/lit/ - Literature

Reåeating my question from last bread:

So there's this writing contest, right? And I want to participate in it. I've written three stories and need to pick one to send in. There stories are:
1. Story where a bunch of medieval monks encounter talking snails
2. Story about a Russian soldier in Ukraine who is captured and learns his wife has been cheating on him while he's been away
3. Story of a kid who doodles in his notebooks at school arguing with his teacher over his plans for the future
Which one do I send?

>>21565981
>thread theme
OP is a faggot

>>21565984
Send the best, of course. Given that they’re equal and you want to win, the obvious choice would be the russian/ukr one, but then again, portraying russians as humans is kinda frowned upon nowadays. So i’d say the doodling kid. Fantasy automatically loses.

I think something that is understated when talking about writing is the art of the paragraph. A nice long paragraph with a logical beginning and end, with branches of thought that flesh out the character or the setting in-between, all of which lead naturally to the next paragraph, demonstrates, to me, that the writer is capable of an exploration of themes and emotions in a more complex way than a writer who lacks long paragraphs. When I look at a new book, and just by flicking through I can see that there are essentially no long paragraphs, with all the paragraphs taking up no more than five lines in an already large font, I feel doubtful about how good the book can be. It makes the impression that the writer never stops to explore something on a deeper level. I think practicing writing good long paragraphs about certain things is worthwhile.
Related to this, I absolutely hate those dramatic short one line sentences. I don't really know how to describe them. They seem like a cheap way of making something dramatic or building tension. Recently I read the first chapter of Fight Club, and these dramatic short sentences are used so egregiously that I decided I didn't want to continue the book (I knew the story anyway). I just think a well written paragraph would have been better. It just comes off as cheap.
Anybody have any thoughts on this?

>>21562472

What would you say is weak about it? And what do you think makes you like the scene? Also, I am intending for a fantasy story vibe here.

I have an idea for a non-fiction politically-incorrect book, is there a list of shit that would mean I couldn't publish it via Amazon? It's actually going to be very well-researched.
Also can I still get paid for a book that I publish anonymously on Amazon? Or under a pen name?

>>21566020
Doodling kid it is, I guess

wow that last thread had a lot of seething in it for no reason, I don't think anyone even shared their work

>>21565981
>Thread theme
OP is a faggot

>>21566262
>Or under a pen name?
Yes, Amazon allows you to use a pen name, and you can have your royalties deposited into your normal bank account.
>Also can I still get paid for a book that I publish anonymously on Amazon?
Practically speaking, no.

>>21566070
totally agree. all of the supposed /lit/shitters who 'made' it by getting sales on amazon are guilty of this. it's goyslop pure and simple. bitesized shallow poop for the masses.

You should try transcribing all the correctly written Facebook posts on your feed, every day, as practice to get into the verve of the modern educated person

>>21566468
>try to become as much of a soulless zombie as possible
>so you can write literature

>>21565981
>his characters don't snigger at each other.

>>21566562
youre not allowed to say that

>>21566270
Good luck! And remember - no
matter if you win or lose you still did it. I mean, it’s nicer to win, but the actual effect of this is most likely gonna be on your motivation to keep writing. And if you keep truckin no matter what, you already made it.

>>21566578

>>21566569
But i literally just did.

>>21566304
WTF are you talking about, retard? I shared something about 15 replies in, but nobody had any comment on it. What’s the point of a writing thread when you idiots can’t fucking read?

>>21566747
I gave me professional critique on numerous pieces and was instantly set upon with seething bitter comments

>>21566775
>I gave me
If this is your grasp of the English language, no wonder nobody likes your critiques.

>>21566747
omo I missed it
but, to be fair, I'm not going to now critique your entire novel anon.

>>21566781
it was a typo and your pointless little attack tells me you were one of the embittered yesterday. you are a beginning and you should listen to people above you, but you can't do that and so you will never improve.

>>21566793
> you are a beginning
Lack of capitalization on the first word of a new sentence on BOTH of your sentences, but also an incoherent statement?
Oof. There's a passage in the New Testament about this.

>>21566780
It’s okay. I understand you niggers are barely literate.
>>21566775
https://pastebin.com/Rn8BXvBR
Me am profeshioner opine wanted to read

>>21566805
Is the word “ass” mentioned in it?

>>21566816
why are you so negative? I'M A REAL PERSON (i think)
now I'm not reading even one sentence of your novel anon, in fact cancel my subscription to your blog right now

>>21566822
Sadly, no.

>>21566824
No. You’re a piece of shit. I know that. You know that. Even He knows that. The world would be better off without you in it.

>>21566837

>>21566816
My suggestion is to open with the story of Ottis, but as if it were actually occurring in real time, and then back out to reveal that it's a story being told in a tavern.

The literary genius was instantly set upon with the seething rage of lesser men, the embitterment had begun.

>>21566875
>was, had
>mixed tenses

>seething psued starting problems this early

>>21566882
It zooms out like an intro to a movie.

>>21566903
Alright, I'll allow it. Carry on.

>>21566882
You're mad about that and not the comma splice?

>>21566989
I don't even know what that is.

>>21567007
Radracoon vs Boswell arc.
Let's see if this episode also ends in Boswell spam reporting everyone who doesn't agree with him.

>Embitterment is an emotion that is distinct from other negative emotions and mental disorders. Depressed mood is a melancholic and anhedonic emotion, accompanied by reduced emotional modulation and a feeling of emotional numbness and nonreactivity. Embitterment, in contrast, is a full and explosive emotion experienced by amateur writers on /wg/ who can't take critique and lash out at the professional and talented individuals attempting to help them

rate/critique my first chapter:
its about a highschooler who starts a club, the first is an intro to the world + several characters in it.
https://pastebin.com/fVkJ5q4q

>>21566076
It's weak because of the vocabulary. It's far too weak to be a historical fiction, but since it's fantasy aimed towards fantasy readers, the more modern prose and dialogue is fine.

There is no poetry thread so ill post it here, and I'd be curious what the prose people thing of it anyway.

Also since i post a new poem every few weeks i decided to aggregate my work, so here a link to that

> micz.substack.com/p/chalk-vandals

New poem every 2 weeks

>>21567088
>ABAB
dropped. fuck off with this shit

>>21565981
3 Is the most sellable imo.

>>21567088
That's really solid, post more, i like it.

>>21567059
>White stars shone against a young man. He sat against the wooden facade of a decrypt home moving his fingers in line with the dirty wooden flooring. Stars the only people in his house. He looked at them in silence.
>White stars shone against a young man
>shone
>He sat against the wooden facade of a decrypt home
>decrypt
>moving his fingers in line with the dirty wooden flooring.
>huh?
>Stars the only people in his house.
>Stars the only people
ESL?

>>21567059
Erase that entire opening part.

>>21567154
doubly noted, will fix
>>21567163
erase or change? I want a dark opening because the story will go dark places

>>21567175
I'd agree with that other anon, cut it. It's navelgazing garbage that doesn't advance the plot and doesn't really provide characterization. If you want to have your mc being emo later on, fine, but not in the intro.

>>21567124
>That's really solid, post more, i like it.

i have plenty, they will be at the (>>21567088
) link. im glad you liked it tho, 4chan and poetry dont always get along =)

>>21567198
okay, cut it is

do you guys ever try to "return to your roots"

Where you look back at the genres you liked to write years ago, themes, character tropes ect.

I'm trying to get back into horror,

Literary conventions? Grammar? Coherence and legibility? I'm sorry, where I come from we say "tenets of cuckoldry"

>>21567356
>Literary conventions?
what are those? Sounds pretty gay

>>21567369
Do you mean to tell me you aren't going to /lit/con?

>mfw only halfway through the book and the power gap already getting noticeable
I'm not going back niggas...

>>21567522
And?
I don't see the problem. Just market it as Progression Fantasy. Plenty of readers explicitly look for that.

>>21567369
I’ve been to writing conventions. They are pretty gay, and getting gayer. Lots of panel discussions on LGBT shit.

>>21567033
Keep my username out yo fuckin’ mouth.

>>21567621
sneed faggot

>>21567621
fuck off back to The Wonder Years fat fuck

>>21567641
that's Tom Bosley, not Tom Boswell. And he's the dad from Happy Days not The Wonder Years.

