/wg/ Writing General

[Anonymous No.23034305]

"Isakai" edition

Previous: >>23020439

/wg/ AUTHORS & FLASH FICTION: https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQ
RESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS: https://pastebin.com/nFxdiQvC

Please limit excerpts to one post.
Give advice as much as you receive it to the best of your ability.
Follow prompts made below and discuss written works for practice; contribute and you shall receive.
If you have not performed a cursory proofread, do not expect to be treated kindly. Edit your work for spelling and grammar before posting.
Violent shills, relentless shill-spammers, and grounds keeping prose, should be ignored and reported.

Simple guides on writing:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHdzv1NfZRM
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whPnobbck9s
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKcbvioxFk

Thread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6FXeupOp04

[Anonymous No.23034329]

>>23034305
Anyone here use app/software/sites to help with story planning?
Do these even help?

[Anonymous No.23034332]

I am finishing my draft this month, by God. There's little more I can do.

[Anonymous No.23034339]

>>23034329
99% of the time it just generates busy work to let you procrastinate on the actual work. Software is only necessary when the work has to be rigidly formatted (e.g screenplays) or when there's a very long and intricate plot.

Taking a day or two to learn some command line tools like grep and find (and associated regex) pretty much covers the latter case.

[Anonymous No.23034342]

[Anonymous No.23034347]

I'm 53k words into my second to final draft. I'm doing about 500 words on weekdays and 1k words on Saturdays/Sundays. Almost there.

[Anonymous No.23034349]

>>23034339
Dude...these are 4channers you're talking to. They might have the social impairment of nerds, but they have none of the brains. "Command line tools" may as well be fluid flow dynamics. I try advocating for using open-source tools like TreeLine for outlining, git for version-control, Markdown for prose content, and pandoc to convert to e-book/print format, and all I get is a sullen silence.

[Anonymous No.23034358]

What did Dawkins mean by this

http://unmcorewriting.pbworks.com/f/Dawkins_TeachingPunctuationRhetorically.pdf

[Anonymous No.23034364]

>>23034349
I'm sure there's a couple of /g/entlemen lurking these threads.

[Anonymous No.23034378]

>>23034364
I have SD set up locally but I'll still use a program instead.

[Anonymous No.23034392]

Is it okay to switch between first and third person? I was planning on having the protagonist be in first person for the first chapter and the antagonist be in third person for the next chapter, and so forth.

[Anonymous No.23034393]

>>23034329

All you need is a bit of paper. Software is overkill. Look at that picture and think about how ridiculous it is. Setting? Arctic tundra in a storm? Do you really have to write down where your story takes place?

I mean if that's a scene (out of dozens), okay, but it doesn't require that much notation.

[Anonymous No.23034401]

>>23034305
Is this a good twist

>horror
>lovecraftian
>guy was offered a job
>part of a 6 man team
>remote area
>analysis of something ancient recently discovered
>wacky shit happens

Anons said this was done to death already, so I'm adding a twist

The twist:
>The artifact was manmade and it was a government pysop experiment all along.

[Anonymous No.23034404]

Any /wg/ anons self-publishing a novel this year? I havent kept up with the works in progress.

[Anonymous No.23034406]

>>23034392
I'm literally reading a webnovel right now that does that. KR webnovels, for some reason, are really fond of doing this.

[Anonymous No.23034407]

Hey /wg/, I posted my work a couple months ago and you guys told me to go read some books. Well, I did, and I read 24 books to be exact and am on #25 as of writing this post. This morning I was in a mood to write like I just had this idea in my head and had to get it on paper. Anyway I just wanted to show you guys the progress I've made in writing. I know it's not perfect but I hope I'm improving. Tell me what you think.

Old work: https://pastebin.com/uBuHUi1p

Current work: https://pastebin.com/SrXhL1CD

[Anonymous No.23034431]

I want to make money with my writing

why isn't life fair

[Anonymous No.23034434]

>>23034431
Why can't you?

[Anonymous No.23034460]

>>23034431
Skill issue. People are already making money from tiktok/youtube storytelling channels with AI generated story. If your story is good then nothing is stopping you from diversifying your distribution.

[Anonymous No.23034463]

>>23034434
because I don't write slop and am not good enough to be considered phenomenal, which is required to make money with nonslop

[Anonymous No.23034465]

The solution is to write slop, isn't it?

[Anonymous No.23034478]

>The sun was sinking halfway into the horizon and streaks of purple cut through the bleeding sky. The world beneath turned into a medley of black shapes. The cold wind blew past Johnny, and seemingly through him; it bit into his bones.

>He ground his foot into the sand, hand trembling over his holster. The dark cameos of Joshua trees seemed like outstretched, clawing hands rising from the earth. The low lying scrub, a carpet of black wires creeping across the earth; the sparse grass transformed into dark tufts of fur; the world was limned in hideous shades of black and crimson. Out in the distance, beyond his meager sight, the low, mournful howl of a lone coyote drifted through the wind.

>Johnny groped for his gun. His brow clenched as his hands felt all over the rough leather until his shaking fingers brushed the smooth, worn handle. His hand clenched over it, white knuckled. With a deep breath, he unsheathed it and pointed it out in front of him, as if a slavering pack of wolves were before him, held at bay with a flickering torch. Only darkness greeted him.

>The sun had now lowered even further. An immense glowing red hill, growing dimmer and more distant by the second.

>The lone coyote's howl bayed a second time. It was no longer an ephemeral wail, but now a clear and hideous siren.

>The incandescent rays of his lantern pierced through the darkness, and, for a moment, painted everything in white. Johnny blinked. The desert revealed to him was infinitely more loathsome than it had ever been. The sand was still red; the leafless shrubs still crouched into the sand; the sparse grass as dry as ever, yet there appeared that each aspect of the desert, so dead at day, was alive with alien malice.

>At the very edge of his torch's light, where the white glow turned yellow and mingled with the dark, there jutted from the ground an immense and towering Joshua tree. Its trunk twisted upwards and its gnarled branches clawed out into the air in a terrible sprawl. The grotesque knobs at the very ends were made all the more detestable by the almost hair-like quality the hanging strands of thin leaves imparted to it.

>A thin hand reached around the trunk. Bone-thin fingers scored lines. Joshua pulled the trigger. A thunderous roar shattered the quiet.

This might be my translated gook/chink/jap story addiction poisoning me, but are these lines overwrought? General critique welcomed. Thank you for any time you might spend reading this.

[Anonymous No.23034480]

>>23034478
Why do you have such thick paragraphs? They never do such overwrought lines. Keep it simpler.

[Anonymous No.23034484]

>>23034465
You should talk to more pros and figure out a target audience, and a more comprehensive plan for success.

[Anonymous No.23034503]

>>23034401
Doing something that has been done before is not a bad thing if you do it well

[Anonymous No.23034512]

>>23034465
>he's writing to make it
ngmi

[Anonymous No.23034572]

>>23034329
I use them after the fact. I write a nice first or second draft and when I'm feeling like I know what I'm doing I use those to keep track of things. Probably ultimately unnecessary depending on what you write but it's handy for my own purposes.

[Anonymous No.23034581]

>>23034347
Seeing "Mhhhmmm" written out as a dialogue fills me with an inexplicable rage. As does any character who chuckles. I'll bet anything there's a lot of chuckling in your book.

[Anonymous No.23034591]

Should I use first or third person for an unreliable narrator protagonist who's not telling everything about himself?

[Anonymous No.23034616]

>>23034407
>https://pastebin.com/SrXhL1CD
'Extenuated' is like the exact opposite word you want to use.
“I would love to engage in this, Jennifer.
Literally LOLed out loud. Robot people.

[Anonymous No.23034620]

>>23034329
I do most of my preliminary work in a notebook and eventually have to turn a bunch of indexed notes, note cards, napkins, random drafts of scenes and whatever else into the digital equivalent. Then I write from that after some organization.

Editing a draft by hand is cute, but so very wrong. I have decent editors who went digital 20 years ago for good reason.

[Anonymous No.23034641]

>>23034329
Look up the price of said products and then look at the price of pencils, pens, markers, whiteboards, index cards, notepads, and notebooks.

[Anonymous No.23034647]

>>23034620
How did Lovecraft cope with hand-writing all of his stories with pencil or pen?

[Anonymous No.23034654]

>>23034647
Who gives a fuck. Most of these assholes had nothing going on in their lives or paid a woman to write down what they said. A typewriter and learning how to use it was cheaper and faster than a woman and still left money for whores. Think about that.

