Despite being handicapped and almost-catatonic sometimes, she had a perfect memory and could recall details about things that blew my mind. Also her senses were heightened and had an uncanny ability to predict things.
>Mohammed, I knew this brown kid who was into raving back in the day. He hung out in IRC chats and dabbled in electronica, one of the babes I was trying to bone actually ignored me to chase this guy down and take his virginity. Strangely enough, she dosed him with e to take advantage of him, which then turned him into an odd predator where he would then try to force girls to take e and try and sleep with them. One day, he tried that on the wrong girl and got the shitkicked out of him, which resulted in a short hospital stay where he got hooked on opiods. Rumor has it that he became a gay prostitute to cover his drug habit before OD'ing and dying from fentanyl

>>18738458
Hey /lit/ I have a few questions for you guys (Sorry the thread I made didn't interest anyone).
1. Does any of you actually write anything? I see the /wg/ writing general but I never see any links to Anons work.
2. Would any of you be interested in a writing contest, either as contestants or judges.
3. By what standard metrics do you suggest to judge a writing contest.
4. What categories and limitations do you suggest to put on a writing contest.
5. What other boards and chans should I invite to the writing contest?

>>18741043
>1. Does any of you actually write anything? I see the /wg/ writing general but I never see any links to Anons work.
Yes, a bunch of us do. Here's mine.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/31062/saga-of-the-cosmic-heroes - Space opera with about 2 1/2 volumes done. Vol2 is set to finish in about a week or two.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/41735/psychowriter-a-psycho-oneshot - urban fantasy short story one shot inspired by a dream I had. Hope to explore this setting more, but focusing on the other at the moment. I'd liken it to a mix of Death Note and Madoka.

>4. What categories and limitations do you suggest to put on a writing contest.
No idea. Minimum 30k and up to 150k in 3-4 months I suppose.

>5. What other boards and chans should I invite to the writing contest?
You can TRY and suggest it on the /a/ isekai threads, but you'd have to limit it to being about isekai to some degree to appease the purists. I guess there's also /tg/ but that's more about worldbuilding rather than writing. Honestly, for better or worse this is the only actual general on 4chan that is specifically for... lack of a better word, homebrew writers.

>>18740629
>breathed a deep sigh
stopped reading there.

>>18740629
I like it!

A couple things:
>personally I prefer dialog on different lines
>a little more detail, where was the manager standing when he first meets Irwin?
>the ending, describe more how he lands and if the car roars off, do any bystanders see?

GO GO GO!

>>18740658
>>18740663
>>18740679
Is this not getting any feedback because of the content? Or do people just have nothing to say?

>>18741215
The dialogue is as abhorrent as I'd expect for a meaningless dragon ball z excerpt. Congratulations, you're an anime writer. Prose is extraordinarily mediocre - sounds fine when you're describing their actions, but falls apart when you try to create vivid imagery. Let me point some stuff out in no particular order.
>The veins in his forearms were visible from stress.
Come on man what is this?
>The pulsing power travelled from his stomach, through his pulsating arms, into his palms and then out as a burst of light.
Don't really need to hear all of this. Just say it came from within or some shit. Lots of words for such a basic mental image.
>Deep within the Olympic rainforest, a thin circle of light was drawn between two trees with a crackle and in it formed a portal.
It's fine if you don't want to make this a vivid image but what the fuck is "between two trees with a crackle and in it formed a portal"?
>The water turned red, split into veiny streams, tiding and storming, and burst through the confines of his body.
If you're going for a simplistic writing style, this lacks the kind of "minimalistic brilliance" that great authors pull off. It's not terrible but just flavorless and a bit awkward.

>>18741215
Skimmed through it. Don't be afraid of combining dialogue with other action sentences and state dialogue tags to keep track of who's talking.

>>18741260
>Come on man what is this?
That was just me messing with psychic distance in my writing. I tried to point something out on the body so the perspective flowed naturally. What is wrong with that line?

>Don't really need to hear all of this. Just say it came from within or some shit. Lots of words for such a basic mental image.
That was my bad, I didn't edit it as much as the rest of the excerpt. Although, to be fair, I wrote this from the perspective of someone who isn't familiar with anime tropes I actually don't watch anime myself, I'm only really familiar with Dragon Ball.

>what the fuck is "between two trees with a crackle and in it formed a portal"?
Circle appeared, made a noise while it was being rendered in real life, then when the circle was fully drawn it turned into a portal. What does it sound like?

>It's not terrible but just flavorless and a bit awkward.
Why? Is it the last bit about the confines of his body? I wasn't too happy with that either.

Are there any glaring issues with the text apart from dialogue? I know the dialogue is awful; I'm just looking for basic shit. I don't have an eye for imagery yet, and I don't think I can develop one unless I get the basics down right.

>>18741267
Thanks anon, I'll keep that in mind.

>>18741293
In general just subpar, uninspired imagery. Something I'd expect from someone who doesn't read many books. Otherwise it flows decently and is only awkward at a handful of points.
But really incredibly stupid topic and you're making your life harder by having to come up with a page of imagery trying to describe his inner fuckin chi, which nobody wants to read. Try exercises that are more practical.

>>18741215
It's really not as bad as what the other guy replied. For a first draft, it's interesting!