>>21567651
oh yeah? well fuck you too Richie Cunningham

>>21567088
Keep going anon I'll sub when I get home. Don't listen to >>21567096 traditional forms are for closers and non homosexual men in general

>>21567681
sonnets are for fruity faggots with frilly sleeves who roll up said sleeves when thrusting their fist elbow-deep into their 'domestic partner'
to wit, the faggot doth protest too much

>>21567688
certified 18th-century moment

>>21565981
We're all gonna make it anons

>>21567746
Reviewfag here. I enjoyed the book, Lewis, but I have a few questions:
1. What's your next project?
2. How much of your book was fiction?

>>21567780
thank you,
1: well i have another collection of short stories ready to go, some different themes, stories loosely based on my childhood growing up in fundamentalist christianity, stories about the life here on the Eyre Peninsula, my first attempt at a political story, my first attempt at a post-apocalyptic story and also a novella length piece that might be tacked onto the short story collection or possibly published as a stand-alone thing.
2: my usual method is to take something real and use but never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn. All my stories have a loose basis in truth but should be read as fiction. The sole eception to this is the trio of "remembering the dead" stories in that book which are staight biography.

I've had COVID and just got back to editing yesterday and today and all of a sudden everything I've written just looks fucking wrong. Everything I do just feels shit, and I keep rewriting the same sentences a hundred different ways and liking none of them.
Even as I write this post it just reads to me like a fucking poorly written mess and I hate it.

>>21566070
George Saunders has this technique that he uses so often it would qualify as a gimmick if he didn't always use it so charmingly: he'll have a long paragraph that sets up some kind of problematic situation then follow it with two paragraphs of one sentence each, which provide a solution/uplift then a twist/downbeat. Like: long paragraph about how a guy is struggling at work / 'But what did work matter, when he had the kids' / 'Not that he was allowed to see the kids' (my poor example).

I've found that my own writing has naturally settled on a style of short paragraphs all of a similar length. I think I'm good at the keeping the connections smooth, or at least making them interesting jumps, but I worry that the regular lengths mean I've trained myself to internalise an artificial constraint.

I think it comes from the insecurity that the reader will give up if they're forced to slog through a long paragraph. A tight four- or five-line paragraph feels invitingly bitesized, and the break gives the reader a chance to take a breath and get hooked back in with the opener of the next. It's like getting a baby, a little softbrained infant, to walk a metre at a time. And, to be honest, I enjoy the challenge of coming up with a new compelling hook every few lines.

By the way, yours is the kind of detailed craft-focused post I wish this thread had more of.

>>21566304
Fedbook had some useful feedback in the last thread, and I got one sale and two new substack subscriptions out of it.
A success.

Anyone else use text to speech to help with editing/rewriting or is this a bad idea?

>>21568095
I work at a publisher (boring, academic non-fiction) and this is advice my boss sometimes gives authors when they're close to submitting their manuscripts. So try it out.

On a despotic pregnant little road lay a little house heaving with disquiet. All passerby would remark the house empty, but it was not. Less than 20 years on this EarthLem short for Lemuel Augustus Sorodoun was playing at his computer. A hot summers day with the glint of eve beating back the light. Lem was playing but really any entertainment to be had was forcibly ejected long ago. He only ever did what he had to. And ever since he graduated school a year ago he had nothing to have to do. The dull buzz of his computer filled his mind. There was no more youth in this world. Decades ago he could have gone to the disco. Or the socialist rally parties. But now all these youth groups were gone. Only the bleak modernity remained. The only thing for him was endless masturbation. His life felt cold. Lem's youthful day dreams were exclusively centered on taking his father's Colt revolver and running down to the substation to end his life. He would become electricity. My mind is estranged from itself. I watch streamers all day. I can't move forward. I am trapped. Its hopeless. The game is rigged. Nobody likes me. Ill never own a home. And such and such filled Lem's little head. He gazed at his bookshelf. What was once filled with books and pamphlets had been vandalized. Textbooks on American History, the Spanish language, fantastical tales of heroism, Japanese comic books. These familiar sights had been ejected and exploded onto the floor. What was on the shelf instead were works of art. Stoner by Williams, Jest by Wallace, Hegel, Cioran. Lem could hardly stand himself. In his free time during the barren hours between midnight and the Dawn he would burn his old books. Hoping that some day he would burn himself. And maybe he'd become a phoenix. He was alone. Lem thought of leaving. Going to some backwards place, like Pennsylvania and changing his name to David. He day dreamed about meeting an asian girl and bedding her. Lem had never had a girlfriend in his life. He had never had a friend that didn't come in through the wire. Lem liked to imagine himself as a depressed man in his mid 30s at the end of his rope, a heap of experiences and torture on his shoulders. Failed relationships and abandoned children and broken dreams. He liked to believe he lived in a technocratic dystopia and was some kind of authority in it such as a detective.

Lem opened his bedroom window and looked outside. He saw nothing but a cooking suburban neighborhood. His parents driveway empty. Nothing but the codified New England berms on Janice lane. They're on vacation. Lem thought about jumping but didn't. He sat on his four post bed and decided to masturbate again instead. He imagined himself with an amazonian woman twice his size. She could carry him around and guide him to the best fruits in the jungle. He could hold onto her large ears as she bound o'er hill and river. Behold! Ptolemist! That which lies under brow unbeaten. Massing with the stones and the leaves. Lem was alone.

>>21568115
monotonous rhythm, too many short sentences ending in period.
also pregnant and little don't match, they're opposing concepts

>>21568139
I disagree

>>21568139
man I'm trying so hard these past few days. help me Anon. I'm just. I just want to be good

Anyone have books that improved their writing? Something more writing-based then theory-based

>>21568115
I think you have some really nice phrases ('guide him to the best fruits in the jungle', 'hold onto her large ears', 'some kind of authority in it such as a detective') and also some stuff that feels pointlessly affected or false ('glint of eve beating back the light', 'bleak modernity ', 'bedding her', 'a heap of experiences and torture on his shoulders'). ('Bedding her' might actually be a good one, because you kind of sense that the narrator's libidinally invested in the archaic sound of phrase itself. Can't decide.)

Overall, I feel confirmed in my theory that writing can't just be about 'expressing yourself'. You can't just point to things in your room and call it a story ('room' here also meaning, more broadly, the fishtank of your immediate subjectivity). There has to be some alien element. That alien element doesn't even have to come from, like, genuine life experiences. I can come from just following the logic of the story and the language, from gripping onto the large ears of the figure who feels both of you and beyond you, and seeing where she leads you.

>>21568162
You don't need a book to improve your writing.

1. Simple writing
2. Clear descriptions
3. Short sentences
4. Deep characters
5. Directional writing (even when you go off road, the reader knows it's serving the main plot one way or another)

I'm assuming you've read all the classics on writing so far, so I'll just recommend Consider This by Chuck Palahniuk.

>>21568162
The best book to improve your writing is the one you write yourself.

>>21568162
I brought up A Swim in a Pond in the Rain in a previous thread. It's spurred me to start writing again. Really insightful and cliche-free.

>>21568206
>I can come
*It can come....

>>21567746
Based.
>>21567088
>of a
Seems a bit redundant to me. Also feels bad in terms of rhythm.
Second stanza has a nice ring to it.
Third stanza could use some work and I'm not sure what it is talking about really, beyond art.
Fourth stanza has iffy rhythm.
Fifth stanza is cool.
Last one seems to drop the ball or lose the plot a bit.

>>21565981
Is killing all the main characters midway through a novel barring one and switching perspective to said survivor a good idea?

I want to do a MGR:R style ending where the main antagonist doesn’t really show up until the 11-th hour, does a big speech and then gets defeated shortly afterwards but now I realised that the way the final confrontation is set up it really doesn’t make sense for the antagonist to be defeated.

So now I have basically thought up three options.

>power through anyway and try to make it work
>have the book end in complete failure and maybe write book two sometime later
>scrap the project and try making something else.

>>21568368
>Is killing all the main characters midway through a novel barring one and switching perspective to said survivor a good idea?
That was my idea for a novel, but not exactly that. I think it's okay as long as you set up the characters well and the switch might also point towards complexity or nuance, like if the survivor has different perspectives in internal monologue than it was made out to be from other characters.
>>power through anyway and try to make it work
I'd do this. It's not going to be amazing on the first draft, ever. You have to put a lot of work into it. Redrafting is the point of writing. Also, I think you have a cool enough idea and you may pull it off organically through rewriting. Never scrap something just because you think it won't be received well. Write for yourself and then you WILL be able to write for others.