[Anonymous No.23034672]

>>23034431
Life IS fair; that's why you're not making money with your writing. There is literally no barrier to entry for writers these days; we're all drowning in content. That makes it nearly impossible to get noticed. Some people take desperate measures, and do something like cut their father's head off & show it in a YouTube video. But now Justin Mohn is in jail & his books have been removed from Amazon.

[Anonymous No.23034691]

>>23034480
Should I then mimick Hemmingway, or is even his prose considered too purple nowadays?

[Anonymous No.23034699]

>>23034691
Phonefags don't know what a book is like, you're talking to literal niggers who have never read something in the format it was intended to be received in.

[Anonymous No.23034710]

>>23034691
Would you rather add flourishes to a painting or simplify it after indulging yourself?

[Anonymous No.23034716]

I'm gonna write a Isakai! But not make it gay.

[Anonymous No.23034771]

>>23034591
I've come to prefer first for mostly reliable narrators with distinct voices. Either way, unreliable narrators tend to be reliably unreliable. First person signals that they may not be reliable, free indirect style should do the same.

[Anonymous No.23034778]

What is reddit good for?
It has some creative writing places like

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/
https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/
https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/

Cringe, or useful?

[Anonymous No.23034790]

>>23034691
Who the fuck cares about Hemingway? You said
>This might be my translated gook/chink/jap story addiction poisoning me,
Where have you ever seen them write like that? They use simple, easy lines. Maybe three-four sentence paragraphs tops. You know better. You know how to write something readable.

[Anonymous No.23034799]

>>23034771
Honestly, what made me so uncertain was that it's supposed to be a web serial with very light progression elements because I like it, and the mystery of what happened to him and why he's not telling the entire truth is but one part of it.

[Anonymous No.23034805]

>>23034407
Haven't even looked at the before and after yet, and will take a look tomorrow, but I just wanted to say it's a breath of fresh air to see someone actually making an effort to improve. I feel like any advice or help I give in these threads is usually just a shout in the void no matter how much effort or how carefully I give it. I sincerely, honestly hope you make it anon.

[Anonymous No.23034892]

>>23034305
Bros, how the FUCK do I stop writing fiction as if it were an essay?

[Anonymous No.23034912]

>>23034892
Hope is it like an essay?

[Anonymous No.23034928]

>>23034805
Thanks, man. I appreciate and all criticism is constructive. When I first came to /lit/, I didn't even know how to use a comma properly. Look at me now.

[Anonymous No.23034953]

>>23034305
Would a w*man hate seeing a girl uglier herself with a very attractive man or seeing a girl prettier than herself with a very attractive man?

[Anonymous No.23034957]

>>23034790
I think there's a fundamental miscommunication here. I used "my translated gook/chink/jap story addiction" as a joking way of indicating how my grammatical and English sense may not be as sound as I think, so that I was thus asking if my prose was overwrought in the context of an native English speaker reading it.

[Anonymous No.23035003]

>>23034892
read more

[Anonymous No.23035004]

>>23034957
It's overwrought and bloated, and as a native English speaker I vastly prefer gook/chink/jap stories for fucking knowing to keep things short and snappy while also being very long.

[Anonymous No.23035015]

What is the consensus on using "nonexistent" words in your writing (but not I'm the fantasy world building sense)? This is mainly focused at the use of nouns as verbs. For example, in my novel I have a passage that's something like "streets that labyrinthed through the city" or "the statue sentinelled at the center of the plaza". Personally, I like the mental imagery and the wording itself in order to minimize the use of simile, but should I rework the method of implementing these metaphors or keep it?

[Anonymous No.23035019]

>>23034892
Focus on emotion, but not explicitly. Rather, show how emotion manifests.

[Anonymous No.23035049]

i suspect that some of you do not read

[Anonymous No.23035085]

I wrote you a poem, /wg/
>The poor nigger on the wall
>Look at him
>Look at the poor nigger
>Look at the poor nigger on the wall
>Fuck him
>Fuck the nigger on the wall
>Black man is debil

[Anonymous No.23035102]

>>23035049
Whatever gave you that idea? Is it all the off topic webshit or the inability for these retards and ESLs to process anything written above a 6th grade level?

[Anonymous No.23035117]

One of the protagonists for the first time in the story. I've been faking out a bunch of "Fights" that get settled non-violently. This is where he actually decides to pull something.
>She didn't know what to make of it.
>Here was this thug threatening Lape. Almost as if he was solely focused on provoking him into a fight. Threats to his well-being, personal belongings, etc.
>The man stood almost a full head over him and clearly had a weight advantage, but the strangest thing was how little Lape seemed to give a shit. He just kept staring with an annoyed expression as if asking "Are you done yet, you absolute buffoon?"
>Lape shrugged, grabbed Z's shoulder, and kept walking, avoiding eye contact with the still rambling man.
>Then the man said something that stopped Lape in his tracks. Like he had just witnessed a murder
"How does the kid sound? Does she squeal?"
>Lape turned around while giving a glare that Z could only describe as haunting. Subtle changes in his brow and eyelids made his eyes look almost sunken.
>Without any hesitation, Lape removed his shirt and unbuckled his prosthesis, the artificial arm falling to the ground with a thunk.
>Lape's muscles were weird. He wasn't that big, but he wasn't scrawny either. A middleweight by all intents and purposes. What really stuck out to Z was how weirdly conditioned he was. His muscles weren't big, but they were most definitely strong, if that made sense. Very ideal for his frame.
>The man cracked his knuckles and took a stance that Z recognized as, off the top of her head, Sanda. Chinese martial arts being used by a Chinese guy, how quaint.
>The first move was Lape. The moment he got in range, he charged, and before his foe could react, Lapes elbow raked across his face, a spurt of blood exploding out of his nostrils. The man stumbled back, reeling from the rock-hard strike. Lape, on the other hand, had already taken his stance.
>Lape attacked WHILE taking a stance. That was already impressive enough, but what happened next completely exceeded Z's expectations of the Nak Muay. It happened too fast to see any details. Just these things.
>The man kicked
>He missed
>Lape swept the thugs remaining leg
>The man started to fall
>Lape advanced
>Lape buried his fist into the man's already softened face with a resounding crunch, smashing him against the pavement
>The fight was over in roughly 6 seconds.
>Z stood in awe of what she had just witnessed. She had fought many opponents in her life, but none were on this level.
>And he wasn't even that good, according to himself
>Just how high did the ceiling for fighters truly go?

[Anonymous No.23035402]

>>23034305
After all, why shouldn't I just prompt ChatGPT to write the rough draft and then work together with it to edit it into something presentable? It just sounds so much easier than doing everything from scratch, and none would be the wiser.

[Anonymous No.23035525]

>>23035402
Go ahead and do it. I see nothing wrong with using all the tools available to you.
That said, writing the first draft is easy. Like if you're at a point that you need AI to build the structure for you, then I'm not confident you have to skills to "edit it into something presentable".

It's like needing a machine to crack your eggs. What are you doing? That's the easy part. You're probably not qualified to make scrambled eggs if you have to automate that.

[Anonymous No.23035538]

>>23035525
>writing the first draft is easy
To each their own, I suppose. I find the editing process to flow much easier and to be much more enjoyable overall. Plus, AI can assist with that, too.

[Anonymous No.23035737]

How do I write a character who's supposed to be much older than I am?

[Anonymous No.23035756]

>>23034401
That's fine as a twist but it has surely been done a hundred times as well. It's also fine to have no twist in the premise.
The important thing is that you know where to wow your audience. You can do things the audience expects, you just can't bank on surprising them with it. (Also if you use this twist you should expect part of your audience to figure it out ahead of time.)
If you go to the SCP wiki you can find dozens of stories ("exploration logs") about 6 man team explores mysterious area and wacky shit happens. And people love these. And since the stories are posted on a website for these things they don't spend a lot of time setting up the premise, they just assume the reader knows what a mobile task force is and what the SCP Foundation is about. The twisty bits are (usually) in the areas they explore and the events that happen there, not in the premise of the team. And this is perfectly fine because that's in general where their focus lies.

[Anonymous No.23035769]

>>23035756
>SCP wiki
Oh god, that damn website. Some of the most atrocious writing I've seen in my life, and I've seen a lot of atrocious writing.

[Anonymous No.23035788]

>>23035769
Mostly bad and often clumsy but it's better than most online amateur writing. Every once in a while I go through the top-rated recent stories.

[Anonymous No.23035813]

>>23035102
>these retards and ESLs to process anything written above a 6th grade level?
We can read fine. Your prose is overwrought and purple.