>>18741313
>But really incredibly stupid topic and you're making your life harder by having to come up with a page of imagery trying to describe his inner fuckin chi, which nobody wants to read.
I may be retarded, but I picked this topic for that exact reason, anon. That and:

>the idea of psychic distance and being 'inside a character' reminded me of dragon ball for some reason
>the /wg/ meme about animefags

I'll respond in more detail in a while. I need to go run an errand real quick.

>>18741330
Thanks!

>>18739246
Not >>18739861 but he’a right in implying that that statemwnt is wrong. It should be adjusted to ”every sentence should somehow represent something of importance, such as revealing something about a person’s personality or background or mood/mental state”.
Having some ”fluff” in conversation is a great way to portray personalities and relations between characters.

>>18739992
Yes, there are people here who are traditionally published. No, they weren’t ”produced” by wg but rather are frequenters of 4chan who happen to write. And any trad author who reveals them being associated with 4chan is committing proffessional suicide which is why no one comes out of hiding

>>18741424
Fluff is the best. The little quirks of someone like, say, when they are drunk one of their eyes slams shut, that's great. Or if they have overpowering breath/cologne, like so many in real life. Holy fuck in my apartment building some lady bathes in perfume and you can smell it like an hour after she walks down the hallway!

>>18741430
They have no sense of courage. If you can be banned for simply self-expressing, then your art is wholly inauthentic.

At the same time, you can weave what you really want to say into your work of fiction and still get published... but you have to be very slick about your public persona and disavow anyone who makes the connection in your work.

Would be nice if more authors have balls, but alas, fat blue haired femoids control the trad pub world.

>>18741424
That is relevant to the plot, since revealing more about a character makes their dynamic in the plot more interesting.

Has anyone noticed this kind of happening in their writing world?
If i know where my story is going to go and how it’s going to end, i find that my interest for the story stalls. I have already read it in my mind and the novelty of it is exhausted. Not knowing keeps me interested and the characters unhighjacked by the author but there is no coherent plot. I find the latter more compelling but the actual plot eludes me.

>>18741446
Technically you are correct, but some people interpret things very narrowly which is why i just clarified things so we don’t get into a turd throwing competition about definitions. Sorry for butting in!

>>18741454
What i enjoy most actually is connecting the different parts of the story. How do i make this scene believable? What needs to have happened for this to be the reasonable outcome? How do i give the reader the feeling that i want them to have in this section of the book?
Connecting all these things and having one idea in one part perhaps echo through many is so satisfying that i believe it is actually the reason i won’t ever be able to quit writing. It’s like a puzzle that when you get it done is like ”holy shit, i fucken did it! And it’s even better than i thought!”
Not sure if it helps you, but my point is that even if you think you have got the plot down, you haven’t got the details down, and it’s the details that will make it a good book, not the plot in and of itself. Both are needed and need equally.

>>18741510
That is super fun. Can you make the absurd almost reasonable?
Case in point:
>3rd book in process
>local park in Vancouver, Stanley Park, the crown jewel of the city
>in real life coyotes have attacked toddlers and joggers now in the park
>raccoon attacks now too
>many people believe they have the right to be there as animals
>many others believe they need to be culled
>in my book idea, an enterprizing bike thief from downtown Vancouver moves him and his crew into the park and begins to dig under an old oak tree where they find an underground cavern that was once used for bootlegging.
Okay so what I envision is these crackheads evolve into a symbiotic relationship with the coyotes, raccoons, and geese, as wild geese are everywhere downtown now. The crackhead group begins to become known as "the coyolos" as they are also always formulating new drugs to sell along with artisanal soaps made with goose fat, raccoon fur bikinis, etc. They also have a hugely popular social media presence and since the police have been defunded in the first book, nobody can stop them from growing and growing as a tribe
>they begin to harvest all the shellfish in the park to eat
>they buy steroids online and breed extremely large and aggressive coyotes that they tame
>they steal dumpsters, cut them up with stolen grinder tools, and make them into chariots pulled by teams of roided out coyotes, driving them into the city and raiding local businesses and people's homes
An election happens at the same time and two political parties have vastly different strategies to deal with the situation, both quite progressive, but with a twist.
>can this be believable?
After witnessing the tent cities, while far-fetched that a group of crackheads would find an underground bootlegging tunnel and make a base, juice up coyotes and raid the city, I did want to be able to call it "mad max set in a progressive coastal city" and have people understand the book and perhaps enjoy it for the comedy of it.

I think it's going to be pretty funny with the characters I've envisioned

>>18740705
Seek help

why no one ever wrote a novel about basket weaving chat rooms?

>>18741732
Because people here don’t write. They just posts excerpts.

>>18741738
an excerpt made with an effort would do good. that is the time for auto referential self(?)awareness generating move.

AÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀAÀ

>>18741750
No

>>18741750
fuck you. where else you can post with zero transaction costs. for the honourable sake of creation

>>18741313
>Something I'd expect from someone who doesn't read many books
Fair enough. I only recently got back into reading and writing. So I don't read that much.

>Otherwise it flows decently and is only awkward at a handful of points
What points? I want to see if there's a common problem.

>a page of imagery trying to describe his inner fuckin chi, which nobody wants to read
That's fair. I'm not good at imagery, and I'm definitely not good at knowing where to use it.