>>21568366
I like it.
One critique I have is the style. Any time someone is writing an existential/philosophical passage they have a tendency to adopt a certain generic 'grand' or 'deep' tone. It comes across as contrived and a little amateurish as though you haven't quite found 'your' voice.
Still, I liked it. Interesting thought.

>>21568427
Hey thanks. I'll keep working on the voice.

This was when I lived with a nervous woman who had cold, bony feet. She wore a polished stone threaded on a thin silver chain and certain movements made it knock against her sternum. The knock rang through the other sounds. When I first saw her I thought, If I grip you hard you'll bruise violet. I tried but she had no give at all. My fingertips ached for two days after that.

The context in which we first started talking was the network of paths that ran between the buildings on campus. The paths were lit at night by solar-powered lamps studded in the soil. The lamps were spaced too far, so the paths were more dark than not. They covered miles in total and she knew them well. She must have walked them alone many times. But she devised false shortcuts, and selected the moment, below an unmarked breezeblock building or on the far edge of the artificial lake, to turn to me and say, I believe we're lost.

After university we lived together off campus and getting lost was harder. So we found online a place you could rent for a weekend. The woman who owned it was called Greta and she gave us a code for the gate. I repeated the code in my head while we stopped for petrol, and while we waited for sheep to clear the road, and while Greta found a stone wall to pee behind.

But when it came to punching it in the buttons felt like loose teeth. Eventually Greta's was there with a flashlight, her face behind the bars of the gate. Chunky pearls gripped the flab of her neck. She owned the land right up to the oaks it was now too dark to see. She opened the gate and said, Is your friend arriving later? I turned round and my girlfriend wasn't there.

She showed up later, wet, when Greta was explaining the rug to me. Above us was the high space of black timber and we stood in the middle of the rug's vegetal pattern. Beyond the rug my dripping girlfriend darkened flagstones. She grinned too wide and said, So warm in here! When Greta was turned to the wine fridge, my girlfriend put a wet hand on the back of my neck and whispered, I've made a discovery.

[Unfinished. Probably never to be finished, now I've posted it.]

>>21568366
I wanna hire you as a writer but I have neither the means nor the project at this point

Big words = Good writing

Simple as!

This was when I lived with a nervous woman who had cold, bony feet. She wore a polished stone threaded on a thin silver chain and certain movements made it knock against her sternum. The knock rang through the other sounds. When I first saw her I thought, If I grip you hard you'll bruise violet. I tried but she had no give at all. My fingertips ached for two days after that.

The context in which we first started talking was the network of paths that ran between the buildings on campus. The paths were lit at night by solar-powered lamps studded in the soil. The lamps were spaced too far, so the paths were more dark than not. They covered miles in total and she knew them well. She must have walked them alone many times. But she devised false shortcuts, and selected the moment, below an unmarked breezeblock building or on the far edge of the artificial lake, to turn to me and say, I believe we're lost.

After university we lived together off campus and getting lost was harder. So we found online a place you could rent for a weekend. The woman who owned it was called Greta and she gave us a code for the gate. I repeated the code in my head while we stopped for petrol, while we waited for sheep to clear the road, while she found a stone wall to pee behind.

But when it came to punching it in the buttons felt like loose teeth. Eventually Greta was there with a flashlight, her face behind the bars of the gate. Chunky pearls gripped the flab of her neck. She owned the land right up to the oaks it was now too dark to see. She unlocked and said, Is your friend arriving later? I turned round and my girlfriend wasn't there.

She showed up ten minutes later, wet, when Greta was explaining the rug to me. Above us was the high space of black timber and we stood in the middle of the rug's vegetal pattern. Beyond the rug my dripping girlfriend darkened flagstones. She grinned too wide and said, So warm in here! When Greta was facing the wine fridge, my girlfriend put a wet hand on the back of my neck and her mouth close to my ear and said, I've made a discovery.

[Unfinished. Probably never to be finished, now I've posted it.]

>>21568526
Can you provide an explanatory exemplary specimen of such?

>>21568528
this is pretty good actually, a few neat parts in it

>>21568526
>Billy succumbed to pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
I am genious writer.

>>21568526
Subsequent to his divulgence the unparalleled literary genius mastermind was instantaneously set upon and assailed with the seething tantrum of ancillary men. The embitterment of opposing antagonists had commenced.

Thanks for all your help guys.

>>21568574
Swarming masses of 'beginnings' crawled out from their trollholes to defecate into hands and chuck said turd projectiles at the literary genius, who brushed aside their embittered logs with good natured aplomb.

>>21568592
>>21568574
These are barely $10 words.

>>21568598
Big words good
Small words bad
Greek gives me wood
So hecking trad

>reading new novels
>every 3rd page is a new chapter
>1000 word chapters
is this the new normal?

>>21568074
Anon. It's okay to end a sentence in a preposition. Especially if it fits the speaker's voice.

>>21568690
Nobody knows how to transition to new scenes without a chapter break or planning proper length fully fleshed out writing. It's all muh style

>>21568786
I literally just read a 2 page chapter and at the max it was just 500 words, highly rated book btw

>>21567810
I look forward to it.

I'm currently writing a visual novel, which comes with some struggles since I'm going for le subversive meta plot where I'm trying to make a point about VN main characters, specifically their status as self-inserts.

Unfortunately, this means I have to make him a completely dull board of wood for whom much more interesting women fall for. It'll be worth it once I reach the spooky part though.

>>21568366
Aren’t these the opening paragraphs of The Call of Cthulhu?

>>21568366
plagiarizing fag

>>21568905
>>21568918
Well, it's funny that these two had no idea:
>>21568510
>>21568427
Read more, /wg/, you fucking illiterate faggots.

>>21568935
Not into horror, and I stand by my critique/praise regardless.

>>21568946
Lovecraft is about as much "horror" as Edgar Allan Poe, which is to say it's not horror really at all. Weird fiction, particularly the surrealist-infused kind of Lovecraft's, is a type of literature that defies genre and blends mode, from folktale to poetry to pulp.

>>21568368
>Is killing all the main characters midway through a novel barring one and switching perspective to said survivor a good idea?
No. That is a bad idea. It will betray the readers' expectations.

You could kill off one early to let the reader know this is a high fatality sort of book. Then off them as you go.

>>21567033
I was working when all this juvenile seething started. I had nothing to do with it.
Still, I enjoy living rent-free in your head, and triggering your schizo insanity.
>>21567621
Stop LARPing as me, pseud.
Why would you do that? Do you want to be me?

Oh boy, it's namefag drama hour.

Who writes 50,000 words for only $400?

>>21568824
I could understand doing something like that as a one off, like a very quick pov shift to something monumental in scale happening, then returning back to what had been going on before with the reader now being aware something had happened but with the characters still in the dark.

>>21569066
you forgot the site takes 1/3rd as a fee, so that's only $266 kek

How many rape scenes can you have before the book reads like porn?

>>21567096
if its good enough for frost, its good enough for me

>>21567088
i like the dedication to the rhyme scheme of iambic tetrameter, people who dont write poetry dont understand sometimes how hard it is to keep the stresses and syllables consistent throughout. to me , structured poem is better than walt whitman free form garbage.

like the 4th stanza especially, obviously suggesting little kids drew and green/gold and the word vines in the next stanza give me the imagery of someone drawing sunflowers, though it could be something else to another reader.

only thing i dont like is the repeat of the word intertwined in first and third stanzas, not sire if that was intentional or not.

>>21568154
just dont listen to him lol

guilty is the man that pulls the trigger
but what of all of us who buy the eggs
of chickens whose whole life they live in dregs
or milk from a calfless mother's udder

a voluntary tithe unto the state
ostensibly it promulgates order
yet we forsake the ones killed in horror
while we enrich the moral reprobates

there is no new sin underneath the sun
comitted by the innocents whose lives
lives arranged which circumstance has driven
it costs more to fix than buy a new one
provisions must be sent across skies
its these things that i seek to be forgiven

I spent 2 years reading and really digging into what makes them work. I believe I have a much better grip on character, prose, themes and emotional development. I now believe I am ready to finish my 3rd draft. I doubt it will reach many people, but it'll be done and I will be happy.