[Anonymous No.23035823]

>>23034305
My thriller novel about a war veteran turned vigilante is coming around nicely. I feel really good about it. I've made it up as I go but you wouldn't know that from reading it. I like thrillers of the 70's because they had such intense emotions, they portrayed the psyche of man in a succinct and not an overt and heavy-handed manner. I've been reading a lot of gems in my local library. I hope you're all doing well.

[Anonymous No.23035847]

English is my second language and my only experience is qcademic writting so my first draft is borderline unreadable, Im planning to use chatgpt to edit it into something presentable. Is this cheating?

[Anonymous No.23035883]

>>23034339
I love ripgrep but I have been wondering if there isn't some GUI I can recommend to people who don't feel like jumping into the command line. Particularly for searching all files in a directory very quickly and showing the matches in an overview

[Anonymous No.23035924]

>>23035847
>cheating
No such thing, you can do what you want.
For the best results you should probably figure out why ChatGPT makes the suggestions it does until you're able to do it yourself and you're confident enough to second-guess it when it's wrong (which it will sometimes be). But definitely give it a go.

[Cult of Passion No.23035932]

>>23035019
>show how emotion manifests
Loins.

[Anonymous No.23035976]

>>23035847
>Is this cheating?
Yes.
Why do you care whether it's cheating or not as long as it brings you closer to your goal though?

[Anonymous No.23036032]

>>23035883
There's this https://github.com/reduf/search

but you still need to build it on the CLI.

[Anonymous No.23036079]

>>23034407
OK got a chance to look over these. I'd still you have a ways to go still. You seem to have swung from one extreme to the other, in the old version, there were too many short sentences and a sparsity of detail. In the new one, there's detail but it's mostly abstract. In both cases you have a hook at the end, but also in both cases, you haven't developed the characters enough to make that hook suspenseful. Both samples smack of something written in a hurry, trying to get the idea down as quickly as possible without actually rendering anything. It's equivalent of those guidelines that artists will sketch out first, basic shapes and little marks to get the proportions and pose and expression right, before filling in the details. Those initial shapes are generic and abstract, and its only when the details are filled in that the image emerges.

You should keep practicing scenes like this though. And you should study scenes from the books you've read. Try to look for symmetries: what do all the scenes have in common, where can they vary?

One bit of advice that may be immediately helpful is to think of adjectives and adverbs as words which make what they are modifying more specific. It should clarify the opinions of the narrator, whether that be one of the characters or an invisible entity. To say that a big breasted woman is voluptuous is redundant. She could be shriveled, sagging, sad, bouncy, bulbous, second-hand, immaculate, etc.

[Anonymous No.23036130]

>>23035117
When describing Lape's muscles, don't say "by all intents and purposes" (the actual phrase is "for all intents and purposes" but you still don't want to say that). Don't say "if that made sense".

All you're trying to say here is that Lape is athletic and powerful without having bulky muscles. Expand your vocabulary to adequately describe this. Use figurative language, like saying his muscles are like steel cable or something.

[Anonymous No.23036138]

>Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crusing in the winepress grapes of Burgundy. Sun's heat it is Seems to a secret touch telling me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild ferns on Howth. Below us bay sleeping sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple by the Lion's head. Green by Drumleck. Yellow-green towards Sutton. Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather scrub my hand under her nape, you'll toss me all. O Wonder. Coolsoft with ointments her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon me did not turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweet and sour with spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft, warm, sticky gumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes.
Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.23036256]

>>23034305
I enjoy writing action and dialogue, but hate descriptive stuff like what characters look like or what food tastes, can I do without them?

[Anonymous No.23036287]

>>23036256
I love descriptive almost poetic writing, but can't do action very well and dialogue at all.
...maybe we should team up?

[Anonymous No.23036299]

>>23036287
cool, we could make a VN

[Anonymous No.23036307]

>>23036256
What do you like about action and dialogue, and what tíos di you have? For descriptions, I like to make interesting imagery and focusing on perspective, i.e. how a character perceives a thing and what they pay attention to.

[Anonymous No.23036338]

>>23036307
I have a background in screenwriting and programming.
In screenwriting, descriptions are often optional and vague, unless relevant to the plot.
So, I see a story as the performance of agents based on commands the writer gives them. And enjoy it because it's essentially programming.

[Anonymous No.23036343]

>>23036338
Do you spend a lot of time pre-defining characters' personalities, like building functions and classes?

[Anonymous No.23036350]

>>23036343
no, but I do determine outcomes with a diceroll and write around it. Because I hate "last minute rescue"-trope, in which if something had occurred a minute earlier or later would have been drastically different.

[Anonymous No.23036360]

I stayed up all night reading again. How do I summon the strength to write today? To cast the canvas in my mind's eye with less flowery, deliberate language and envision a full scene?

[Anonymous No.23036364]

>>23036256
Sure. Read the Iliad.

[Anonymous No.23036366]

>>23036256
you sure can. do your best to paint a picture or hint at something familiar they can easily imagine, but you dont have to get gay with it.

[Anonymous No.23036369]

>>23036138
It's good. It's similar to the style of James Joyce. You should read Ulysses if you haven't.

[Anonymous No.23036379]

>>23034347
The first sentence in your screenshot is a little rough, too many winding clauses.

[Anonymous No.23036448]

>>23034364
Use LaTeX

[Anonymous No.23036572]

>>23034364
Works on my machine :)

[Anonymous No.23036772]

Thoughts please
>>23035015

[Anonymous No.23037052]

>>23035015
It's based to do that

[Anonymous No.23037063]

>>23034347
>I luxuriated in a nexus of coziness
I like that.

[Anonymous No.23037069]

>>23035015
>>23036772
Making up words, or your own twists on words, is a perfectly cromulent exercise.

[Anonymous No.23037072]

>>23037052
Thanks :)

[Anonymous No.23037094]

>>23036138
garbage

[Anonymous No.23037105]

>>23037069
Nice, thanks

[Anonymous No.23037109]

>>23034620
I'm almost at the end of the first draft of a novel. My plan is to print it all and write every detail in a notebook, then finding mistakes and plotholes. I don't know how else I should do that. Enlighten me.

[Anonymous No.23037111]

>>23036130
Is that even believable? Lape's muscles are strong but not big due to how he trains them

[Anonymous No.23037115]

>>23034305
Ty anon who gave me advice in last thread, I see the errors of my ways after taking your words into account. (story about angel)

[Anonymous No.23037217]

>>23034407
Very nice, anon! You're definetly getting better. While reading the first one the one thing in my mind was "how do the characters feel about this?". Then the second one dives well into the wife's mind. That's what I like in novels so I liked the second one better. The only critic I'd have is to avoid cliches if they're not intentional. Like
>It was a typical Sunday evening for the Turner household
You'd have lost me on the first line if you were not a nice anon. The line means nothing besides "normal day for them". Go depper and tell me what a normal day for them is, maybe that family is different from any other I've seen. But good work nonetheless!
Also, is the wife going to cuck the husband? I'm curious kek

[Anonymous No.23037241]

>>23037115
I think I'm the Anon you're referring to unless someone else has replied to the thread since I last checked it, no worries.
I was actually thinking again about your story and was wondering if you'd post about it again, as I was going to recommend taking the whole opening segment in the tent out and starting off with the council scene afterwards instead. You could refer back to it with something like, "a servant maiden passed the request onto her during a training session".
Alternatively you could work more of a conversation into the tent scene that gives the reader more of an idea of Iris's character beyond trained fighter. Another Anon told you "show don't tell" last thread, you do briefly show us Iris pays the maiden little attention, but then state exactly that to us. Again just a basic suggestion/example plucked, but that trait would be better established with a character or characters who'd try to engage her in a conversation that went ignored, for example, as opposed to a subservient maiden.

[Anonymous No.23037275]

How do I become a better writer? Please respond.


The expressway curves, a tunnel of oncoming headlights, flaring brake lights and the unyielding fluorescence of high rise office spaces that are never extinguished. I'm reminded of Asia as I brake, signal, cut, accelerate, and cut back. The expressway is spacious this time of night and the lack of trailing headlights in my my peripheriol allow me to manuver without checking. The lake is invisible, an inky blackness of laggerdly motion, unseen but anticipated at these high speeds and the heater blows stale warmth against my face and dying speakers blare Machinehead in competition with the traffic sounds that are carried by the brittle wind that gushes through the three open windows of my car.

I dislike being reminded of Asia so I push upon the pedal, increasing my speed and draw with practicied effeciancy for another cigarette. I'm nearing the curve and slip wide so I dont need to reduce speed, and scream past a sedan from Indiana thats braking hard in anticipation. Dropping down to twenty five miles per hour for soft turn with no incline; what a pussy I think as I spin the volume up, knowing its already maxed out and smoke stings my eyes because my drivers side window is pinned up, has been pinned up for years now and I feel drunk even though I've only had five drinks and I sit up straighter

[Anonymous No.23037333]

>>23035402
That sounds devilish, but not delightfully so.

