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/lit/ - Literature

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2241251 No.2241251 [Reply] [Original]

As this is a board largely for the discussion of literature, in order to contain our smaller microcosmic community, this thread is for the writers.

Discuss what you are working on, your troubles and motivations, the projects you will never finish, and that sinking feeling after your first edit as you realize you are a hopelessly shitty writer.

>> No.2241252

Instead of talking about this shit on the internet, I write it down. Just some food for thought.

>> No.2241255

>>2241252
Lets not be too insular here, there is merit in discussion. If you were going to write it anyways what is the harm posting it here so the rest of us may benefit?

It promotes solidarity and as a community we are all enriched.

>> No.2241262

>>2241255
No, it probably does none of those things. It complicates what is simple for the sake of reassurance.
It's like studies that show hitting, yelling, or crying when you're angry actually increases your adrenaline and doing so chronically can make a person more prone to anger, rather than having the therapeutic "letting it out" or "venting" effect like people assume.
Communication is not inherently a virtue. It's a tool.
But hey, that's just me, offering my own insight here as a writer, just like you asked for in the OP.

>> No.2241266

>>2241252

You should of wrote something down instead of making that comment.

I spend time conjuring up and excellent story idea, but then when it comes to writing it all down i tire of the process. I'm not a stream of consciousness guy, I'm someone who likes to intricately plan everything. I'm still young though, maybe when i'm older and have less on my mind more free time to get it done.

>> No.2241267

>>2241266
>should of
opinion invalidated

>> No.2241271

>>2241266
>should of
I wanted to ignore it, but I just can't...
Anyhow, I already did write that down, years ago, after going to poetry and writer's workshops and learning not much besides a few nice mannerisms and how to make a really good cup of coffee by putting a teaspoon or two of cinnamon in the grounds because most coffees have chicory added to them.

Practice by writing flash fiction with a bare-bones plot: no frills, no thrills, just plot. "Jim did this. So Andy replied with a witty retort. Jim was annoyed by it." Any great lines that come in, add them. After that, structure it into an outline. Fill in, and finish with a re-write. It sounds to me like you're doing the opposite, and that's a living hell when your thoughts are running quick with an inspired idea. You're trying to make decisions while simultaneously coming up with options; in almost no area of study or work is this a good idea.

>> No.2241272

>>2241267

Oh, because you're so smart aren't you. Telling people what they should do. No way is a thread about writing literature valid, right? You're not a writer, you're just a faggot who feels the need to boost your ego.

>> No.2241275

>>2241272
wat

>> No.2241277

>>2241275
Don't provoke this kid to explain, I have this feeling it's going to get worse from here...

>> No.2241281

>>2241271

Practice by writing nothing with substance? How does that improve your writing at all? Practice by reading great works of literature.

>> No.2241290

Hmm, /lit/ seems to be full of faggots today. Criticizing simple grammatical mistakes is trivial.

>> No.2241292

>>2241281
The problem was:
>I spend time conjuring up and excellent story idea, but then when it comes to writing it all down i tire of the process.
The issue is that the "excellent" idea is not being culminated.
The solution is to first culminate the idea, and then improve upon it.

Also, reading and writing are two separate skills. Obviously related, but still two separate skills. Practicing one can have a tangential effect upon the other, granted, but that's like arguing I can practice swimming through bathing: sure, I can learn to float and hold my breath, but swinging my arms is a bit problematic in that confined space.

>> No.2241295

>>2241290
You must be new here.

>> No.2241296

>>2241271

This is terrible advice. If you want a decent plot then it's far better to take the time to lay it all down before you begin to flesh it out. All ideas should be given time to ruminate; if you do this they will only get better.

Making it up as you go is just foolish, unless you WANT it to be stream-of-consciousness babble.

>> No.2241304

>>2241296
>If you want a decent plot then it's far better to take the time to lay it all down before you begin to flesh it out.
That is exactly what that post is advising. To lay it out first, in a bare-bones plot, creating an outline, and then fleshing it out.

>> No.2241307

>>2241304

I guess... It was the use of the phrase "writing flash fiction" rather than "writing an outline" that threw me. Makes it sound as if he's advising him to write a 1000 word short and then expand on that.

>> No.2241312

I've been doing a lot of free writing recently. Highly recommend it for anybody who feels blocked out; take 10 minutes everyday and write spontaneously without stopping/punctuating/giving a fuck.

inb4 Kerouac wannabe.

I'll post mine from earlier today.

>> No.2241322

I don't consider myself a writer, occasionally some ideas just appears on my mind and I write them down. They usually don't have more than one page, they're just some random thoughts.I write just for the pleasure on a .txt and then delete it, I don't save anything, any short story, nothing.

Maybe when I write something good I'll save it.

>> No.2241330

>>2241292

Culminating IS improving upon an idea. What you're implying is that an idea can't start off as interesting, which IMO is wrong. Your analogy doesn't apply to what we're talking about. "by watching a great swimmer and taking note of his techniques you are able to improve your swimming" would apply. Read great works of literature and take note of what makes them great.