>Try exercises that are more practical.
Will do. The next one will be completely realistic.

>>18741330
>For a first draft, it's interesting!
It's not a first draft, but thanks. I did roughly three rounds of editing before posting it (though it wasn't very thorough.)

Hi, FrenchAnon here.

The planning for my project is far more complex than expected.
I don’t think it’s a smart idea to start my “career” (not professional, just as a hobby) with my anthology.

To be honest, I don’t know where to start anymore. I feel lost.

>>18741770
Why are you telling us this?

>>18741771
I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m in the dire straits, really.

>>18741775
Okay, and? Why are you telling us?

>>18741777
Well. I was looking for advice.
What’s wrong with that.

I feel talentless and phoney.
I don’t know what to write about. It’s not like I have anything to say.

>>18741793
Wander aimlessly. Explore the void.

>>18741945
Wtf does that even mean?

>>18741958
What's the biggest adventure you've had in life so far, anon?

>>18738458
Should i write in my native language or in English?. My native language is Greek, but it seems to me that i find it easier to exrpess myself when writing in English despite having a broader Greek vocabulary.

>>18742012
Seek help

>>18742123
Write in Greek.

>>18741958
The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.
t. Werner Herzog

>>18742231
Wtf does that even mean?

>>18742235
Touch grass

>>18742242
Wtf does that even mean?

>>18742249
Confucius say, you go outside and play
When you return, sculpt your mind's clay
This you ought to try, what else can I say?

>>18742264
How would going outside help?

>>18742272
All worthwhile ideas are formed either on long walks or in the shower.

>>18742282
Sound stupid as fuck

>>18742295
NGMI

>>18739071
What’s an anime writer?

>>18742309
That’s a stupid question and you should feel stupid for asking it you stupid fuck.

>>18742309
Someone who writes.

>>18742319
I would just like to remind you that yes, you do indeed visit the writing general thread on 4channel.org, probably regularly.

>>18742309
Anyone who writes genre fiction

>>18741510
Yeah, in an ideal case the author in his omniscience views his tale as a row of plot points/beats and herds his characters through each one and readers will applaud him for his mastery, begging for more. But in a real world i have these gates that the characters have to suffer ready and open or i have special baits for them like special cheese in trap. Intricate web of devices are planted by me the autohor. Now i settle in and try to imagine the character, her maybe doing something, wanting what i want her to do because plot says so. The stage is set, clock is ticking but there is no life. Characters may have a sense of purpose, but its always their own. I try to plant some wants in them but they refuse. It is like i am a movie director shoving money at my actors but they’re not giving a damn, not caring about my money.
In my mind i say to them: do as you please. Then the characters go on full ADHD and the plot drives off the cliff. Characters feel more real, better in this way but i have no whip, so to say, to persuade them. Or i whip and whip, but it strikes at nothing.

>>18741765
Let me link both good and bad parts so you can compare. Keep in mind I'm only considering sentence flow here - imagery still needs work.

>Bart nodded and closed his eyes. He pictured water, clear and cool as it dripped slowly from his head to his solar plexus. Then, slowly, he began to picture more gushing from his limbs to his center. Within seconds, every end of his body had become a wellspring in the image, and the image itself began to feel like reality. Pressure slowly increased at his core. His center was tense as steel, but the rest of his body was refreshingly cold.
Flows good.
>Hunter grinned. Bart faltered; so did Hunter’s smile, and Bart looked away. He regained and strengthened his focus.
Awkward.
>Bart yelled and the pressure spiked. The water turned red, split into veiny streams, tiding and storming, and burst through the confines of his body. The images of cold wellsprings blurred into a uniform orange heat as Bart released his pressure.
First part flows well but in tense moments you should probably be a little more succinct - the last sentence in particular should be briefer.
>He felt the false image and its heat in his eyes as he struggled to hold onto its details. Pressure became power that throbbed in his core.
I don't even know what this means but I think it flows bad? I can't even tell.
>He cupped his hands together. The pulsing power travelled from his stomach, through his pulsating arms, into his palms and then out as a burst of light. He stressed his palms, stretched his fingers, screamed, and the beam of light grew a little larger.
This is more of what kind of flow you should be looking for in action-filled moments. This happened, that happened. (Again though make the actual content a little less stupid)

>>18742773
Well i’d say follow them and see what happens. You’re risking becoming a King (Steven, that is) but at least you seem to get more enjoyment out of it and you might actually finish something.

>>18741652
Hi Jason! You might aswell be a tripfag… umm, all those things seem sorta fun but you’re trying to stay too realistic by having elections and shit and too unrealisric with the police being defunded and steroid coyotes and shit going on. It’s just very hard to find what centre of my brain is supposed to react how to your ideas. I mean, keep writing as long as you’re having fun, but i honestly don’t have a natural reaction to your writing and ideas and i have to force myself to think to give feedback. It’s kind of like watching a movie that can’t decide on whether it’s a parody or a drama or whatever. I’d almost dare to say your writing is the book equivalent of The Room, but it’s not that bad either. Sorry if this is not helpful.

>>18741652
Seek help

"The mountains appear on the far horizon like a crown on the skull of the earth."

Is that a good opening line for my novel?