[Anonymous No.23037809]

Forget prose, what is the secret to making your writing interesting?

[Anonymous No.23037826]

>>23037809
If you get an idea as to how to proceed that makes you giggle like a misbehaving schoolgirl, that's the one you should write.

[Anonymous No.23037833]

>>23037809
Conflict.

[Anonymous No.23037859]

Can someone recc. me some decent biology books to supplement my writing? The topic keeps coming up and I don't mind studying to have more ideas.

[Anonymous No.23037893]

>>23037809
Conversation with exposition

>>23037859
Bate's Guide To Physical Examination

[Anonymous No.23037964]

>>23037859
Biology is a vast subject. What in particular are you interested? A college level textbook used in a typical bio 101 class probably has everything you need. You can then go deeper on particular subjects.

If you're just looking for pop sci books I particularly like the works of E.O Wilson and Lewis Thomas.

[Anonymous No.23037979]

>>23037809
Specificity, suspense and reversal of expectation. That's it. That's really all you need.

[Anonymous No.23038073]

Advice on how to properly portray a thematic debate in my story without coming off as preachy and high-horsey? One of the themes in my story is about the role religion plays in society, and my main answer is that religion is a social creation made (consciously or not) in order to control the population. How would you go about portraying this in your story while keeping it grounded? I mean in a more technical words-on-paper method, rather than the more macro approach (although that is also welcomed)

[Anonymous No.23038086]

>>23038073
don't. sounds like some quasi political religious crap. very gay. instead, write about a fruit orchard and the fruit trees that are there, and how pleasant it is. it must be very pleasant

[Anonymous No.23038102]

>>23038086
Stop! Schizophrenia is not allowed beyond this point!

[Anonymous No.23038109]

>>23036448
What kind of structuring or typesetting are you doing to justify LaTeX?

[Anonymous No.23038111]

>>23038073
You should try to conceive of a situation for your story in which your personal position is directly challenged. For example, the main character is the former leader of a small cult who was exposed as a charlatan. But then he begins receiving divine visions that reveal a direct path to saving humanity from some catastrophe but he has to convince people to follow him and do as he says.

[Anonymous No.23038112]

>>23038102
fuck got me.

in that case you have to make it part of a conversation. an already assumed fact your characters believe/know to be true, casual references the same way current religion might pop up in conversations. (but you know I'm right and the topic is boring)

[Anonymous No.23038143]

Currently faced with the following dilemma, I am about halfway through a novel (>40k words) but have a bunch of gaps and issues that I need to fix. I already have a bunch of these fixes planned out, but should I:
>1. keep writing with these things in mind, and "pretend" these things are addressed earlier, then once I finished the first draft, rework the sections that need fixing
>2. start over from "zero", trying to reuse my previous writing as much as possible?
What would yo do?

[Anonymous No.23038152]

>>23038143
1. never stop. you can always issue revised version

[Anonymous No.23038161]

>>23038143
1 of course.
If I'm writing and I realize that I should've changed something earlier in the chapter I just pretend that I did, then in editing I can make that change.

[Anonymous No.23038237]

>>23038152
>>23038161
Okay, thanks for the advice, thanks~

[Anonymous No.23038258]

>>23037217
>Also, is the wife going to cuck the husband?
Of course.

[Anonymous No.23038340]

>>23038073
Don't state your thesis. Just show how priests deal with perceived social problems. They aren't getting enough sacrifices to eat, so they ban practicing rituals anywhere but the central temple. People keep adopting foreign customs like cutting their hair, so you invent a myth about a guy with magic hair whose enemy is a foreign slut queen. Overly fanatic followers are going nuts and sacrificing their own kids, so you make up a story about how their fanaticism is appreciated but your god really does not want any more dead kids and that's now forbidden. Stuff like that.

[Anonymous No.23038390]

>>23034478
The language is overwrought, but the situation is nicely imagined, and has potential, I think.

Last sentence of the second to last paragraph: noting that detail is a distraction from and rather breaks the building tension, rather than adding to it.

The last paragraph, it should be Johnny who "pulled the trigger."

He dug his heel into the sand, hand hovering over his holster. The Joshua trees, stark against the dying light, were like skeletal hands rising from the earth. Far off, a lone coyote's mournful howl drifted through the wind.

[Anonymous No.23038395]

>>23037275
Too descriptive.
When we say you paint a picture, we don't mean you layout every single minute detail of the scene.

You also have a habit of declaring something, then following it up with an explanation or a justification.
>I dislike being reminded of asia... so I push upon
>I slip wide... so I don't need to reduce speed
>smoke stings my eyes... because my window is pinned up
>I feel drunk... even though I've only had... and I sit up straighter

[Anonymous No.23038423]

>>23025347
Hitting the mark, and faster than ever before. On the third I clocked my 1k words in an hour and three minutes, a personal best by a wide margin.
I'm doing what I can to avoid saggy middle syndrome, although there's a lot I'd like to show off. I'm interested to see what I'll include and what I'll end up leaving in the notes.

>>23034329
I opened a separate LibreOffice doc titled "Outline" and wrote my outline in it (although it's maybe 2/3 done), scene-by-scene.

>>23034778
If you tie your posts to your real name or penname, then if you do well, I suppose it would be a way to build up a following. After I wrap up this draft (In late March/early April hopefully), I'll likely make a new Reddit account with my planned pen-name and churn out short stories for a while, in between doing more worldbuilding and outlining my next planned novel.

>>23038073
Don't strawman the position that you disagree with in real life. Do your best to steel-man the opposing argument, and understand your own position, to create an engaging, thought-provoking debate, rather than boringly owning the imagined libs (or cons, if you're on the left)

[Anonymous No.23038501]

>>23038395
Good catch, never noticied that before. Its a lifelong habit; I think in hyphens, run on sentences and justifications- a concern of being interrupted before I express my complete thought. (Ironic)

Would conversation/dialouge help?

[Anonymous No.23038509]

>>23034778
Some subs (like nosleep and shortscarystories) have a large number of readers. Write something that meets the rules/mood of those subs and you'll have some sort of audience.

[Anonymous No.23038517]

Your writing sucks. I don’t care about any of the characters. Make me care. Tell me why they should matter. But don’t tell me why. Show.

[Anonymous No.23038524]

>>23035737
Get to know people older than you?

[Anonymous No.23038536]

>>23035737
I think of a young man, and I take away continence and mental faculty.

[Anonymous No.23038553]

What direction could I take a short story where a hunter shoots what he believes to be a bigfoot but instead of telling people he just decides to hide the evidence by burying it incase he gets arrested for accidentally committed murder

[Anonymous No.23038562]

>>23038517
What's that mean

[Anonymous No.23038572]

>>23038553
you want to be vague? Read up in the Air: the book that made the George Cloony movie.

Or just add in scenes where the character is driving in his car and listening to the radio and hears broadcasts about his action or any other form of media (t.v reports, social media posts) while he tries to go about his regular life or while he tries to cover up the actions of his crime

[Anonymous No.23038573]

>>23038553
The real Bigfoot catches him in the act, and decides to surrender his "anonymity" for the moral good by going to the authorities about the murder.

[Anonymous No.23038589]

>came up with an idea to give one of my BBEGs a mech suit that's powered by her orgasms
>tfw not even writing smut
There's no way this isn't an absolutely retarded idea

[Anonymous No.23038598]

>>23038536
So what if I wrote a man who's much older than me but got de-aged? Just write him as if he were literally me?

[Anonymous No.23038604]

>>23038598
nta but all writing is literally you.

[Anonymous No.23038613]

How do I stop my first person perspective writing from reading like my diary?

[Anonymous No.23038657]

>>23038613
generally only include what builds character or moves the plot (this is true regardless of perspective)

[Anonymous No.23038664]

Bros…F Gardner is unironically touring podcasts and exposing Jews, denying the holocaust and otherwise going full retard. I am not making this shit up and it is honestly mind blowing to see him do this live

https://rumble.com/v4bdo8b-kabbalah-of-the-crocodile-author-f.-gardner.html

[Anonymous No.23038685]

>>23038664
lol, sup frank
i'll watch later

[Anonymous No.23038700]

>>23038664
I saw it last night. Incredible.

[Anonymous No.23038711]

>>23038390
What should I do if I personally prefer this kind of prose style? Would you recommend making it simpler until I can get good enough to write in a similar fashion, though not overwrought, or is there a way to make such a style work? Say what you will about Irving, but his prose is very captivating and pleasing to me, same as Melville and Bierce.