>> No.2241342
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2241342

The bare bones of my story:

The entire world has plugged itself into VR machines
They are all owned by a single company
The company employs maintenance workers to stay behind after The Great Plug-In
Also left behind are people with epilepsy and related disorders
Population of the awake world is about 14 million, there is a hub city but most of the book is spent with a single maintenance worker as he discovers a shocking tweest about the machines

Anyway, my problem is thus:

Assume that the entire world is not stupid, but factor in the extreme addictive nature of the machines. What makes six billion people willingly plug themselves into virtual reality machines? Surely there would be those who don't care and those who are resistant, not to mention political and social opposition to the very idea of effectively halting the planet.

Possible ideas that I am not 100% satisfied with:
One, dwindling resources. A ten year stint with next to no humans will allow nature to regrow and reclaim ground.
Two, manmade climate change as a viable and looming threat.
Three, the things are so damn addictive that people were becoming violent and sick when not jacked in that long term plugins were the only option.

So as you can see, I have one hump to get over but it is a pretty major hump.

Have some Crispin.

>> No.2241367

>>2241342

Way to many holes in the story, it's also unoriginal.

I can already tell you don't have an intricate mind, as you could factor in all three of those ideas (if they weren't so full of loop holes)

Do your own damn thinking.

>> No.2241375
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2241375

>>2241252
I'm with this.

Sharing our ideas and taking tips can only get us so far. Writing is a lot of things, a job, a work of practice, but also a personal and emotional activity. People have this illusion that any information is good information, that filling the head with things will make you write better. It will give you more subjects and more techniques for you to write, but it will also give you confusion. We don't write about information, that is the job of the journalist and the blogger. The fiction writer, the essayist, the one interested in literature, writes about knowledge, instinct, emotion and although these are all based in information, they have a deeper bond to it, they are selective.

If you are going for advice, be sure to be getting the right advice, not the 35 Best Tips to Write Like Dostoyevsky!1! blog entry, but that one reader whose opinion you trust, the writer you admire and so on. We are anonymous here, apart from tripassholes, and although you can get good advice here, you'll never be sure.

Don't be fooled by Stephen King's children and commercial writers working like machines. You can become the best writer among your buddies, but you'll still be one man in a crowd of decent but dull writers.

This is my two cents.

>> No.2241413

>>2241375

This is the problem, people are missing the essence of the topic. A bunch of people have distorted it by turning it into a "how to write better thread" which is completely missing the point.

If you're an intelligent person, acting as a filter rather then a sponge, any information is good information as it stimulates the mind. Journalists and bloggers ARE writers, just because they report on events doesn't mean they don't 'write'. A fiction writer (just like every other writer) doesn't write about "literature, writes about knowledge, instinct, emotion" but rather incorporates such into their writings. And people that have a deeper bond with these things are people who've had a broad range of experiences throughout their life.

/lit/ is shit tonight, this was never an advice thread, just one where we could share "troubles and motivations"

>> No.2241414
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2241414

>>2241367

>> No.2241442

>>2241413
I'm working on a series of stories about the frustration pompous, temperamental crybabies inflict on others when things don't go their way. It's an exploration of entitlement with emphasis on the Looking Glass Self. Your post's somewhat sulking tone will contribute to it in some infinitesimal way, I'm sure.

>> No.2241452

ITT DYSTOPIAN FICTION TRASH

>> No.2241454

>>2241413
I never said journalists were not writers, I said we are not journalists. I'm just assuming this, I never heard anyone asking advice on this type of writing, so I don't think this thread is about that.

I used "about" in a different manner, writing builds upon those things, that's what I mean.

>and people that have a deeper bond with these things are people who've had a broad range of experiences throughout their life.

This is not actually true, this is the illusion I was talking about. No one here is saying one should limit itself and be reclusive, but to believe that chasing experiences around will help you create a deeper bond to said things is a false assumption.

That quantity is not quality I'm sure everyone gets it, but what I'm saying is that sometimes quantity even gets in the way of quality.

"Information" and "quantity" here can be a lot of things, but mostly I'm talking about other people's experiences with writing. So there is another issue here that is the information coming from a second hand source, already filtered by someone before getting to you.

To experiment with writing means trying it out, doing it wrong, questioning, making it different, making it better. It's different from hearing someone saying to you "nope, do it like this other way because it's better, believe me, I tried".

>> No.2241459

>>2241413
At last a person that understands.


I've been working on a book for a while now but I keep hitting an impassable wall. Besides the main two protagonists I am having trouble developing any of the other characters. Even in my head they are quite fuzzy, and the story is written in first person as a third person account so it's hard to get into without sounding forced.

I am thinking of just devoting a chapter to each with a sort of character episode that might be tangentially related to the main arc so I can get on with the story. Problem is I just can't get their personalities clear enough to do even that.