>>18743114
Like a crown on the skull of the earth, mountains appear on the horizon.

>>18743114
>"The mountains appear on the far horizon like a crown on the skull of the earth."
made me laugh so yes, what type of comedy are you writing?

>>18743114
What's the conflict? Already bored.

>>18743152
zoom zoom

>>18743143
>>18743152

It's a drama about a bike trip I did with a buddy a few summers ago across Canada.

>>18743212
Nice joke, but for real, what's the comedy?

>>18740629
I quite liked it as well anon, the spider beard part especially made me kek.
I think the second half is weaker and the other anons are right that you could add some more descriptions to make it clearer. I also think you could make your dialogue a little more natural.

>>18740629
>breathed a deep sigh
stopped reading there.

>>18743114
Mountains appear is somehow abstract and far away. How about mountains that are looming on the far horizon, their razorlike tops rising, their shape suggesting a crown on a head of a beast that one’s about to conquer. (Or whatever?)This way it’s not so statement-like. Statements have their place i guess but we need to make acquintance with the narrator first. It seems that when a reader gets a statement form a character whom he knows, it works better. Reader then somehow has space to think and maybe even question the narrators take on events. As an opening line there is a sense of forcing in the text. Just an opinion.

I've just gotten into writing, what are some good books for an absolute beginner to study? Any of the ones in the OP good for a beginner?

>>18743469
How about you just write instead?

>>18743469
start with the greeks

>>18743472
I am writing, and reading more fiction as well. Was just wondering if there was anything else I should supplement it with.

>>18743482
Why would you think that?

How many words do you guys write a day? I've been hitting a 2,000 word goal for the past few days but I feel like it's mentally exhausting me. I'm writing from like 1pm to maybe 5pm and then by 8pm I need a freaking nap.

>>18743487
I don't know, just figured it might make things easier. I don't know what's usual for a beginner to do other than write.

>getting to the end of my novel
>every word I get closer to the end fills me with an increasing feeling it's shit and the entire thing has been a waste of time
>have no choice but to try and push those feelings aside and fill myself with an undeserved arrogance
>keep thinking to myself well people bought the fucking twilight so why not mine, even if only a few people like it it will be worth it

>>18743114
>I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased.
That's how you start a fucking novel.

>>18743469
How to write self help books are a sham.
You read, then you write.
Literally no author in the history of the world read about how to write, they just did it lmao.

>>18743594
pseud

Yes, I'm done now. I was never going to become the next Faulkner, the next Nabokov or the next Joyce, 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 a long lost dinosaur.
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 129 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, and even in my failure I have merely imitated how people who think they write well but write poorly write, and I couldn't even do that well. "Oh I can do that anytime if I wanted to" I thought, but no. I have put down my pen. Never again will my fingers click-clack across the keyboard. No more outlines, no more characters. Goodbye. I will take my own advice and go to the rope. Why live if you can't be a great writer, or even a passable one? And why write at all, anyway, if no one is reading anymore and Harold Bloom isn't around to insert us into the Canon? Learn from me! Learn from me!

>>18743496
Wildly depends. I might go for higher word counts depending if I'm acting on hard crunch times or not.

I’m really down since I’m feeling so uninspired. I feel mentally exhausted, like I have no ideas at all, let alone any good ones. It’s like I desperately want an imagination but just don’t have one.

>>18744085
Why don't you go to this thread to blogpost there >>18743416

>>18743469
I liked the first few chapters of Writing Without Teachers. Once it gets into “the teacherless class” it gets repetitive.

>>18744085
Do you have an internal monologue anon?

>>18744088
Is this not a general for writing and those things which are generally related to writing? This whole website is a form of social media at best. Don’t kid yourself.

>>18744106
I think I have too much of an internal monologue. I question my thoughts to death, until they’re all basically dead and I’m mentally exhausted.

>>18739432
QOwnNotes, works wonderfully in Linux

>>18743585
What's it about?

>>18743054
Just look on YouTube for "Hastings and Main" videos and you'll get a small idea of how insane life in Canada has allowed to become. We have an open air, outdoor asylum where city counsellors literally give out free cocaine, meth, and heroin.

I think the idea that a group of drug addicts revert to becoming a Mad Max style tribe with Roman-style games, living off the land, living as a separate society that regularly society has no idea how to deal with, is an extremely remote yet entirely plausible idea. Who would have thought 20 years ago that trannies would be so common and that free cocaine would be handed out by city employees in front of the police station?

>>18744264
Seek Help

>>18742295
Are you insane? The best ideas come, generally, in solitude

>>18744277
No

>>18744085
Seek help.

>>18738458

Anyone use LibreOffice? I don't want to pay for microsofts bs and using my work's license isn't smart (considering they archive all user data)

>>18739882

My "project" has been a neverending series of rewrites for 10 years, with the occasional one-night tangent that goes straight into the trash bin.

>>18744347
What's it about? How do you keep getting stuck?

>>18744353

I just want to write a simple garbage fantasy novel.
I'll develop the outline of the plot, the characters, their motivations, and where the story goes. I'll get a couple pages in, then go back and start editing those pages. Chopping up paragraphs comes next, then demoting characters before they get cut all together. I'll quit for a few weeks, come back and hate what I've written, then starting writing anew with a different perspective. Maybe a new "genre" or character focus, going so far as to try and write a protag who is completely unlike anything I've written. Then I give up and throw the .docs into an archival folder to never be looked at again.
Rinse and repeat when the muse clocks me in the back of the head.