>>21569140
As many as you like, as long as you have more other scenes. Like 20:1 non-rape:rape ratio.

>>21566070
This reminds me of an essay I read on paragraph breaks that I can't remember the source of. The essence of the point made was that where an author breaks a paragraph often becomes a stylistic quirk, often unconscious.

I was also reading something the other day where someone was praising an author for his paragraphs. There had been some emotional or dramatic sentences, beautiful writing, and the commentary on this remarked that many writers would have broken the paragraph at that point to try and lend it a greater dramatic weight, but this author was content to let the paragraph flow on and beyond that gem of a sentence, and that this quiet nestling added a subtle and quiet quality to the paragraphs as it became home, within itself, to a multitude of textures, and had not been chopped to singular bits, but was allowed to breathe more freely and in that way gave new meaning to each sentence within it. By incorporating variety into a single paragraph you signal that there is an underlying unity, and this is a softer experience of reading than something that cuts each thought or idea into paragraphs, which can perhaps be abrasive in its directness and unambiguity.

>>21569256
>I spent 2 years reading and really digging into what makes them work.
And has it worked? Tell us.

Which of these works best?

Whats scarier than missing out on life?
What do you have to lose that’s more important than your youth?
How many grains of sand do you have left to spare?
No mistake is harder to fix than wasting your youth.

Can't i just write complete bullshit and hope it works out?

>>21569544
No one cares what you write, for good or ill.

>write 3 books
>sold only 20 copies TOTAL
It's over.

>>21569675
So? That's normal, especially for a beginner.

>>21569675
stop doomposting and get back to work, Krake

>>21569675
>write one book (pamphlet)
>barely tell anyone
>put it out there for free
>0 copies sold
brehs... I don't know where I went wrong

>>21570016
>put it out for free
you unironically would have done better if you charged something for it. free can mean its worthless in people minds

>>21570026
I know. I did basically everything 'wrong'. That's the joke.
But I also don't care that much because I want to stay as hungry as possible until I have a magnum opus under my belt.

>>21565984
talking snails, the other anon is a cuck don't listen to him

>>21570037
That's also the only one of those stories we've gotten to read a part of, I remember it from last fall

>>21568154
I liked your writing, and I believe you are good now; but yes, we can all get better. Keep writing then.

>>21567088
It flows well, and feels small and insignificant, in a good way. I hate how every poem feels the need to be transcendental or revolutionary, so keep it up.

>>21567746
What kind of traction did you get? Did you just shit post on lit, or did you get a publisher to promote it?
Regardless congrats on the work.

>>21570063
He just sent to an indie press after saying the other publishers were POZZED. You can look it up in the warosu archive, n-n-newfag!

Just got 5k words through the course of three days after not writing for a long time. It finally came back to me

>>21569178
Im glad you enjoyed it. I have the next few poems ready(ish) and they are also in chained, metrical verse.
most people seem think thats now the domain of limericks and children's books but i hope there is an audience for well structured metrical work.
Im happy with it anyway .

>only thing i dont like is the repeat of the word intertwined in first and third stanzas, not sire if that was intentional or not.

I did notice at the time but it seemed to scan alright so i kept it.
You are right though it is an eyesore.
>>21570063
im glad, i aim for insignificant.
i like the poetry of observation, so alot of it will be like that.
Not all of it tho.

>>21570133
that's great. make it a habit and you'll make it. make excuses and you never will

>>21570150
here is one i wrote, i have no title for it:

my grandpa gave to me a coin
he put it in my hand
it was something an ounce of troy
i did not understand

he said i mustn't spend the piece
on candy or a toy
see, they don't want to reproduce
coins like this anymore

i came upon the wishing well
along my way to school
and thought of all the things i'd tell
i tossed into the pool

the change i got from buying pop
and pilfered from mom's jar
i started to get second thoughts
and kept his coin afar

now grandpa hasn't been around
he's in a better place
grandma said we'd meet again
as tears fell down her face

they had flowers all 'round his bed
piano music flowed
i squirmed around my seat; mom said
i had to wear these clothes

daddy found a dusty chest
at grandma's place upstairs
he needed uncle chuck's assist
to move it anywhere

>>21570362
inside were bars of metal
too many coins to count
they laid it all on tables
to try to sort it out

uncle chuck he took some home
and so did aunt marie
the rest we kept; it was our own
to help our family

i asked, its not for spending, right?
dad said never, ever
but we could sell some if we might
run into stormy weather

he told me i could play with it
any time i'd leisure
robbers hiding from a sherrif
or a pirate's treasure

i jammed my hand inside the box
examined what i scooped
eagles, geese, a golden fox
roosters, kangaroos,

so many faces turned sideways,
an indian headdress
i even found some coins just like
the special one i kept

although mine when compared, it was
never most bright or clean
i still think its the best because
he gave this one to me

Had a dream that I kept shooting bad guys with two pistols AKIMBO; they'd die for a moment, then get back up again and chase me. It made me want to fire a gun for the first time to see how it felt, so maybe I could write about shooting pistols in a story.

>>21570063
>hate how every poem feels the need to be transcendental or revolutionary
Are you from Victorian England or something? In what universe does Current Year poetry feel so commonly the need to be "transcendental or revolutionary" to the point where it seems apt to remark thereon, as if it is a welcome breath of fresh air that a poem is less formal? I don't get it. Do you read?

Anyone have tips on using Amazon kdp and how to make a cover?

>>21570749
You read the guides and do what they say

>>21569675
>do a book giveaway
>over 60 downloads
>not a single rating or a review
FUCK

I'm too scared to release my Chinaman book. What if nobody likes it?

>>21570999
Then you'll do better next time

>>21568528
It's nice enough. The events are so quickly sketched out that this could only be a short story. And without an ending or point, it's hard to comment on its effectiveness.

>>21570999
You can just fall back on the culture war narrative you were already going to employ — just with different presuppositions.

>>21571033
>You can just fall back on the culture war narrative you were already going to employ — just with different presuppositions.
Hmmm I didn't think of that. How do I take advantage of the shooting?

I finally spent some time looking at the best sellers at ama*on and it has been elucidating. First, the literary & fiction section--I picked up the first or second book about a housemaid.
Second I went over to the erotica section, this was surprising for me because of the variety, or lack of it in the top ten. The lesson I've learned so far is that erotica books have very clearly delineated "tags" so to speak. Quasi-incest, age gap, MMC FMC, most surprising of all was that the top seller at the moment was on about 50 pages. That seems doable.

>>21571114
It's basically just litporn, yeah

>>21571114
Porn has to be really specific because you can only get off on what you can get off on.

So I write the book and then look for a publisher or the other way around? If I write first how polished should it be before looking for a publisher? Should I transition first to get more favorable publisher reaction?

How hard is it to get a publishing deal with Amazon?

>>21571212
No effort. They're nearly publishing anything and everything

>>21571203
You write it then shop it with an agent. Or do it how most successful do it today, write a bunch of books, then the publishers come to you. Like Coleen hoover or even Stephanie Meyer

>>21571203
You understood it all wrong. You don't find a publisher, you find an agent who finds a publisher and takes a slice of all your earnings.

>>21571212
its not a publishing deal
you sign up and shit out your trash into the designated shitting street then come on here flashing your 'amazon score' as if it was meaningful that you sold to ten people who pitied you after hearing you shill.
you then form a circlejerk discord server where you and your equally talentless buddies all jerk off one another calling themselves 'author' and 'made it', even though no one knows who the fuck you are and no one's read your amateuristic dogshit

>>21571229
I’m missing a step here. If they wrote a bunch of books before finding a publisher then how did the publisher notice them if nothing had been published yet?

>>21571245
let me save you a whole bunch of time cos this other dude is giving you bad advice
unless youre a black tranny dyke in a wheelchair or have a 3M social media following forget finding an agent. total waste of time. if you dont believe me just search #MSWL and prepare for eyebleed

>>21571245
Self publish. Shill it on TikTok and hope you get a good gathering.

Which is the best thing to do now. #booktok has insane reach. Find the cutest girl you know ask her to make a video with your book, and hope others see it. Remember to hashtag popular tags

>>21571314
Tiktok users can read?