[Anonymous No.23038721]

>>23038664
Omg. I think this could actually make /lit/ go mainstream.

[Anonymous No.23038728]

Say what you will about F Gardner, but his prose is very antisemitic and pleasing to me

[Anonymous No.23038748]

>Contemplate samefagging this vigourously

[Anonymous No.23038772]

>>23038711
Your using prose style to be lazy. Look through your writing and you'll see that you're using cliched, abstracted imagery to describe everything. Your description of a western sunset and a gunslinger and coyotes and Joshua trees is may as well have been generated by ChatGPT by how much it regresses to the mean.

Melville, Irving, Bierce always discarded with the conventional, easy-to-reach image for one that's more striking and novel. You are polishing swine, you need to first form the pearl.

Compare:
>A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners
>I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.
>Weeks and weeks ago our fresh provisions were all exhausted. There is not a sweet potato left; not a single yam. Those glorious bunches of bananas, which once decorated our stern and quarter-deck, have, alas, disappeared! and the delicious oranges which hung suspended from our tops and stays—they, too, are gone!
vs.
>The incandescent rays of his lantern pierced through the darkness, and, for a moment, painted everything in white. Johnny blinked. The desert revealed to him was infinitely more loathsome than it had ever been. The sand was still red; the leafless shrubs still crouched into the sand; the sparse grass as dry as ever, yet there appeared that each aspect of the desert, so dead at day, was alive with alien malice.

Where is your "loose boards laid upon the ties", your "Sabbath stillness", your "bunches of bananas in our stern and quarter deck"? There is nothing you wrote that someone else couldn't have written, that's the difference. Only Bierce would have thought to include that the slack of the rope fell to the level of his knees. Only Melville would bring attention to yams and oranges hanging from tops and stays. You're writing faceless fiction my man. Soulless slop. Your ear cannot save you if you cannot see.

[Anonymous No.23038787]

Any tips for ADHD havers?

[Anonymous No.23038797]

>>23038772
I see, so I need to add sovl to my writing. I’ve been so caught up in prose that I’ve forgotten to bring along the nigger that is self and lynch him up on the great tree of writing along with everything else I’ve missed.

[Anonymous No.23038799]

>>23038787
LOOK, A BUNNY RABBIT!

[Anonymous No.23038807]

>>23038787
If you don't know what the barrel of a gun tastes like, you haven't had to get something done for real. Me I go sailing and take the coin when the hypos get to me and I find myself standing out in front of the coffin shops. Nothing like a few years on the open ocean to make a man reconsider the cap and ball.

[Anonymous No.23038808]

>>23034349
Why the fuck would a manuscript need version control? Just do what GRRM does and save any lines you like in a separate document for later use.

[Anonymous No.23038818]

>>23038807
What should I call you?

[Anonymous No.23038830]

>>23038808
Because version-control is a far more efficient and organized way of doing that.

[Anonymous No.23038846]

>>23038772
Man, telling anons to write better is tough. The crabs would call that overwrought, if they knew anything about smithing. Good taste is prose stylists. That's half my personal stable I'd publicly admit studying.

>>23038818
Laban. Call me Laban. For I tried to get yisrael to do an honest day's work and treat what I gave him right.

>>23038808
Revision control software and an editing suite that does editing better than Word, in the same program, is a sight to behold and joy few men know.

[Anonymous No.23038848]

>>23038830
You're never going to look at all the past versions of a 100k word novel just to see if you've replaced anything you changed your mind on.

[Anonymous No.23038886]

>>23038848
You do when they're inline or side by side. Anon is a freetard and doesn't know shit about how little anyone writing something other than speculative fiction cares about what an operating system is, because your average writer doesn't play videogames other than the Sims, but even Wordfags are more up to date than the rest of the retards using a pen or notepad or whatever. Everyone I know, even if they still write longhand, throws it into Word or scrivener for a very protracted editing process.

[Anonymous No.23038927]

>>23038772
Thanks for the advice, Anon.

[Anonymous No.23038935]

>>23038848
I already have. You know nothing.

[Anonymous No.23038983]

Tell me how to force myself to keep on writing. I always get stuck in the beginning because everything I write is terrible. I know I need to write to improve, but it’s just so bad. I’ve started but never finished many projects for this reason

[Anonymous No.23038990]

>>23038983
Focus on the quality of the story itself first. You can work on the form of your prose on later edits. You need to return from the quarry with a marble slab before you can chisel away and make your sculpture.

[Anonymous No.23039038]

>>23034401
What story are you going to tell? Your story points and the MacGuffin are perfuctory, they're tools that serve to get the characters to a location to perform a task. What the actual subject matter, genre, story, and substance, have to come on top of that.

[Anonymous No.23039047]

>>23038983
Start in the middle then. In media res.

[Anonymous No.23039053]

must get better at working in all the themes i want into the story
i feel nervous and insecure on my writing but i want to resist posting it here because it is just my opinion vs yours at the end of the day but at the same time im scared that im doing a really bad job

[Anonymous No.23039056]

>>23038830
Just scribble over things and use margins to insert
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238099027_Authorial_manuscript_image_analysis_using_Markovian_models_The_Bovary_project

[Anonymous No.23039060]

>>23034305
Jeremy was a successful businessman. His company had recently been bought by a larger tech company, and he had been offered a position as head of its research department.

In his position, he got access to a couple of very secretive projects.
One, in particular, caught his interest. It was a machine that could supposedly swap minds. Jeremy was a curious guy, and in his youth he had wondered a bit on how it was to be a woman.

But he needed someone to swap with. There was his secretary, Jennifer.
With her subservient nature and adoration for Jeremy, she should be easy both to convince to test it, and to get her to change back afterwards. She was also, to be honest, rather sexy.

As he suspected, Jennifer didn't protest. She just lowered her eyes and said "Yes, Mr. Henderson." They agreed to stay as each other for two days, and change back before the weekend.

They went down to the lab after work. Having read the instructions for the machine, he had no problems making it work. And it did as it was supposed to.

"Wow," Jennifer exclaimed, "it actually works. This is so cool, Mr. Henderson!"

"Yes, it does. Enjoy your two day vacation as me."

The next day at work, Jeremy found out through first-hand experience that Jennifer had a crush on him. He felt butterflies at seeing his own body arrive at work, and found himself smiling lovely at him. And that was not the last of Jennifer's characteristics he'd notice taking on. He was usually very dominant, but as the day went on, he found himself less and less so, feeling shyness and an urge to carry out what he was told slowly build in him.

Jeremy decided that he'd want his body back that day, before he was totally overcome by her personality.

"I don't think so. I've come to like this body. I find myself more in control, more in power."

"I demand it, Jennifer. I demand my body back!" Jeremy found it very difficult to stand up for himself, but he barely managed.

"You can't make any demands from me. I'm not Jennifer, that's you. I'm Mr. Jeremy Henderson." Jeremy watched as the man stand up. "Now what did you want, Jenny?"

"I...I..." Jenny blushed and avoided his gaze. "Nothing."

"Nothing, who?"

"Nothing, Mr. Henderson."

"Well, in that case, I have some work for you." Jenny heard a zipper unzip. She felt her body turn hot in a mixture of fear and arousing humiliation.

"Yes, Mr. Henderson." The former businessman knelt down in front of her boss and took his member in her mouth, more eagerly for every bob she did, loving the taste of every drop of precum, and she came there, on the floor of her former office, cum oozing from her mouth.

Coming down from the high, she realized what she had done, that she was stuck like this, a girl, a secretary, and the boss' slut. Her personality was too strong to fight, her submissive lust weakening her own resolve. With this realization, she would become a better Jennifer than Jennifer ever was.

[Anonymous No.23039090]

>>23039060
Is this a sexy way to tell a story?

[Anonymous No.23039117]

>>23034478
You know yourself they're overwrought, hence the nagging suggestion. First smuggle in your description by having the scene perform actions: "do, don't tell", you've done this in part but not throughly.

Second you're not using adjectives or descriptive verbs well, they're cliched and uninteresting, think: does the adjective/description open up a new and broader conception of the thing being described, or am I merely repeating idioms that people robotically use in their ordinary speech and thinking? Further to that point, you're inserting a single adjective/descriptive verb robotically prior to the noun/verb ("grotesque knobs," "slavering pack of wolves," "alien malice," "bone-thin fingers," "sparse grass," "dark tufts," "ephermeral wail") as if ticking off a box rather than adding something interesting to the text, further re-enforcing the sense of repeating idioms and enclosing the reader in mundane and regular ways of thinking, rather than opening new vistas of perception of the thing, which good descriptive writing ought to always be aiming for. If it's worth telling the reader about the salivia dripping from the dogs mouth then give a sentence performing the action, shunting it off to a single verb prefacing the noun feels perfuctory and box-ticking.