>>18744388
I find knowing your first and last pages are essential to having a framework for the story. If I didn't use this technique, I wouldn't have ever finished 2 books.

If you don’t nail it on your first draft are you a shit writer? Is editing and revision just a beginner’s trap?

>>18744675
You're really fucking stupid aren't you?

>>18744675
first draft will always be shit, but you should finish substantial parts of the work before going back and making edits and revisions. I usually am editing one completed chapter, writing another chapter, and dumping ideas into the next chapter outlines simultaneously.

>>18744681
Right. I keep forgetting we’re not allowed to discuss writing in the writing general. Real good piece of shit thread you retards maintain here.
>>18744707
Fuck you.

just completed writing/directing my own epstein fan fiction
https://youtu.be/ria-A0RYcDI

>>18744773
Seek help.

>>18744725
asks insanely retarded question, gets advice, ignores it, blames thread. def ngmi.

>>18744823
Seek help.

>>18744828
why dont you go back to your unedited trash fire of a manuscript?

>>18744828
Seek help.

>>18744837
Seek help.

Let’s say I wanted to seek help. What would be the first step?

>>18744858
By fucking off.

>>18744858
See kelp.

>>18744876
You stole my post lel

>>18744879
Seek skelp.

>>18739882
Getting close to getting done with chap 1 been out for a week gotta get back to writing
>>18742380
There goes most of this general then.
>>18743496
250
>>18744474
Write out your whole draft no editing until completion

>>18744875
Seek help.

>>18744910
seek help

>>18744910
Yeah, the first and last page, once established what you want to see, makes the rest of the story much, much easier to finish. I already know what happens on the 1st and last page of my 3rd book and have been writing the draft every night. Working great!

>>18744913
Seek whelp.

>>18740663
I skimmed through it also. I think you have alright sentence variety, but I also agree with that anon that you should combine the dialogue and actions.
I also had trouble understanding what was happening, but I usually have trouble with action sequences so that may just be me.

>>18744832
I actually had a ton of fun doing this, re-writing the opening line over and over.

>was
A ray of sunshine settles right across Ken's tired eyes.
>new version 1
Urban clamour bellows outside the window and a ray of sunshine corners him on the couch, all-but destined to chase away anymore sleep.
>new version 2
The nearby window's urban clamour worked in tag-team with the sunshine creeping across Ken's pillow, both determined to beat him awake.
>new version 3
Resisting the sunshine turning the back of his eyelids orange is easy, but paired with the racket from outside, more sleep has no chance.
>new version 4
By listening, Ken had no idea what time it was because the racket from outside is all the same-sunshine creeping across his face means he must be sleeping in.
>new version 5
Grimacing from the noise and heat on his face, sleep is all-but destined to elude him.
>new version 6
A nuclear fireball millions of miles away somehow teamed up with the bum down the alley to keep Ken from sleeping in anymore.
>new version 7
Sleeping is impossible; fireworks and headache-bright rooms, covering his head with the pillow made it too hot.
>new version 8
Guy wakes up, too bright, shitty noise from outside, swearing, he covers his head with the pillow.
>new version 9
Sunshine dried the spittle at the corner of the tired man's mouth, a drug-fueled incoherent ranting is heard coming from the window to the alleyway below.
>new version 10
It was sometime in 2022 when a normal guy is awakened rudely by a conspiracy between sunshine and dumpster divers.

>>18738458
>By what metric is the veracity and accuracy of the Wikipedia article confirmed, denied, rerouted, or otherwise “Xed out”? How is the Money Tree confirmed to bring good luck? These brave, brave, individuals must ask themselves these questions, they must maneuver in such a way as to imply which conception of the world is valid and which is invalid. Due to the unbalanced and purely Western nature of the Steward(esses) upbringing, the concept of the Money Tree as a symbol and harbinger of luck-which-is-not-bad cannot be wholly confirmed or denied. But what can be fully confirmed or denied (without plot holes) is that there can be no wholly unfalsifiable treatment on the metaphysical status of the money plant if it is taken in its raw form. These Wikipedian Jannisaries operate like an html document missing some backslashes or brackets, when confronting the issues as to what should be done about those Money Trees which hold so much cultural significance to the peoples inhabiting a certain multitudinous island chain not too far from Micronesia, in fact they share a similar language, at least to outsiders, though their language is more different than a man from Brighton meeting one from Aberdeen. (The old world Aberdeen). There are so many islands but they all possess this small tree which is associated in money by
those who speak the red headed step child of the western branch of the Germanic language family. And by grace of history but for many nations a wild misstep in the cosmic decision and taste making norms, this red headed step child western germanic language obtained the prerogative to secure a vast majority of wikipedia articles for itself. There is a hubris in this total capture of a plurality of all topics and articles posted on the Wikipedia website. Many peoples and people individual who happen to live on certain islands in the pacific may not appreciate the metaphysical capture of a tree named after Money. Sure assign an italic name to the tree, describe it, admit it is green like all the rest, but, “do not try to police and enforce the luck-making apparatus contained in the genome of such a tree,” think the speakers of many Austronesian dialects. When so many wake up on the Gregorian June 12 to find flying beetles and orangoutangs placing Riyals (tomon), and Rubles they are forced to believe that the money tree is in fact an outgrowth of the sacred. More real than even Saint Nick. It is in fact much more real than Saint Nick, he did not even create a mission on the opposite end of the Pacific Rim. To Wikipedia folks, as mentioned before, they are so limited by their education contained at one longitude and latitude that the Money tree crumbles before Saint Nick’s insistence and persistence. They do not realize the stored elastic energy in the cultural sphere of such a tree that prints money. In the end we find the eternal nick the Americans catch the threads of their superstitious coat on.