>>21571333
Nobody said that, they just make videos where they pretend to cry after reading A Little Life or Song of Achilles

>>21571339
Why are you trying to sell a book to the illiterate, then?

>>21571314
>Find the cutest girl you know ask her to make a video with your book
As sad as it sounds this is probably the best use of marketing dollars. Let's say you have $100 to spend on marketing and your choice is buying normal ads, or whatever, it's much better to find some popular online roastie and throw her a benjamin to make a 30 second video shilling your book. Supplement that with doing a free shilling blitz on reddit or wherever.

And to answer the anon above, Colleen Hoover is currently the number 1 romance author. She's written, I dunno, 15+ books or something. She self published the first 5 or so, did really well, and after that publishers came to her.

>>21571353
conspicuous consumption. normal people buy books to read them, but overly socialized, dopamine fried tiktok idiots buy them to appear hip and with it

>>21571353
They still buy them

If we put our heads together, /wg/, I'm sure we can reach the best seller list.

>>21571371
That's easy.
>late 20's woman protagonist
>burned out on working her corporate job, lawyer or something high powered
>meets billionaire
>tall, dark, handsome
>he becomes absolutely enchanted with her
>they go on a date weekend where he fucks the shit out of her
>but he also has a sensitive side
>after, he invites her to his estate
>he's also a prince or something, I dunno
at this point you invent the novel's "conflict" maybe if he is royalty, there's a succession issue he's dealing with and he needs to get married and knock her up, which gives her the opportunity to play a little coy. oh, almost forgot one of the most important parts
>he's a dom with a slight bdsm fetish

>>21571393
Also he's a vampire and there another guy who is a werewolf and the werewolf is really buff and hot and kept leashed by the vampire guy and they have this dom-sub thing going where the vampire guy is trying to tame the werewolf guy and the woman protagonist is insanely aroused by all of this

>>21571371
Didn’t Gardner already achieve this?

>>21571399
When is the next YouTube video dropping, Frank?

>>21571399
based

>>21571354
You have to make it seem organic. If we're so bold we all can dress up like fags and shill each others books on TikTok. But I don't want to dress like a fag

>>21571472
I've seen your wardrobe, anon. You won't have to try that hard.

>>21571472
>You have to make it seem organic
no, you don't. you just need someone with a large following to gush about your book for a little bit and say how much she liked it. If I had the mug and tits for it I'd effortlessly shill my and other people's books, but I don't.

>>21571643
How do find a femanon to do this for us?

>>21571781
how do you get a girl in any other context

>>21568778
If you're talking about the screenshot of the Saunders story 'Ghoul', and specifically the line
>Plus we each get a niche into which to put our stuff
and you're saying it would be better as
>Plus we each get a niche to put our stuff into
then your ear is, imo, way off.

Ending on a preposition would make that sentence much weaker rhythmically ('Plus we each / get a niche / into which / to put our stuff' is neat) and you'd land on 'into' instead of the satisfying 'stuff' (which is also marginally funnier, in its emphasis of the anticlimax the sentence is intended to be, like falling from a great height onto a inflatable mat). If you're saying it doesn't fit with the voice, maybe it wouldn't fit with a real life, recorded voice, but it fits with the careful, amped-up stylisation that I like to read in stories.

>>21571980
not him but dont agree with anything youre saying. the get a niche to put our stuff into sounds snappier. even if you force youre gay little forward slashes in there thats still not actual beats your representing. this is not how rhythm works and you are a fraud.

>>21568230
I picked it up really good recommendation thank you

>>21571033
This is quite the presupposition.

How do you deal with distractions?
I'm obsessed with finding distractions and it's really hurting my work life and my writing and reading life.

I'll play any video game with a leveling system and feel like I must reach max level/max gear/max everything before I drop it.

I know it's just serotonin farming, but I'm having a hard time ignoring the call of it.

Struggling to explain my world organically, any way I try it just doesn't sound right. Is it ok if the explaining parts aren't very good as long as they do the job? I'm too tunnel visioned to work it out, i'd appreciate a fresh set of eyes even if just to let me know if its decent or trash

He moved his head side to side, up and down, contemplating the sleek, modern design that was being visualised in real time on the screens of his headset. It was nice he thought, much nicer than anywhere he’d ever get to live. Luxurious, secluded, extravagant enough to make the richest men feel drunk with power to own such a solar system. He even noticed himself getting off a bit at the thought of being that lucky man. This was the same reaction that could be expected of any of his coworkers, but unlike him they couldn’t be bothered to actually bring their bodies over to see the site in person before the construction was nearing completion. He was the opposite way, he could see no good reason to travel all the way over there just to torture himself with envy by stroking his fingers along the perfectly carved, ever so slightly curved pure rubidian walls. But he liked to go over there in person before construction had begun, see the design virtually through his headset, and then take it off to reveal the natural scenery of the solar system, including all the planets and other objects whose demolition he was in charge of overseeing. Generally a fresh hire would board a cargo ship to see the celestial demolition in person maybe about three or four times, during their first few months. Certainly in awe at first, but quickly becoming less and less impressed with each visit, eventually resigning to simply glance occasionally at the automated machinery from a screen that blends into the background of the office. But after over 3 years with the company, in spite of being terribly disinterested in anything or anyone else the place had to offer, he would almost always take the opportunity to watch these things in person. He understood why others would be less interested, most of the locales they worked did look strikingly similar, but he thought that was a short sighted way to see things. See even if you can’t distinguish between them at first glance, each and every one of them contain within their naturally accumulated composition a unique story stretching so far back in time and making him feel so tiny and insignificant that he felt the urge to punish himself. Not for any reason related to the morality of destroying a natural beauty, that would be done wether it was him or another cog in his place, he didn’t feel he had much of anything to do with it and so hardly gave the question any thought. What he thought he needed to be punished for was his reaction to it, or lack thereof. The arrogance to go home and zone out to cheap tv shows and junk food after witnessing the destruction of something so grand, not appreciating the magnitude, his place in the universe.

>tfw after an unproductive depressive patch I can feel the manic energy bubbling up again

>>21572008
I don't know how to communicate the idea without gay slashes. I'm not trying to copy some kind of standard notation, I just read the sentence in those four chunks. I would've thought the rhythm is clear. Each/niche/which/stuff are all stressed beats preceded by two unstressed beats (except for 'stuff', which is preceded by three, but they're quick). And the semi-rhyme of each/niche/which is satisfying, and somehow makes 'stuff' (marginally) funnier, by breaking the pattern. But there are no stresses at all in 'into', and it's not a meaningful to the idea, so the sentence just trails off.

>>21572256
...Yeah. Yeah.

>>21565981
I want to include a race that is basically sapient slimes in my setting. The thing is, I 'also' want to include non-sapient slimes as a relatively common monster type, low-ranking minions for my ultimate villain. Besides making the former humanoid and/or attractive like picture related, with the latter also being darker and stickier than the sapient ones, how can I make them more distinct from each other, so the sapient ones won’t be attacked for what the monster ones do? Would shapeshifting abilities work?

>>21572275
Maybe the dumber, darker ones wear different clothes, for example very low hanging jeans?

>>21572275
Shapeshifting would work, an evolutionary explanation for how one group of slimes evolved tool use and the like. The non-shapeshifting slimes could have amoeba-esque properties or clearly different/smaller cores from the sapient slimes, etc etc.

If you make them visually different enough you shouldn't worry at all about one slime group being targeted for the actions of another, just as humans are easily differentiated from monkeys.

Thoughts on this?

Even when conscious, it was difficult to describe Frank as “awake”. His feet dragged across the floor when he walked, and his eyes remained unfocused, no matter how long they were fixed in a single direction. He rarely spoke about anything but work with coworkers, and when asked about his hobbies, Birk would squint his eyes and try to recall how he spent his time before this haze had come over him. He used to read, he remembered, and play the piano. Now his chief hobbies were staring at the wall and—a close second—staring at the ceiling. The floor was a distant third.

