/lit/ - Literature

With your brain.

Take stuff you like reading and give it a fresh spin.

You need to go out and live life before you "become" a writer.

go fight a war somewere or get assraped by someone.

then write about that.

>>471543

But I have no money to go out and experience life with if I don't write.

Go out and have as many experiences as you can. If you can't do that, make everything that's normal or boring in your life extraordinary. Don't think about writing too often, or it becomes a chore. Get a blog. write about how you hate your job, or how you counted the number of times you brushed your hair, or how your clothes are laying differently today. The words will come naturally.

You don't actually have to write about anything to write

you can't write if you haven't lived. Get jobs in a variety of markets, have things happen to you, form opinions on humanity based on your personal experiences.

I feel the same way as OP. I was thinking I should take some summer classes on writing so I can learn how to think outside the box and brush up on the basics. My advice would be to keep a journal and just write out a recap of you're day, try to capture any highs or lows that might have stood out.

>>471739
Writing classes that aren't focus on mechanics (sentence structure, argumentation, etc) are a waste of time and money. Writing is an art. It cannot be taught.

>>471765
Becuase no one has ever been taught an art before...

>>471767
yeah, you get taught the mechanics, form and tools to compose your art with. not the "art" itself.

ITT: guys who are in love with the idea of being a writer rather than actually writing something

you want to be a writer.
you have nothing to write about.

See the step you missed?

>>471765
that is basically all I want from a class. I just want to be taught how to be a better writer, mechanically.

I'm so clever.

I'm writing a novel based on what I've read here on 4chan.

It's about a loner misogynist.

Like Lolita, except instead of the inner-workings of a pedophile it's the inner-workings of a he-man woman hater.

>>471739

Yeah, I want to write - it's just when I sit down to do so, there's so much to write about, it's impossible to decide what to actually do.

>>471512

Write about whatever it is that you know about. And if you do ordinary things, find a way to pull something special out of it. There's some kind of Tim O'Brien story, I can't think of the name of it, but it mentions "heating up the truth." You have to take your truths, and lend them your imagination, and give them heavier weight.

There should ever be a need to go out and live a more interesting life in order to write. If that is the case, then you are simply lacking imagination, which can't be fixed.

Also, steal stories. If you hear an interesting story from a friend, steal it and use it. Your friend probably isn't a writer, and he probably won't mind you using it. And I've heard of many writers who wrote a short story based on something they read in a newspaper.

>>471810
4chan is mostly girly men with aspirations to look like anime characters. Not he-men.

You need to experience things to be a writer... you don't necessarily need to write about your experiences, but it really helps you start thinking about it.

>>471810
sounds like a cool story bro

writers use lies to tell the truth

>>471810
whats a he-man?

or did you mean the He-Man

>>471825

jaws was based on an article from a newspaper

>>471810

Please don't give it some bullshit redemption motto (finds a girl who loves him for who he is, lives happily ever after), actually make it interesting. Have him shoot up his old school after he descends gradually into self-loathing madness? The controversy would help you sell.

>>471828
I was being facetious.

>>471843
Well thank gorsh for that

>>471832
Emily Dickinson sat on her ass inside of a stuffy New England home all day. Rumour is she wrote some good stuff.

Read, lead an actual life and then opine

>>471836
second.
i want more books with cool shit in them.

>>471836
I don't want to give anything away but, no. He isn't redeemed at all. You'll come to understand him, yes, but then he'll do something so unforgivable that knowing why he is the way he is probably won't help you sympathise with him.

I personally feel sorry for him, but I can see most people hating him.

>>471853
emily dickinson?

what a good example, really

>>471876

Fuck yeah, that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. I was just dreading you glorifying him as some misunderstood loner in the hollywoodesque sense, before finally finding a girl who understands him~

Does the unforgivable act involve rape, perchance?

>>471512
Become a writer for television series.

>>471907

Not my sort of thing at all, I far prefer prose.

>>471895
Oh no.

He truly is a misogynist. For a while I thought I might have him do something sexual like that, but the more I got to "know" him the more I realised it just wasn't in his character.

He hates sexuality. He resents the fact that he is attracted to women. He blames them for this. He thinks this is all part of their way of controlling him and limiting his potential.

It's a lot worse than rape, actually.
I've got to set it up well, though, otherwise it might just be taken as "grimdark".

>>471958

When do you reckon you'll finish it? I'd quite like to read it when it comes out.

>>471987
It could be a while yet.
I'm looking back on some of the earlier stuff and not liking it. It will take a lot of editing and revision.

I'll inform /lit/ when I think it's worth reading.

>>471512
You have to want to write about something.
Not want to BE a writer.

That's just selfishness.
You have to have something in you that needs to be said.

>>471987
But it is going to be shit

>>471512

Read more OP, read a LOT. It'll make you a better writer in general, and you'll naturally find themes and motifs and issues which resonate with you. Other than that, do try and live life and pay attention to everything around you, no matter how banal or unimportant it may seem.

>>472272
You think so?
Maybe I'll just stop.