I never really cared for writing or storytelling, just wasn't my thing so I never got any practice in. Recently I really got into the idea of making a game or a webcomic as a creative hobby, and developed a story to carry it in my head. Now, I fully understand that an unwritten draft by someone who's never written in his life is bound to be garbage, but I'm attached to some of the ideas in it and want to carry it through as best as I can given my limited capabilities.

While working on the other skills I need, I've drastically reworked it hundreds of times in my head until I got something resembling a full plot with characters and their arcs and motivations and other story beats and themes etc but now I'd like some way to test it, for weaknesses, plot holes, inconsistencies, ambiguities, etc work out if things should be cut or rearranged or added or strengthened, hopefully without having to find beta readers.

The current idea I have is to put everything on paper, write down questions for every character and step of the plot, and then leave it while I go write other things for practice, then come back to it some time later with hopefully fresh eyes, but if anyone has any better ideas I'd love to hear them.

>>18740824
Nobody in the story seems reasonable though lol, everybody just seems like an asshole then the end has a kind of funny absurdist ending where the one guy just pulls a gun out of nowhere and murders the other guy.

>>18745115
Make is so that the guy shoots him to protect some sacred cow and the manager applauds him as a hero

>>18745130
No the lead up to the murder scene should remain the same, just completely out of nowhere. Only instead of getting hit by a car he gets gunned down right in the store and the manager comes out and starts clapping and everyone in the store claps and they just like throw his body in the trash or something.

>>18745142
Hahahaha!!! Yes I love that idea that they all clap and roll his corpse into the gutter, just laughed out loud thinking about that shit

>>18744474

I know the first and last for sure. It's all the shit in between.

>>18744910

>Write out your whole draft no editing until completion
I want to do this but shit it is hard.

Do you guys write your first page first? I'm having trouble figuring it out and I feel like it would be easier to write the story first then go back and figure out how to start it in the most kino way

>>18745173
Jesus Christ…..

>>18745176
>>18745173
Sorry wrong post meant to reply to this >>18745114

I re-wrote this description of a monster based on some feedback I got in another thread. If anyone could let me know what they think, I'd appreciate it.

>>18745173
Start at "what is my first page, what is the character doing, how quick will I pace the initial incident"
Also, here is where you think:
>what does my last page look like?
>what did the character learn?
>how did the character change?
>where is the character in terms of consequences?

I feel like that's the easiest way to start a novel. It gives you a skeleton to flesh out

i just love what these threads have turned into. it's like a party in the dark where nobody likes anyone else, no one even knows who anyone else is and most probably people are fighting the same people they were sincerely critiquing just a few threads back. This, while there's a raving madman off his meds replying to everything and everyone, people shouting seek help, sea kelps and crabs and some desperate cries for help and honest opinions coming from the corners who are being completely ignored while people are fighting over the anime pics that seem to be the only theme everyone has agreed on is something worth fighting over. No one wants to stay and no one is leaving. You just gotta fucking love the internet.

>>18745192
You actually come here for help?

>>18745192
This is like the American Gladiators of mental illness and it is so beautiful

>>18745198
if that is what you got from my post you really need to up your reading comperhension, friend.

>>18745191
Is it supposed to be cringe-tier bad in the first draft? I keep writing a thousand or so words and then rereading it and thinking it sounds so cringe I go back and rewrite the same exact starting scene out in a different way and I've done this like 3 times and haven't gotten past the first chapter yet.

>>18745206
Seek Help Jason

>>18745198
Seek Phelps.

>>18745192
and the only people actually writing in the thread are on retard road. god help us

>>18745206
I could kill whoever lives in that gay shit with a single punch.

>>18745212
Seek Gelps.

>>18745192

Maybe you should just swallow a whole bottle of valium?

>>18745218
You sure about that?

>>18745217
You mean the animefags? Pretty sure they were the only writers on this general to begin with.

I actually started writing my story today. I'd planned out a bit and got stuck so I figured I'd write the first part (an isolated episode) and figure out the second part once I finish the first. I've only written literally a page so far (it's actually much more draining than I thought to imagine a scene so hard to be able to transcribe it), but it's a start.

>>18745227
That's not very nice.

>>18745232
keep at it anon. here's some free advice: never delete stuff and go from start to finish before you start rewriting. Every new version is a new document. Good luck!

>>18745228

>mantits
>early gray
>bald
>flab and no bulk
looks like a fuckin pussy to me.