Third you're using similies rather than metaphors, "as if" "seemed like", which takes the punch out of your allusions. Either the allusion is strong enough to be the actual thing, i.e. a metaphor, or it's not strong enough and shouldn't be used. "As ifs" and "seems" are nearly always tepid and anemic.

Forth there's some tripping over little words which interupt the flow of the text. Writing is like the flow of a stream of water, you don't want it to get caught on lots of little rocks and pebbles. Some "the" could be struck out: "-The- incandescent rays".

[Anonymous No.23039153]

>>23035402
Do you have a hard time starting?

[Anonymous No.23039172]

>>23039060
>and the boss' slut.
This is a weird mistake for chatGPT to make.

[Anonymous No.23039186]

>>23039117
I know the broader issue regarding my work. I am definitely showing signs of having read more than I’ve written. I will, on average, spend four hours a day reading and perhaps twenty or thirty minutes (if at all) writing. I need to write more, but somehow the very suggestion seems to slip from my mind. Any advice for forcing myself into that 15 minute span of writing before I get into the groove?

[Anonymous No.23039196]

>>23034407
>Her breasts were large and full with nipples begging to be sucked on by infants or lovers.
>With a sigh, she threw on a quick comfort outfit with no bra or panties.

Holy fuck get a life.

[Anonymous No.23039199]

Don't you ever get tired of cutting off your nose to spite your face?

[Anonymous No.23039200]

>>23036307
How would you go about doing this in omniscient pov

[Anonymous No.23039206]

>>23039200
Read James Wood, How Fiction Works.
It's on libgen

[Anonymous No.23039281]

>>23039186
It's more a question of quality than quantity isn't it? Why don't you stick with an ur-story that you re-write and polish. If you get tired of polishing then re-write the same narrative from a different perspective as a writing exercise, like Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style. Each attempt will allow you to build your technique and improve incrementally on the successes of past attempts without having to bother about the busy-work of a new setting, plot, or characters.

[Anonymous No.23039283]

>>23036307
Write plays and leave description up the set and costume designer.

[Anonymous No.23039561]

How in the heck do I write a good dialog? I understand that there must be always a reason for what the characters say, but it is difficult to come up with anything what they could say.

[Anonymous No.23039578]

my answer for every question asked in this thread is: read book, take notes
>>23039561
read books with good dialogue, steal ideas. you (generally) don't want to emulate real conversation

[Anonymous No.23039626]

>>23039561
Just keep direct dialogue to a minimum and have the narrator summerise or paraphrase what the characters say to eachother in the text.

[Anonymous No.23039637]

I wanted to write a touching scene of an outcast child flying his foster father on the end of a rope as a kite, like Kyoshi did to Kelsang in her novel, but I'm worried it's too derivative.

I wonder if there is some sort of alternative that would get the same sort of feel of an adoptive father using himself to play with the kid and making them, for a moment, feel like the coolest kid.

[Anonymous No.23039644]

>>23035976
A very chinese way of thinking, anon

[Anonymous No.23039888]

>>23039644
Not surprising. Laozi is my homeboy.

[Anonymous No.23040181]

I'm killing kids in my book, surely this won't do me any favours with publishers.

[Anonymous No.23040188]

>>23040181
Unless you're some kind of queer minority or writing queer intersectional genre fantasy, you aren't getting published anyway.

[Anonymous No.23040206]

>>23040188
I can lie and say that I am, what are they gonna do, risk discriminating against me?

[Anonymous No.23040213]

>>23040188
Nihilist cope. Only had writers unironically think this.

Ngmi

[Anonymous No.23040217]

>>23040188
Nihilist cope. Only bad writers believe this.

Ngmi

[Anonymous No.23040228]

>>23038787
Open your document first. As early as you can. You can actually add a document to your Startup folder if you want. Then you only have to turn on your computer and the document will open automatically.

[Anonymous No.23040238]

>>23040206
Cis male? They don't consider it discrimination and you don't know the shibboleths and dog whistles. Being a run of the mill homofag gets you nowhere these days. My, for lack of a better word, covine has advised me to either double down on the gay and cater exclusively to men who have relationships with men or rebrand as some kind of non-binary queer author, which wouldn't be too hard to do and is true in a sense, though not the sense TPTB and the audience want it to be.

You either have to be a kook or your work has to be kooky enough to draw attention away from you.

[Anonymous No.23040250]

>>23040238
>your work has to be kooky enough to draw attention away from you.
I guess killing kids isn't kooky enough, huh?

[Anonymous No.23040251]

>>23035823
Good luck and godspeed

[Anonymous No.23040262]

>>23040250
You're really fixated on it but haven't mentioned what genre you're writing for. Adolescent drivel, most likely. SFF. You'll be laughed at because killing kids is so edgy and juvenile that even the cringe factory that is SFF finds it to be tasteless. When autistic cringelords writing about dragons and non-binary goblin orgies grow out of it, it's pure edge and juvenilia.

[Anonymous No.23040268]

i-is it a problem if my title is the same as another story's title

[Anonymous No.23040269]

>write what you know
the only thing i know is staying inside and using the internet

[Anonymous No.23040274]

>>23040262
>You're really fixated
I can understand why you'd think that based on what I've written here but I promise it's not really anything major in my story. I also don't know what genre I'm writing for, I'm just writing and seeing what I come up with.

[Anonymous No.23040289]

>>23040274
Then carry on and see where it goes. But 90% of the time the question comes up, that's why it comes up. There are some topics that will perma-cancel you but I don't think you have to worry about them. I have to be much more careful with how I treat them.

[Anonymous No.23040346]

Can you write in rhythm in prose? Like iambic pentameter?

[Anonymous No.23040383]

Should I have my MC capitalize words randomly Like a proper Boomer Would?

[Anonymous No.23040390]

>>23040262
Cringe. The cuck SFF crowd does not speak for me, an isekaichad.

[Anonymous No.23040441]

>>23034305
hello!
i'm an anon from /ic/ looking to learn how to write for the purposes of making comics
I don't lurk around here at all so I'm sorry if this is a question that gets asked a lot but do you have any guide, tips or something to improve writing?

[Anonymous No.23040458]

>>23038553
>the police find out anyway
>arrest the hunter
>he's in the jail cell proclaiming his innocence
>the police all surround his cell
>pull off masks to reveal that they're all bigfoots
>the town is all bigfoots
>everyone in the world is secretly a bigfoot except the hunter
>mfw

[Anonymous No.23040460]

>>23040441
Read a lot, write a lot, and steal a lot (from multiple people)

[Anonymous No.23040487]

>>23040460
NTA but I'm in a similar position.
>Read a lot
Well that's easy, I do this all the time. Maybe even more than the average /lit/ user.
>write a lot
Now this is where the problem lies. With all that I've read you'd think I would be able to repurpose some of it into a story of my own writing, but that's just not happening.
>and steal a lot (from multiple people)
Can't really do this before I get step 2 down, can I? Or do I have it backwards actually?

[Anonymous No.23040516]

>>23038983
I find when I have a clear idea of the ending and theme of the story, I'm much more likely to finish it. Also having a minimum word count like 100-200 words per day helps getting to the finish line. You usually end up writing more anyway because the juices start flowing by then.

[Anonymous No.23040537]

>>23040487
When people talk about writingz they talk about two things, "macro" writing and "micro" writing. Macro writing is the more conceptual level of things; think plotlines, character, setting, twists, etc. Micro writing is the actual words-on-paper part, how you actually convey the macro aspects to the readers in an interesting way.
Stealing (from multiple people) is more focused towards the macro writing. This is about mixing and matching multiple concepts from different places, and providing new twists to already familiar things. One exercise is to conceptualize your story as a mix of stories ("A" meets "B", or "C" but with thing from "D").
Writing a lot is about the micro part. You have to practice the skill of making sentences and paragraphs that convey your ideas in the best way possible; i.e. making each word count.

[Anonymous No.23040540]

>>23040441
probably read screen writing guides. it's the most similar to comics in that it's all dialogue.

[Anonymous No.23040556]

>>23040441
INK! or FRAMED! or whatever is going to be more useful than /lit/ guides. Sequential art has a different flow and how it is written both on the page level and the framework for the presentation is closer to that of poetry than a novel or screenplay. Visual direction and storyboarding carries a lot of comics that otherwise have pretty mediocre writing. Or, look at what webcomics do and avoid all of it.