>>471845
I love that quote.
A man after my own heart.

a person who isn't a writer asks a board of people who aren't writers how to be a writer

- these people respond.

huh.

>>472260dumb bullshit

Not ever book is a whisper of the quiet black human soul

fgt

>>472326
I don't know what you're trying to say.

>>472334
"You have to have something in you that needs to be said."

this is wrong.

Write about vampires.

go pick up prostitutes, then write stories about absurd sexual encounters with prostitutes and strange men in hotels, and the sexual abuse you suffered from your father. Then call it a memoir and people will feel sorry for you and buy 2 copies each.

>>472342
What's wrong about it?
I don't mean that in a Romantic sense. I mean that, dammit, you have to contribute something worthwhile.

Wanting to "be" a writer without actually having anything to write is getting it backwards.
You have to want to write and, therefore, become a writer - not the other way around.

>>472342

>>472342
Agreed a hunnerd percent.
I mean... wel... I'm lazy right now so... Twilight.

>>472399
She's not a writer, though.

>>472364
Your opinion on what a writer is or is not is purely arbitrary. The notion that you have to "contributed something" is romantic in and of itself.
>>472407

>>472410
Okay then.
Twilight is wonderful literature.

>>472420
A writer is someone that produces literature. "Good Literature" is subjective ;3

>>472420
Agreed.

>>472430
Of course.
And I'll fight to have my subjective views cudgeled into every other mind on this planet.

>>472430
That you are a gigantic faggot however is an objective fact

>>472442

>>472442
but that's just like, your opinion man

>>471512
subscribe to a science journal.
Pick an article at random.
Become a sceince fiction author

>>471512

Instinct. I can come up with a plot on the spot at any time. ANY. TIME.

Can you?

write about everything. publish the good stuff.

>>471512

1. Make up some ridiculous and completely unbelievable science fiction story
2. Claim it's all fact and base a new religion on it
3. Become the next L. Ron Hubbard
4. ????
5. PROFIT!

>>471512

think of something you feel strongly about
write a story with that being a key part of the plot
be unknown and poor for your entire life
die
OMGZ BEST AUTHOR EVAR

>>472963

P.S.
this is how all media works
author dies
OMGZ BEST EVAR
musician dies
OMGZ BEST EVAR
producer dies
OMGZ BEST EVAR
director dies
OMGZ BEST EVAR
actor dies
OMGZ BEST EVAR
news anchor dies
OMGZ BEST EVAR

This is an exercise my greatest teacher made: Edward Deeds

I want you to write his life story, and in the last paragraph of your story, he must die.

Good luck.

>>472979
News anchor? You mean the scary fucks that talk about some woman dying horrifically in a rape and murder and can SMILE at the camera immediately afterwards?
Sorry. I stopped watching the news because of people like that. They've lost their humanity, and they creep me out.

>>472994
You're on 4chan. Noone here has any humanity. Do us all a favor and avoid us too.

>>472994

Yes, but once they die they're OMGZ THE BEST EVAR, which was kind of the point of the post.

Michael Jackson is the perfect example of this theory. Two days before he died I was talking to a few people about his tour that was coming up in Europe and they were like "Fuck that pedophile, he's a freak". He dies a few days later and suddenly everyone I know is like "OMGZ I LOVED MJ HE WAS THE BEST EVAR"

>>473002

And what's even more ridiculous is if you bring up that just a few days before they were saying he was a freak and they hated him they get all butthurt and are like "WTF WHY WOULD YOU SAY THOSE THINGS ABOUT SOMEONE THAT JUST DIED HAVE SOME RESPECT"

>>473002
And suddenly everyone pointed out that it was never proven that he did anything. Next time someone denies that he was a pedophile because hes dead Im going to try and deny the Holocaust because Hitler is dead, Hitler had atleast as many fans as Michael.

>>473006

In conclusion, this happens with all forms of media so the best thing to do is write a book about anything and then die. The sooner after the book is published the better.

>>473007

thanks for that addition to my short rant

i lol'd

hey tao...looking for that next book to write, are we?

By asking this question you have demonstrated that you should not be a writer.

In order to become a good writer you have to be an alcoholic and have had some sort of great tragedy befall you. Whether or not it is related to the alcoholism varies.

>>471551
You read "The Kite Runner," too?

>>471836
That's exactly what my fucking book is going to be about. I've got two weeks to write it. It'll be great, right?

>>472020
Yes, please do tell us about it when it's finished. As a feminist, I find the idea of getting inside the head of that sort of character rather intriguing.

don't write about yourself

>>473634
Unless you've done something worthy of a story, like saving a family of four from Somalian pirates with nothing but coconut-shell walkie talkies and a can opener.

I just wanna write about choo choo trains in the sky and zombies with masks that live underground.
can I write about stuff that comes from inside my head?

what do you write about? well, for starters.. stop asking other people what to write about. I'm sorry, my friend, but you're on your own if you want to write something great. there's some good advice in this thread though

>>473279

I hate women. women are gross. there I summed up an asexual woman-hater

give me an award