>>18745232
Seek help

>>18745253
Yes but I have a concrete chin and have never been knocked out in a fight, also, I bite, gouge eyeballs and will attack your balls.

so try fighting me

>>18745245

Sorry, let me really go for the jugular of all writers
post your work

>>18745273

>Yes but I have a concrete chin and have never been knocked out in a fight, also, I bite, gouge eyeballs and will attack your balls.

>>18745273
Jason, instead of writing fiction why don't you give autobiographical stuff out more? i'm pretty sure you have an interesting story to tell and it will probably be a great read that will also suit your writing style.

>>18745228
>>18745273
You look like a goober, I would break your hands so that you can never write such filth again.

>>18745192
Blame the pseud. They’re the ones who did this.

>>18745322
personally I blame the discordtrannies. they're probably one and the same

>>18745300
Straight white masculine men are denied a platform in Canada, if you lived here you would understand just how culturally suffocated it is.

The reason why I wrote a satirical, darkly comedic book about a normal guy snapping and becoming a vigilante is because theft, drugs, and street crime are actually a huge problem in Vancouver, and the suburbs are bad as well.

In less than 20 years Vancouver went from basically being a paradise on Earth to being a massive shithole.

>>18745319
Post your pic faggot, you'd get your ass fucking beat stepping to me bitch

>>18745372
you could still write it and self publish but i mean you seem to have made up your mind. good luck to you!

>>18745372
>>18745382
Stop samefagging, Jason.

>>18745376
I could rape you and you could not stop me.

>>18745382
The only thing that I could popularize is some of my stories as long as I find a niche to write in.

Have you been on Twitter lately? The entire social media world is completely and totally pozzed. Selling myself is impossible when the culture of politics invades every last forum. To be a writer in 2021 is going to rely on me just shutting up personally and just writing stories that I can sell via ads on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram...
>saving my schizo sperging for here
Like... there is no reason to pursue a mainstream presence when the mainstream demands 100% conformity to globohomo. What, you think I'm going to start being able to act like a normie in 2021? I can't fake it, so I just have to write bizarre books that can find a market. We'll see, the process is fun so far!

>>18745399
Expect a knife in your ribs, homo

>>18745410
You'd need more than that

>>18745392

>>18745417
>t. guy who has never been in a fight

>>18745441
>t. "guy" with tits

Anybody else becoming Zinepilled? I think it's the ultimate protest against the neoliberal hegemony in publishing. I'm going to start one and distribute it by mail.

>>18745399

that pathetic lack of developed abs says enough. One punch in the gut and you'll fold like a lawn chair

>>18745477
Maybe stop caring so much about other men's bodies and you could lose your virginity

>>18745482
>I don't know what I'm talking about but this would make sense in a movie so I'll say it

>>18745497
And to think, we ain’t even two months with the anime pics.

>>18745497
>posts picture to try to prove he's some kind of hard impressive guy
>asks me to post my picture hoping I somehow look worse than a 50 year old man with tits
>post my picture
>"a-a-a-actually you should stop commenting on m-m-my picture!"
holy cope

>>18745506
>incel lives at home
>can't bring girls over, has no photos of him with hot babes, has no nudes of women to share
>thinks he's hot shit
Anon, I...

>>18745527
You're a sick man, Jason. Seek Help.

Anyone here familiar with RoyalRoad/Scribblehub/other serial writing sites? I'm thinking of just publishing there but I had some questions about the business aspect of the sites.

>>18745561
Have you tried to read the term of use from those before posting your question?

>>18745550
When are you going to post photos of your adventures, anon? Certainly you've had some...

>>18745571
Seek Help.

>>18745527
>the only thing he can do is call me an incel and hope it's true
this doesn't insult me because I'm not a virgin. Go for a run tubby, the blown-out 30-somethings you can pull now and the decade-old pictures you have of yourself with actually attractive girls before you got fat and bald aren't impressive. You look like you're at least 40, go do something that's actually worth bragging about at 40, like having a family

>>18745561
You attain the rights of whatever you post on RR. I didn't check Scribblehub but it's more of the same. The only one you should absolutely not post on and will screw you over with contracts is the chink-owned Webnovel.

>>18745497

oh look you read the sticky and now youre big. good for you little guy.

>>18745578
Dude you won't even have any glory days, that's why I pity you

>>18745608
That girl seems underage, Jason.

>>18745567
Are they particularly accessible and easy to grok, or is it intentionally dense legalese shit that I already deal with at work?

>>18745583
Alright, so if I want to anthologize the work and sell it down the road, that's an option?

>>18745617
That’s the best kind of age, amirite?

>>18745654
>are they easy to grok
I'm going to say no. at least not for you

>>18745654
well... yes.

>>18745720
I mean I can read it, it's just exhausting because most of those kinds of documents (usually leases) are written intentionally vague to hide any way the signee gets fucked.

>>18745736
Why the hesitancy?

>>18740771
>>18741142
>>18743346
>>18745115
>>18745142


Thanks for the feedback bros, it was helpful.

I finished the rough draft of my floridawave novella (The Savage Green, if anyone remembers me from any previous threads) a few months ago and I'm revisiting now to begin the revising process. Can I get an opinion on this monologue? It seemed incredibly badass when I was writing it, but now it reads somewhat hollow and I'm not sure if that's because I was so tickled with my own brilliance that I memorized the entire thing and endlessly repeated it to myself until it lost meaning, or if it just wasn't very good to begin with.