[Anonymous No.23040601]

>>23037241
Ah ok makes sense. Yeah I was reading over it and started to notice a lot more of overly confusing/descriptive sentences. It sounded like the issue was prose so I ended up looking into that after reading your advice. I will likely go back and edit it before the challenge date ends (Feb 18th I believe). I didn't plan on adding a ton or going back to it desu. But the editing will honestly probably teach me a lot, along with putting the best story forward. Thanks Again!

[Anonymous No.23040603]

>>23040441
Alan Moore's "Writing for Comics" is an excellent book, not only for people who want to write comics, but for anyone who wants to be an artist of any kind.

[Anonymous No.23040646]

>>23040537
>Macro writing is the more conceptual level of things; think plotlines, character, setting, twists, etc.
You will also find it very hard to get solid, if any, criticism of it through most channels. There is a tendency to focus on the micro because it's both easier and safer to nitpick. I was nodding off in a workshop one time when I realized that was why. The shapeless, nonbinary blob blathering on about very little had a fundamentally flawed story and no one was calling her out on it out of sheer politeness. The story was all air with no substance or conflict or real theme to paint a little picture of. it was shapeless and pastel, just like her.

[Anonymous No.23040709]

>>23040537
ye ye this macro writing thing is what I struggle with, especially giving motivations to the characters to do stuff, they often end up being just vehicles for the reader to experience the world the comic is set in, literally stumbling into the plot
>>23040556
picrel? I thought it was a book about composition and not writing itself
>>23040603
noted I'll read that thank you

btw if anyone cares here's a comic I've made a couple of months for a challenge thing on a site I browse, real simple, real jank and rushed as hell (read left to right top to bottom like any other westerner comics)
page 1: https://files.catbox.moe/xfqw3k.png
page 2: https://files.catbox.moe/bjz7gc.png

[Anonymous No.23040728]

>>23040709
wtf this is actually good. nice art and actually smiled at the punchline even though it was so cliched. you're gonna make it.

[Anonymous No.23040749]

>>23040646
Outlines should be mandatory in order to give substance to the story and have something concrete to discuss and work on
>>23040709
>giving motivations to the characters to do stuff, they often end up being just vehicles for the reader to experience the world
A world inherently has a story to tell, in my opinion. Ask yourself, "why are things the way they are, and how do my characters stand in relation to this?" What do your characters want, what do they need, and how does the world stand in their way or shaped them to be like this?

[Anonymous No.23040933]

>>23040709
Very solid work, I would read more.

[Anonymous No.23040953]

>>23040709
Very cute art style

[Anonymous No.23040956]

>>23040749
>outlines
Come to think of it, few want to hand you an outline for critique. They'll tell you about their story or give you a meaningless snippet of it or force you to read a meandering shitshow; but never hand you an outline and ask "hey is this a good idea?"

[Anonymous No.23040967]

Retarded question, how do I know when to stop revising?

[Anonymous No.23041042]

>>23040967
I limit myself to 2 revisions, one for content and one for spelling/grammar.

[Anonymous No.23041058]

>>23041042
that sounds like a good idea, thanks

[Anonymous No.23041075]

>>23040967
You don't.

[Anonymous No.23041334]

I am a spider and the reader is the fly in my web.

[Anonymous No.23041377]

>>23040728
>>23040933
>>23040953
thank you, bonus page I made a week or so later to test using real photos as backgrounds

[Anonymous No.23041420]

>>23041377
The simplistic characters on detailed backgrounds is a very neat style anon

[Anonymous No.23041474]

>>23040956
People should be able to summarize their story in three sentences as well as give more in detail answers

[Anonymous No.23041478]

>>23041377
I really like this, both the art and the writing.
The contrast between the drawn over or filtered photos and the characters, one being a more normal anime girl and the other being a exaggerated man, doesn't feel like a clash against one another but rather something that works despite the differences.
Her simply and blunt response is very funny to me when tied with the rest of this.
Something about the simplicity is just fun and lighthearted to me.
Though it is more wacky, Mado Kara Madoka-Chan, a manga where an officer worker, on his way to and from work, passes by the window of a woman who always has some new store or entertainment set up, is the first thing that came to mind when reading this.
The office worker is the straight man who just goes along with whatever she's doing, and the woman doesn't talk at all and may actually be magic.
That is, if the comic goes with a pattern of the man trying out new jobs and finding out that he doesn't like them after some time, but then he also can't go back to the one beforehand because of something (like selling his farm.)

[Anonymous No.23041594]

>>23041377
god i wish i could make something

[Anonymous No.23041621]

>>23040709
>>23041377
I don't believe you made this.

Yes, I am coping about my lack of art skills.

[Anonymous No.23041648]

>>23041594
People who can make things are so lucky. I wish someone took me aside when I was young and taught me some artistic skill. I wish I wasn't too old now to ever do anything.

[Anonymous No.23041685]

>>23041648
These are two writers who didn't start until they were in their late 30s early 40s, but for painters you have Edward Hopper, who didn't sell a single painting until 31 and didn't find success until his 40s.
Don't wallow in self pity, just do it, it is not too late.

[Anonymous No.23041695]

>>23041685
There's just nothing I can do. I've been picking up and giving up on writing since I was 16. There is no just do it. I'm working on a story right now. I'll probably get frustrated and just delete it all again. My only accomplishment is when I was in college a poem I wrote got put in some university paper.
Now I'm too old. Too old. And more importantly too low iq to improve

[Anonymous No.23041725]

>>23040967
When you have already assumed a final structure, solidified every character and plot arc, and have made each sentence, paragraph, and chapter read well enough.

[Anonymous No.23041737]

I’m going to write a really mean novella

[Anonymous No.23041798]

>>23041695
>tfw you have just enough IQ to have good taste but enough to create something to its standards

[Anonymous No.23041835]

>>23037275
What I suggest you do is start from scratch and pare everything down to plot and character. Ask yourself what would be an interesting story that incorporates these descriptions. Why is your protagonist behaving so carelessly? Focus on that and incorporate it into the passage as the focal point. Think in terms of protagonist and antagonist: what does the character want, and who or what is stopping them. Where does he want to be in life, why can't he get there, how is he going to get there, will he succeed? He seems to have some negative memories of Asia -- this is interesting and I want to know more about it. Maybe tease some flashbacks that hint at these memories, begin to develop the conflict that he will be forced to solve throughout the story. Develop a drama based on cause and effect, which brings about averse conditions for your character, then bring in your descriptions as ornamentation that emphasizes this conflict.

That being said, sometimes long descriptive passages like this are acceptable in novels. The advice could vary depending on whether you are writing a short-form or long-form narrative and where/when in the narrative this scene occurs.

[Anonymous No.23041838]

>>23041835
>averse
*adverse. Sorry.

[Anonymous No.23042160]

>Male writer with female main character (even worse: she's a teenager)
>Writing is so sexless that even my fundie step father who once beat me for masturbating (it was easy for him since my pants were already off) would give it a nod of approval, but I'm still worried about doing a classic "male author tries to write female character" blunder
>Try to look up common writing mistakes for writing female characters
>It's all shit like "don't spend 3 paragraphs describing her breasts" and "don't have every male character try to fuck her"
Is that it? Is that literally it???

[Anonymous No.23042189]

>>23042160
Basically, don't bother with descriptions that you wouldn't use on a male character.
Size of her breast, wasitline, how supple her lips are- you would never use this on a male character. So do without those.
Eye color, hair length, gait, expression, those are fine because you would also use them on male characters.

[Anonymous No.23042194]

Anybody know of some good reference books for writing medieval stuff? I'm looking in particular for specific details on soldiers lives, battles. Not necessarily history--unless anecdotal--but details to build the world in the reader's mind. Like how Chaucer talks about people chewing cardamom and licorice or how King Charlemagne liked to ride in an ox cart or how squires were often sent to insult other lords.

[Anonymous No.23042220]

>>23042194
Don't know about any specific books, but check out "Modern History TV" on youtube

[Anonymous No.23042230]

>>23042160
Basically, don't describe anything that you wouldn't on a male character.
Size of her breast, waistline, how supple her lips are- you would never use this on a male character. So do without those.
Eye color, hair length, expression, those are fine because you would also use them on male characters.

It's ok to explain how sensual her walk is, because gait in general is something you might also use on your male characters.

[Anonymous No.23042242]

>>23038423
Another day, another 1k! I'm feeling better now about how I'm moving the story along. I injected some action into a part of the outline that was quite boring, and I'm pretty happy with the scene I got out of it (So far, it's only 80-ish percent done). My mind is springing with a whole host of different stories that I'd like to write in the future. Thank goodness for Samsung Notes, home of all my fleeting story concepts.