He’d been blessed with (or perhaps developed) the inordinate ability to pass a large amount of time in no time at all. Time appeared to move 5 to 10 times faster for Frank than for anyone else. This would have been potentially advantageous, except that the effect only applied to his perception; sadly, Frank's body aged as normal, and perhaps even faster than normal somehow. Though he was 32, practically in the throes of youth, his skin was as shriveled as the untouched bag of apples on his counter—expired but not yet fully given over to decay—, the only smooth part of his body tragically the very top, an orb capable of reflecting back any light shone on it with magnitude tenfold. When he went out on a sunny day he always wore a hat, and even on the cloudiest of days in the depths of winter, he would always have some article to shield his crown, lest the fates move against him and part the clouds, something Frank wasn’t entirely sure the fates even had governance over.

Thoughts on this?

Even when conscious, it was difficult to describe Frank as “awake”. His feet dragged across the floor when he walked, and his eyes remained unfocused, no matter how long they were fixed in a single direction. He rarely spoke about anything but work with coworkers, and when asked about his hobbies, Frank would squint his eyes and try to recall how he spent his time before this haze had come over him. He used to read, he remembered, and play the piano. Now his chief hobbies were staring at the wall and—a close second—staring at the ceiling. The floor was a distant third.

He’d been blessed with (or perhaps developed) the inordinate ability to pass a large amount of time in no time at all. Time appeared to move 5 to 10 times faster for Frank than for anyone else. This would have been potentially advantageous, except that the effect only applied to his perception; sadly, Frank's body aged as normal, and perhaps even faster than normal somehow. Though he was 32, practically in the throes of youth, his skin was as shriveled as the untouched bag of apples on his counter—expired but not yet fully given over to decay—, the only smooth part of his body tragically the very top, an orb capable of reflecting back any light shone on it with magnitude tenfold. When he went out on a sunny day he always wore a hat, and even on the cloudiest of days in the depths of winter, he would always have some article to shield his crown, lest the fates move against him and part the clouds, something Frank wasn’t entirely sure the fates even had governance over.

>>21572574
>>21572568
uh oh double post

Reads well, even if the subject matter has no appeal to me whatsoever (not into twilight zone/kafkaesque scenarios of this sort). Smells kinda like this but backwards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doMREwYhVhs

>>21572574
at this point I'm expecting a story about how a man either fixes this boredom or the troubles he faces day to day that will eventually kill him(take that for what you will)
the characterization was good and drew me into the story, although I wouldn't read in the first place if the blurb/title was not interesting

>>21572258
actually i was just trolling you but thanks for the sincere reply

>>21572574
starts off strong but you gradually added fluff after fluff until it was no longer interesting. the peak was the eye squinting bit, that was good

none of us are going to make it lit
we are all rats on a never-ending treadmill...

>>21572661
then rope, doomer faggot

>>21572585
yeh I had an oopsy in the first one, sorry
>Reads well, even if the subject matter has no appeal to me whatsoever (not into twilight zone/kafkaesque scenarios of this sort)
ty. it's not actually meant to be some supernatural / paranormal scenario, the rest of the story is realistic but absurd (in a humorous way, not a camus way. well, sort of a camus way too but that's not what I meant here), if that makes sense. I'm just trying to get across that the guy is completely disengaged with the world
thanks for that creepypasta vid though, that's going to keep me up for days
>>21572589
>I'm expecting a story about how a man either fixes this boredom or the troubles he faces day to day that will eventually kill him
general outline of the story is a bit of both -- man starts out like described in that segment, then he meets a girl who pulls him out of the indifference as he falls head over heels for her. eventually she reciprocates and he's happier than he can ever remember being. but almost immediately he starts to lose interest and realizes he was just using infatuation as a temporary reprieve from his apathy, that he doesn't want to be with her, and that he's not capable of love. he sabotages the whole thing so she breaks things off with him and he reverts to how he was living before. but as he processes the grief from having sabotaged the only remotely good thing that had happened to him in 10 years, he begins to understand the source of his problems and the route to true recovery from his "condition". the end is sort of cautiously optimistic.
it's a comedy.
also there's a dog. the dog doesn't talk but is very intelligent and Frank interprets the dog's thoughts (and the narrator sometimes corrects Frank's interpretation). I know that sounds stupid but I think it can be pretty funny in context.
I've written about 25k words so far, plus another 10k of miscellaneous segments / passages that I haven't figured out quite how to work into the rest of the narrative yet. about half of it has been pretty thoroughly edited, half is pretty rough.
and no, he doesn't get back together with the girl in the end, that'd be dumb.
>>21572596
>starts off strong but you gradually added fluff after fluff until it was no longer interesting.
ty for the feedback. I agree that it could be cleaned up and trimmed down a bit, but I think the style I'm going for might just not be your cup of tea. not to say my style is great, but I do have something kinda specific in mind for how I want the prose to read.

>>21572697
>I do have something kinda specific in mind for how I want the prose to read.
im not talking about prose, you were introducing his time problem and then went on a big tangent about his physical attributes -- you had the hook, then lost it

>>21572708
ahh I see what you're saying, good feedback

>>21572697
it does sound interesting, keep it up

>>21572689
post your greatest literary work and if its better then what I write while I shit I'll rope

>>21572721
i don't need to
even talentless shitters like Gardner can become successful

>>21572725
i immediately started keking
why is gardner so based

>>21572730
maybe I should be the one to rope...

>>21572725
“It took me four years to write like Melville, but a lifetime to write like a child.” - Gardner

>>21572725
how is it so good, immediately I am attracted to it

>>21572725
This gets a 10/10 from me due to the "page" formating and added autism. I'll buy a copy, so long as it stays a distance away from Weebdom in the remaining text.

>To put it another way: having gone about as high up Hemingway Mountain as I could go, having realized that even at my best I could only ever
hope to be an acolyte up there, resolving never again to commit the sin of being imitative, I stumbled back down into the valley and came upon a little shit-hill labeled “Saunders Mountain
>“Hmm,” I thought. “It’s so little. And it’s a shit-hill.”
>Then again, that was my name on it

This books is genius, too many shit-hills out there thinking they are genius (including me)

>>21572725
It's not very good, yet it's somehow engaging.

Some weird fiction
https://rentry.org/6kiwi

zzzzzz

The poets of yore have hitherto avoided descending into the seas of commonality, which in the present day has culminated in the commodity form. Howsoever the commodity infects everything, the poet may face those perilous waves once more; these waves sailed against; verily, the poet may drown in the depths of the everyday. And should he drown, the poet will become nothing other than the epithet of derision today, 'goyslop'.

>>21572275
Going off what >>21572285 says, what if the monster slimes have no cores at all?

>>21572818
Format thusly
>>21572725

>>21566781
>>21566837
>>21568994
>>21569546
>>21571399
>>21571504
>>21572661
>>21572689
>>21572725
>>21572730
Wow...you're seething more than usual.
Is everything all right?
You're not ACTUALLY homeless, are you?

I don't care if he's homeless just make more youtube vids. Do irl streams if you live in the streets, bro anything, I'm dying.

>>21572959
no one is samefagging. people like gardner; they dont like your faggy 19th century emulated boring bloated prose. get over it.

>>21572968
No actual author likes Gardner. It's all meme retards and Unreal Press sycophants sucking up to the braindead schizo.

>>21572959
Only one of those posts is mine. You probably replied to about 5~ different people and I have no idea what the fuck you're even trying to say here.

>>21572995
the usual seething jealousy over Gardner

>>21573009
the word is envy, retard

>>21573022
they're synonyms, braniac

>>21572968
I like old prose and I also like FG

>>21573040
Basically what I'm saying is that FG is the synthesis of old prose, Gogol maybe, and new linguistic fashion. The artistic merit is plainly observed.

>>21573022
it's envy if you wish you had Gardner's success
it's jealousy if you're scared Gardner's going to fuck your wife
for me, it's both

>start writing first person after writing third person all my life
>immediately feel retarded and hamstrung
is this normal?

>>21573086
I know the feeling. can be awkward switching from imperative like I'm used to in greentexts to indicative like normies talk

Are there any contemporary comics that aren't just movie or TV show tie-ins? It feels like everything is made to be adapted, or is already a show/movie, which has a tie-in comic. So gay. At least novels are relatively safe from that over reliance on audiovisual media.

>>21573105
As if. The surest way for a novel writer to make money is to sell the TV/movie rights.

>>21573117
Yeah, now point me towards how many fucking novels are adapted proportionally to how many comics are (or which are tie-ins for movies/shows).