For context, the man delivering this monologue got lost in the wilderness of the Florida panhandle and discovered an enchanted meteor which grants him the ability to manipulate reality with his own thoughts (he has to believe it to be true, it's not enough for him to simply want something or imagine it happening, he has to visualize a series of logical events which could lead to that outcome and convince himself they're really occurring or have occurred).

"Florida is the future and the future is now. Every day will be hotter than the last. Every day the kudzu will spread. Every day the sea level will rise. Every day, millions will awaken to discover their cutlery drawer is now filled with cockroaches and their house is sinking into a wetland. The beach will suddenly be twenty miles away and gaining. They will not be able to flee: roads will crack and split in the blistering sun and they will never be repaired, no matter how much money you vote at them. You will go insane as the mosquitoes eat you alive. You will seek any comfort you can find, and that comfort will be meth, and meth will deprive you of the only escape you have left, for you will never sleep again. You will turn on your neighbors as they turn on you, each robbing the other's house while they're occupied robbing yours. And one day you will understand that this is what life has become and nothing can save you, for every day the news will report the insanity which this life has inflicted upon you, and others will laugh at your misfortune, never understanding that the inexorable tide of Florida will wash over them just the same.

I dream of this future every time I sleep and I find myself sleeping with my eyes open more and more often. In my bodiless dreamstate, I can feel the landscape reacting to my own subconscious impulses. When my stomach rumbles with hunger, an unseen panther croaks in the distance. When I itch, mosquitoes descend upon the helpless masses in choking black swarms. When I urinate, a hot thunderstorm drenches the land. Do you understand what I'm saying?

I'm saying that when I sleep, I am a man who dreams of being Florida. And when I am awake, Florida dreams of being a man."

>>18739882
>How have your projects been coming along?
Nearly ready to get into the meat of Vol 5 where a bugman falls in love with a Middle Eastern Slut while dealing with the fact he will be executed for being a bugman if he can't get into a magic school while also just being stressed/depressed to all Hell.

>>18746293
>floridawave
lol intriguing

Parts of it are awkwardly worded, but it's not bad altogether. The imagery could use some work.

>>18745184
It's not bad but I think it's a bit too much description unloaded at once. Focusing on the most important points as an outline and leaving the rest to the reader can often result in more effective description as the imagination will fill in the blanks. It might not be exactly as you imagined but there's nothing wrong with that, and you can add bits and pieces later on rather than dropping it all at once. Break it up into the narrative rather than a block of description.

After all, why not
Why shouldn't I fill my story with 'tell' then go back to make it 'show' in the second draft?

>>18746160
You're welcome! Never quit!

>>18746293
I like it, though the second paragraph feels kind of clunky and inorganic, and I don't know how to feel about that last line- maybe it belongs in the second paragraph so it doesn't feel like you're trying to force it so hard?

>>18746515
Just realized I'm describing an outline.

how many books do I need to read before starting to write? newfag here

>>18746630
Why don't you just write? Instead of making excuses?

>>18746639
because i'm an illiterate retard

>>18746645
So is the rest of /wg/ so I don't know why you're even here.

>>18746630
I wouldn't worry about it. F. Gardner has probably never read a book in his life, but he never let that stop him. You can do it anon.

>>18746709
who the fuck is F. Gardner

>>18746740
An animefag who made it and makes pseuds seethe with his success.

>>18742946
Okay, thanks anon.

>>18744955
You too. I'll write something more mundane before trying an action sequence.

>>18746740
Pseuds seethe over F. Gardner because he creates and they don't

>>18746830
Oh, it's the guy who made that? Never read it but I hear it's awful. Good for him on finishing some work but if it's really that bad, he shouldn't be proud of it.

>>18746839
Yeah but I don't have anything out yet so who the fuck am I to criticize his pride? Humility doesn't mean shit if it doesn't produce results.

>>18746971
I would much rather keep improving than publish my garbage.

I just decided to drop my story and write what I wanted to write even before I started writing.

>>18747001
Nothing wrong with that, sometimes an idea doesn't make it past planning. I know it sounds like cope but every author and agent I've talked to says that the #1 sign you're a real writer is when you have a shitton of abandoned and aborted ideas just laying around physically or mentally.

>>18746439
>the imagination will fill in the blanks
One of my favorite parts of literature, so it's super helpful to hear this as I try and break my "over describe" habit. Thanks for reading and for the suggestions anon.

>>18746630
Read a thousand words for every one you write.

Wagie anon here, I just got myself a BT Keyboard to be able to write in my free time, could you tell me about some good writing apps?

>>18747610
livingwriter.com

>>18746984
That's complete nonsense.

In order to move forward as an artist, you have to unabashedly publish your work. So what if it's not perfect? The fucking Velvet Underground was laughed at and mocked when they first released their shit and never had a top hit. Guess what? Those fuckers are a cult legend now after being laughed at for years.

Sometimes what you and others think is "garbage" in present year turns out to be a special gem that was simply not digestible in the current culture.

50k words in. I wonder if its any good.

>>18747796
Post the first chapter here!

>>18745617
You do not even have a single photo of yourself with a single hot chick. I weep for your lack of adventure in life.