As a result I have been writing around the problem and now have close to six chapters of awkward, pointless drivel. It is disgusting to even look at.

>> No.2241460

>>2241442

Oh, how boring.

I'm confused though. The "frustration pompous" inflict "temperamental crybabies"? Or you can't structure a sentence properly?

>> No.2241462

>>2241452
You actually knocked me down with this one. I was so excited about a dystopian kind of thing I idealized... But you are right. So much of this shit.

>> No.2241463

Just wrote an article about the relationship Tetris and Zen meditation and submitted a query to The Escapist, and right now I'm halfway through a novella that follows Tolkien-esque dwarves in a fantasy post-apocalypse, as their support network crumbles and they're forced to adapt the logistics of how they obtain food from one another to total self-sufficiency, as a result undergoing massive changes in culture and reshaping religious traditions over the course of five generations. One of those "community in peril" deals; think Redwall or Watership Down.

It's pretty shitty though.

>> No.2241467

>>2241442
I can see what you were going for and I have to say it was poorly executed.

Due to the petty, childish nature of the post's content it was important that you make up for it with clever, effective writing in order to gain some sort of authority. You had neither and it came across as desperate and embarrassing.

I encourage you to try again.

>> No.2241469

>>2241463
I love science fiction but lately I have been getting very annoyed with all this meta-genre fiction mixing.

It feels so gimmicky and gross.

>> No.2241471

>>2241460
"Pompous" is not a noun, and "frustration" is not an adjective. There is nothing wrong with the sentence's structure.

>> No.2241472

>>2241454

Love me some word salad.

That is actually true and half the reason Hunter S Thompson was so great.

>> No.2241473

>>2241471
Serious inquiry:
Is English not your first language?

>> No.2241478

>>2241469

It's really fantasy through-and-through. It just presents itself in (for lack of a better word) a very 'realistic' way.

It's centuries after this big vague magical cataclysm that left the surface a clusterfuck of monsters, lightning, and roaming clouds of ash, and the only people to survive were the dwarves. They survived because they had a stronger cultural and spiritual emphasis on adaptation, and because they mostly live underground. They manage to make ends meet despite roving ash-clouds and such that bring months of darkness because, between them, they trade assets. One mount emerges to farm when its region is sunny. When 'the darkness' comes, they retreat underground and trade with neighboring ranges for food.

Now the empire collapses in on itself, and one mount has to face that oldest and harshest of tests: Adapt or Die.

And then the book basically follows over several generations as they do just that. Also uses it as a vehicle to explore how environmental pressures shape cultural mores and religious practices.

>> No.2241485
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2241485

>>2241471

>> No.2241500

>>2241471
>>2241460
The sentence is correct, just badly thought out. He's missed out the word that/which:
the frustration THAT/WHICH pompous, temperamental crybabies inflict on others

Relative clauses can do this in English.

>>2241485
I love this reaction face.

>> No.2241498

>>2241471
oh god i dont know if that was an elaborate troll or just shitty writer but im lolling heartily at your shit

>> No.2241502

>>2241500
yeah at first i thought maybe "le frustration pompous" was some french term i never heard of, like the frustrations relating to pomposity or something

>> No.2241503

>>2241500
That you for clearing this up. My brain was warping from trying to figure out what he was trying to say.

I am not a clever man.

>> No.2241505

>>2241500

Making it incorrect. How can you miss out a whole word, simple grammatical errors acceptable as long as you've got your point across.

>> No.2241519

I've written 2 poems based on pieces of automatic writing. I might make a small collection of them and experiment with different forms, like sestinas, sonnets, and I don't know what else.

>> No.2241705

midday bwamp

>> No.2241826

do you guys know that feel when you have nothing to say so you write pretentious genre garbage,

>> No.2241837

>>2241826
That is my daily struggle.

>> No.2241852

>>2241837
i knew i couldn't be alone

wanna commiserate?

>> No.2241868

>>2241251
>Discuss what you are working on,
Some pretty cool stuff, eh doesn't afraid of phlosphy or elluzhinn.

>your troubles and motivations,
Trying to write stuff that I'd like to see. Writing for myself, basically.

>the projects you will never finish,
Observer Cycle poems, how to finish you? *Sigh*.

>and that sinking feeling after your first edit as you realize you are a hopelessly shitty writer.
It comes and goes. I'm not as bad as I used to be, though.

>> No.2241886

>>2241852
I think we already are

>> No.2241895
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2241895

When writing, I think that writers go through three phases. Tell me what you think.

Phase One: when they visualise the entire story in their head, and it is great.

Phase Two: when they are in the process of writing it, and it seems good, just not as high quality as they thought it would be when visualising it. Hmm.

Phase Three: after waiting six months, they go back and read their short story / novella / novel, and it's horrible.

Seriously, I suspect this often happens.

>> No.2241933

>>2241886
are we succeeding at it?