>>21573045
New linguistic fashion?
Short sentence fragments, meandering viewpoints, typos, homonyms, overtelling rather than showing, inconsistent tense, cardboard-cutout characters that speak in cliches, philosophy out of nowhere, lots of commas, confusing plurals with possessives, mixing singular and plural...that's not a style, that's just plain crap.

>>21573122
It only needs to be one.
Selling the TV/movie rights to "The Martian" made Andy Weir a multimillionaire.

>>21573135
two thirds of that is describing my writing

>>21573139
You're missing my point. I said comics now are over reliant on audiovisual media, particularly because new comics are just expanded Star Wars or Avatar stuff, or some other movie franchise.
I'm not saying book adaptations don't happen. The vast majority of novels will not be adapted, though.

>>21573135
Like I implied above he is the voice of a generation. This anon kindly spells it out.

is it possible for someone today to become a stephen king, with the amount of pollution and exorbitant amount of available content?

>>21573265
Of course, but he's probably dead already.

>>21573258
So being an incompetent idiot is just another lifestyle choice.
What a time to be alive.

>>21570749
Make sure you don't have print over the tick marks, unless your gonna have bleed.

>>21568080
Are you the anon who wrote it? I read the first chapter and I like so far, I was the anon who bought it.

>>21565981
Friends, I have comeupon a nasty wretch. This man-made-virus musy pester me now.
Help me scribe my life's work during this fever dream.

>>21573576
Nah.

>>21565981
Do some yoga straight asana
I rock the Dolce and Gabbana
But I’m still enlightened
More than you poofta light skins
I go into her DMs sweet like LCMs
Dick in 4K not in 240p
Bellends, don’t try to be my friends
Because I’m a super G
Tell her so quietly
Open Bob then Vagene
Sipping sprite with the lean
See some baddies, they super keen
Don’t get in the way of this primal scene
Otherwise I’ll go insane Idi Amin
When I spaff she starts to preen
Bitch don’t wipe away my cum
I ain’t ever done
Now look into my one eyed snake
Get ready for the bukkake cake
I cum more than a lake
Shooting faster than Ferrari make
There ain’t no stopping, ain’t no break

>>21573135
I'd unironically prefer to read the child-like scribble that is Gardner's prose as opposed to reading the stale cardboard that is the pseud attempting to imitate what he thinks 'good prose' is.

>>21573701
You're not in a writing group. You just sit around on an anime website, looking at shitposts and half baked ideas from losers who are too autistic to make it even in a university setting (which is already so mollycoddled for retards to begin with that it's spawned hosts of "writers" with MFAs). Stop taking yourself so seriously here.

>>21573828
Did you respond to the wrong post or something?

>>21573835
Nah. You pretending you're too good to read some "pseud" writing is pretty funny given where you are.

>>21573838
The only way you'd get this from my post is if you think that you, yourself, are a pseud who is imitating 'good prose' and my post made you feel insecure.
My whole point is that writers who take themselves too seriously are shit.
>I'd unironically prefer to read the child-like scribble that is Gardner's prose
Jesus Christ, my man.

>>21573860
You already made a value statement implicit there that it's better to be "careless and childish," which I guess you pretend is innocent rather than lazy, than to try to ape the greats, which is bizarre considering most writers I have studied all copied their favourite writers until they found their own voice. Whether people can copy competently should be brought up in a critique, but falling back into preferring Gardner of all people is just unprincipled.
Who cares if I was personally attacked anyway? "Pseud" often just means anyone who isn't some meme-spouting idiot who doesn't read, especially cross-broad. It's easy to feel the mass of people just hate trying to raise oneself above dreck. Star Trek (the pic you posted) also tried to raise the bar of quality for television. Why can't we?

>>21573874
>Who cares if I was personally attacked anyway?
Because you're motivated by butthurt and seethe which is causing you to inject a bunch of shit into my post that I never said:
>it's better to be "careless and childish,"
>which I guess you pretend is innocent rather than lazy
>"Pseud" often just means anyone who isn't some meme-spouting idiot who doesn't read, especially cross-broad
Your post is the reeling melodrama of a fragile ego that's been bruised.
>It's easy to feel the mass of people just hate trying to raise oneself above dreck
Take your own advice and stop taking yourself so seriously.

>>21573888
I am falser than vows made in wine;
Anon, I am as though the whining sign
Of dilation the which doth seethe in kind.

You have work tomorrow Boswell. Stop seething over Frank and get some sleep.

>>21569538
No. None of those are it. Keep trying.

>>21573899
That's good. Feel your fee-fees and use it to make art with some SOVL.
Once more, with feeling.

does anyone have any resources about mystery/detective writing?

>>21574651
Read an actual crimes and just substitute characters

>>21566989
Comma splices are fine

I rewrote my opening and second chapter! Now to go through other edits! My fantasy YA story is going to get done!!

is there a theory word for descriptions such as:

bottomless absurdity

where the first word could mean 2 or more things and they both apply in the context that its being used.
bottomless could mean someone without trousers which is slapstick absurd,
or it could be something that is endlessly absurd, there is no bottom to it.

i'm good at those word thingies, could have fooled you right.

I feel like the only way I could be satisfied with my writing is by being honest but the things I think and feel are so hated by society I'm too scared to be honest.

>>21575035
best shit you'll ever right is the stuff closest to you at a value level, thats just a straight up fact.

https://pastebin.com/qyKapDE7

>>21575054
Do you have a site where you have all your tad the goblin stories in one place?

I have never written anything in my life. But I want to get into writing.

Where I should start?

>>21575124
I’ve put the whole thing on Scribble Hub. That would be draft 2 revision 1, though. (The latest is draft 2 revision 3.) I’m not sure why I’m continuing to revise it (but I think it’s getting better) and I don’t know what my plan will be with the improved work.
https://www.scribblehub.com/series/436962/a-hero-among-monsters/

>>21575149
Start reading and see what stories you like

>my worst poems get published
>my best poems get rejected
what's this called

>>21575189
>Denialism
Your worst poems are actually your best poems.

>>21574903
When combining two very short sentences, yes.

>>21574968
That's called a 'pun'.

tfw used the same word 3 times in 5 lines of a poem and want to kill myself, it's not that bad, right bros?

>>21572725
Wait, this is terrible, and looking up the series shows me some self-published amazon shit with six reviews. This is what success and popularity means to you guys?

>>21575369
Yes. I just want to make $250 for a single book. That way I can say I made at least the average of a book

>>21575369
Not only that but they brag about it and suck each others dick over their 'amazon score' in a discord, all vying for that hotly-contested #13394339394nd place in the charts. It's beyond embarrassing.

>>21575035
For fuck's sake, nigger; WRITE IT.
That's the kind of shit people want to read.

>>21575035
we're never gonna shift the overton window as long as people continue to be afraid of the hambeasts in charge of the zeitgeist. fuck em. are you seriously going to let red faced fat useless simpletons dictate your entire life? It's your life and you won't get another. stop being afraid. it's time we fucking fight back.

>Patrick Tomlinson has published 4 books
>I have published 0
Is spite a good reason to be writing?

>>21567088
not bad anon.
maybe a cut above the usual shit we have here.

>>21575369
>This is what success and popularity means to you guys?
No. It's two or three retards trying to force a meme by spamming shit. No one thinks that sperg is successful by any measure.

>>21575369
>>21575488
Adding on to this, if you want to see someone from /wg/ I would consider to have "made it", fortysixtyfour

>>21575369
It's a form of self-flagellation. Gardner's books are terrible, but basically no one here can outperform him which means that we're even worse. Calling him a success is a form of irony.

>>21575517
you dont get it. gardeners book do have a charm and a reason to keep reading. you idiots cant fathom that because youre blinded by hubris. youre the exact type to write turgid dogshit paragraphs written like it's from the 19th century in the faux voice of an old intellectual. you dont know what writing is, you don't know what art is. neck it phoney

>>21575035
>the things I think and feel are so hated by society

A major source of freedom in life, and an absolute truth, is realising you are not a total freak, or sublimely special. Your experience is a common one, at least in some sense. If you are truly a 1 in a million sort of person, for instance, then there are, what? 7000 other people like you in the world right now? That doesn't even take into account history.

And if you ever worry about people not being interested in your content or it being too taboo, just remember that Peter Sotos exists and is relatively successful.

If I were you I would dig deeper than whatever you think you want to write about--racism, incest, some sexual taboo, some political thing, whatever--and instead dig deep and figure out what is keeping you scared and how you can find a way to exist where you can be free in your own mind.

Is it fine to use royal titles like "Lord" and "Baron" while changing their original meaning/usage?
Like, using "Lord" to refer to someone who is a teacher at a certain place, instead of someone who owns lands and stuff like that.
I think it should be simple to understand, but I don't want to confuse the readers.

>>21575176
>I don’t know what my plan will be with the improved work
That's easy. You release it on Kindle at some point.

>>21575573
'Master' is a better choice.

>>21575573
It's just strange. It would be like introducing the book with a note saying 'in this book, the word "sea" means "sky" and the word "sky" means "sea"'.

"Lord" is loaded with connotations of nobility, of landed estates, of feudal power -- of lordship. You'd be asking the reader to suppress those meanings while superimposing extra, unrelated ones. You'd be replacing rich, meaningful language with arbitrary wordgames. I don't see what it would gain you over just using Master, or Professor, or Doctor, or something that actually means what you use it to mean.

>>21575176
release it in kindle as book 1 after you do a complete story/arc, keep it free in scribblehub (because if you delete any of it they'll ban you) but add some extra side stories or something.
and then put a note that you released it on amazon and that your readers should check it out if they are interested.

>>21575845
Scribblehub spergs and bans you if you delete stuff for a Kindle release? That's retarded, lmao

Letter from a novel im writing sort of camp of the saints zombie apocalypse esque thing with multiple characters. i thought it was touching but perhaps to personal what do you think?
A Love Letter To A Southern Daughter
Dear Josephine,

Don’t Those days of ours seem so far away from us now? I have the impulse to write to your old address. You can’t still be there, I know, but do you remember Josephine? When we heard antebellum and thought “What a beautiful word” of white columns and cornbread. Even then it was already a distant memory to our parents and now it's well and truly dead. That dreamy phrase which for us held the keys to a gilded age when they called our Great-Grandparents Planters and our Grandfathers' knights. Ohh but Sweet One do you recall? We’d sit inside the magnolia at sunset and through its luster leaves light would peek and we’d dream of our own personal New York City night. Now the night is all I have.
Oh dear those were the gilded days when the Sun laid its heavy yoke on our sunburnt backs, My love how I wish to have stayed there, tracing Cherokee paths with my Moccasined princess. Through the Humid Piedmont hills we strolled and splashed in creeks to cool ourselves. Our Rome My Love! Our Rome!
I think I know what your grandmama meant when she said antebellum. My voice cracks when I think of Georgia. The way hers would when she would sing to us. About her farm, and about Sherman and the fires and the bees. “He even burnt the bees” She’d crack with a tear in her eye. We didn't understand, how could we sweet Josephine? Now I do because I cry thinking of her bees the farm which I never saw and her old slave maid. They remind me of you and what the tide has taken from us, our inheritance.

With Love, a Southern Son.

>>21575897
in a way it makes sense
why should they let you grow an audience and then delete it when you want to earn money? royalroad has the same rule I think

>>21575919
No, RR doesn't; they even have a specific fiction tag for stories that have been chopped down to just previews - Stub. That's why it's weird that SH is how it is.

>>21575931
either way, if your story is good enough, you should get people buying your novel out of loyalty or because your side stories are good
really you shoot yourself in the foot by deleting free stories

>>21575942
It's not a matter of authors not wanting people to be able to read their stuff for free. You're required to do it to enlist a story in KDP Select to get money from pages read via Kindle Unlimited.

>>21575949
then maybe you should think about that before publishing it on scribble, anyway just look it up cause maybe i'm wrong lol

>>21575573
Sounds clunky and confusing to me. What reason would you even have to misuse / reassign a word?

> is a teacher at a certain place
Then call them Teacher or Scholar or even a made up honorific.

anybody have that good shit on them? Willing to read anything

can someone who is uneducated/hasnt read many books write a great novel?

t. wonderer

>>21575997
It's very unlikely, but you can substitute practice with life experience

>>21575997
clunky writing has never got in the way of great art, so yes

>published 4 times in the last 2 months
>remember crying and being up all night after the first time
>now I feel nothing
>nothing has changed
>hoping getting a novel published will make me feel different
There's really nothing on the other side huh

>>21575918
Not good, not because its bad grammatically but rather, it's bad because the colloquialism of the writing is far too modern. Copy huck Finn and gone with wind

>>21575997
clarice lispector was apparently not a big reader and she did very well and wrote beautifully.

it might not be about reading a lot, or being very educated, but i think it might be more a matter of, how much of what you think you know can you let go of when you write? can you become something other than you usually are, and show real compassion and heart for a character as you bring them into being in a way that moves people and shows them something that makes their world bigger somehow?

if you aren't well read or educated your realm of ideas/experience/understanding might be smaller than what you would like to do requires. if you grew up inside a mcdonalds restaurant reading the menu, for instance, you just won't have much material to work with, so you either go outside and discover more, or you forget what you know.

HERE I AM AGAIN listening to pinkfart sermons from the milky regurgitating jammouths on twitter who do not clean their toesnails in the bathtub and live in their domains of dry trash sketching cartoon characters in paint.NET while praying to the cybermods=gods that someday theyll be real women, their molded over keratin claws the color of grape gelatine they lay in their bourbon bathtubs drinking gone off milk, their pussy lips are a state of decay and they pick their grimy armpits, the whole place stinks and the guy won't even come in to check the meter.
But we're all here to celebrate their rotten orificeseses. wow lets all praise kek for your ExistenZ, hang the chandeliers up for these spellcasting homotexmexuals, these menstrual compost makers with damaged duct between their legs, genigenigenitalia you dream of genitalia, you'll never be a maiden and you can't piss sitting down. Trannytrannytranny you're trained to be a janny, you'll never be a mammy and you'll always be a clown.

>>21576072
same vibe as Francis E. Dec's rants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJh2OGmZQ1Q

so hows the porn writing business going?

>>21576072
kek
this is great

crime story about a gay man who gets raped in the ass

BESTSELLER, airport bookshelf, BESTSELLER, ENGROSSING AND ACTION,
ITS JUST LIKE JACK REACHER NOVELS.

>>21576175
don't shit on that, story is what makes porn sexy. even if barebones.

>>21576022
why would you think otherwise? external validation is nice but its primarily about enjoying the process and act of creation

>>21576026
Its set in modern times

>>21576265
not shitting on anything just asking to see if I should get in

>>21576296
It's an incredibly saturated market but also the most profitable by far. Like it's litporn, then a huge ravine, then fantasy.

>>21576304
and is it mostly female porn? I feel like men wouldn't pay for it desu

>>21576340
Yeah, women are overwhelmingly the biggest consumers of litporn.

>>21576349
fuck, how into harem fantasy fuck fests do you think they will be?

>>21576355
That's more of an online audience type thing, like some site like Scribblehub with patreon advance/special chapters or something

>>21576270
You're right, and that's what I truly love. But for years I went on and on about getting published, being a published author, and now that it's come, it's just an empty feeling. Totally predictable, but it just feels strange.

New
>>21576520
>>21576520
>>21576520

>>21576271
Then you have this really weird cross between trying to be modern and trying to be pre civil war southern dialect

>>21573914
My God...you really DO see me everywhere you look.
I had been asleep for hours when all this seething started. I had nothing to do with it.
Rent free, in your schizo mind.

>>21574651
I found "How To Write A Mystery" by Larry Beinhart to be a great reference.
And it teaches far more than just how to write a mystery -- its advice is very generally applicable.

Here's the living room where the self-styled "famous author" shot all his stupid videos.
But that house was sold on December 12.
Mommy's and daddy's new addresses are across the road from each other, a few dozen miles away, in a nice-looking rural area.
But the seething pseud's address hasn't changed yet. Almost like he doesn't have a new one.
Is he homeless? Couch surfing? Institutionalized?
We'll find out some day.
Oh, and tell your mom "happy birthday" from me.
Some time within the last 6 weeks, am I right?

>>21573086
I feel much the same

>>21573442
I am. I'm really glad to hear that you like it. It's sold way better than I thought it would, and I've been hearing good things.