>>23038589
I'd make it like...her heartbeat, or brainwaves, or something to that effect, unless you're *really* wedded to that orgasm-energy concept.

>>23038613
Make it read like the main character's diary, with the caveat of doing what >>23038657 said.

>>23038787
Don't have ADHD, but am a Zoomer, and we're all at least halfway there:
>Phone out of the room when writing
>Quit any mobile games you may play
>Use StimuWrite (My ADHD sister uses it)

>>23038808
Lmao true. I've been doing this.

>>23038983
Set an alarm, at a time where you'll virtually always have free time. When that bitch goes off, you open the word processor, no questions asked.

[Anonymous No.23042365]

>>23035015
I do this all the time, and I don't even feel bad about. You think I give a fuck about Word's squiggly red lines? I'm using serpentining whether the world likes it or not.

[Anonymous No.23042421]

>>23042242
>unless you're *really* wedded to that orgasm-energy concept.
I wouldn't say I am, but the character in question is a degenerate from a culture known for depravity, hence why I've even considered the idea in the first place. The only reasons I even find the idea appealing are the absurdity of it and its hypersexual, porn trope nature being contrasted against the asexuality of the MC. Ultimately, I'll probably drop it since - though I have things I want to say on the topic - I generally don't want sexualization in my writing and the culture the character's from is supposed to be more of an exaggeration of modern cultures than some /d/ or porno state.

[Anonymous No.23042451]

To what degree can I get away with omitting dialogue cues, and still have the reader, even retroactively, know who said what? I just have a animadversion towards using said.

[Anonymous No.23042467]

>>23042451
Just use "said" and "asked" when necessary, at least at first. Then, you'll have to give enough characterization in speech so it is easier to identify the speaker. This is a tough line to walk on, as too little will be confusing to the reader, and too much can be ridiculous and jarring, like One Piece speech patterns. And it gets more complicated the more people you have in a scene.
This is something I try to do every now and then in my dialogue, but not often.

[Anonymous No.23042480]

>>23042451
Have every second character speak in a different dialectical accent with phonetic spelling so the reader can always tell who's speaking.

[Anonymous No.23042490]

>>23042467
I was kind of leaning that way, also—use it once to start the basis of conversation, and then never again, unless another character interjects. I feel like I can convey enough of a conversational/lexiconic difference in my characters to remind the reader of who's saying what, but at the end of the day, I have the implicit bias of always knowing—the reader lacks that.

>>23042480
I'm not Faulkner, so I don't know if I can realistically get away with that. It is good advice that I've considered it in the past, but maintaining consistency is paramount, and I'm pretty bad at that.

[Anonymous No.23042512]

>>23040709
I like your drawing style - really nice. and the writing was solid.

[Anonymous No.23042557]

>>23042451
Some authors and critics (rightfully) theorize that a minimum of stylistic punctuation and formatting is needed to recognize dialog, and that more formatting is potentially detrimental to clarity and flow, but all of that has caveats. Some authors are notorious for ambiguous dialog due to failure to tag, or inappropriately tagging using other actions. A few paragraphs of examples makes up the more useful sections of popular style guides and different writers have offered their own solutions in their own books on writing (none come to mind). Personally, I'm all for minimal, but the reality is no one notices that kind of janitorial filler unless it's inconsistent or excessive. It's like the stage ninjas in kabuki. Yes, you notice them but you also stop caring and sometimes they do cool stage ninja shit.

>>23040709
I got more from the principles of Framed Ink in how literal framing and visual composition using figure-ground relationships and that kind of classical juxtaposition of figures used in comics shapes and paces a scene than I got from reading about writing or reading books that do it well.

[Anonymous No.23042718]

anons if you could sell your soul to the slop gods for a guaranteed writing career would you?
be honest. this is important

[Anonymous No.23042827]

>>23042451
Another thing is to describe some character’s action before he says something every page or so if it’s a long conversation

[Anonymous No.23042880]

>>23042718
No I will use my autistic soul and schizophrenic mind to create SOVL cringeslop that will sell like hotcakes, fuck demons and their petty deals.

[Anonymous No.23042888]

>>23034404
After binging through Dune, Messiah, and CoD the past 3 months, I'm growing more pressed to end my webfic sooner than later. The most important thing for me is ending it on a somewhat good ending point and kill the darlings that I had planned for later. Then rewrite the webfic into a past-tense third person and selfpub it. But it feels so wrong to go down that route. I want to at least finish it then rewrite it and figure it out from there. It probably won't sell at all, but Frank's message at the end of CoD was sort of moving. I'm trying not to succumb to the delusional grandeur it'll free me from my wagie job, but it would be nice to just not work fast food anymore...

[Anonymous No.23042914]

>>23034305
I rarely write fiction but if it doesn't turn out to be semi-autobiographical ramblings, it turns into anime-tier nonsense with some major plot issues, especially as I try to write it in a frame of thriller fiction.

[Anonymous No.23042978]

>>23041737
what about

[Anonymous No.23042981]

>tfw perfectly happy to write for myself
>never going to publish, saves me the hassle of sinking or swimming in the industry

[Anonymous No.23042988]

>>23042981
ill read your book

[Anonymous No.23043000]

>>23042988
I'm writing nonsensical action scenes for Sword and Sorcery but I haven't thought up a good hero yet.
Eventually I'll branch out into whodunnits and try to think up some locked room riddles.

[Anonymous No.23043250]

>>23043000
are you that anon who posted his incredibly based sword and sorcery battle scene that had war chariots and bronze weaponry?

[Anonymous No.23043262]

is reading the KJV good for improving your writing?

[Anonymous No.23043309]

>>23042981
I self-pub on Amazon, because I like to get physical copies of my books to reread. If anyone else buys one, it's a nice bonus.

[Anonymous No.23043426]

>>23038983
Just write even if trash, you keep going then you can rewrite because if you care enough you are bound to notice what you want to change, then repeat until you think it might be good

When I'm talking about rewrite it's either from scratch, just some part, or rephrasing to make it more clear, but don't be afraid to discard thousands of words

Just write even when your brain say no, even one sentence par day is a good start

[Anonymous No.23043431]

>>23034305
Anyone else have their best creative ideas in the literal last moments of consciousness before sleep?

[Anonymous No.23043448]

>>23041594
fuckin make something pussy, you'll never be happy with it regardless of technical level
>>23041621
you'd be surprised

[Anonymous No.23043498]

>>23043448
>you'll never be happy with it regardless of technical level
Ain't that the truth, huh.

[Anonymous No.23043557]

>>23043448
Me when I Kuwahara filter
Dude you're actually skilled, get out of here before you fall into the hole

[Anonymous No.23043561]

>>23043262
It yields a stately tone and favors a type of narrative where psychological portraits are presented in a certain way and thematically reiterated. Prophets is the source of most great monologues. It's in my stack for learning something from but you or I likely aren't reading it in the same way the master smiths of the english language were.

[Anonymous No.23043607]

[Anonymous No.23043637]

I haven't been here in a while. Is the lad that posted those Pitbull hunter stories still around? I would love to read them again

[Anonymous No.23043696]

I fucking hate what the popularisation of DnD has done. 90% of newly sprouting writers seem to think that a book is like a transcript of their last DnD session, including the "whacky" banter between team members and the random popculture references their B*ZINGA-shirt wearing DM throws into every encounter. And of course, every team member must be a different, exotic race, complete with "in my culture..." BS

[Anonymous No.23043701]

>>23043696
where/how are you finding this stuff?

[Anonymous No.23043710]

>>23043696
My man why are you subjugating yourself to slop instead of working on your own stuff?

[Anonymous No.23043713]

February 16th: deadline, 4500 words. Current wordcount: 1134
February 29th: deadline, 45 000 characters. Current charactercount: 19 458

[Anonymous No.23043718]

>>23043696
The commoditization of geek culture was one of the worst plagues released on the populace. It was almost tolerable when there was some shame or awareness of how childish it all is, now even that subversive self-awareness is gone. Genre fiction used to have minimum standard, now those are gone. It's so bad that everyone I talk to is either writing third order genreslop based on the tropes of more genreslop, or a fucking weebnovel.

[Anonymous No.23043727]

>>23043696
I mean, it can be done well though. Emphasis on "can", I suppose.

[Anonymous No.23043746]

>>23043696
If it makes you feel any better, Hasbro is having major financial problems, and is looking to sell off its D&D property.

[Anonymous No.23043831]

The tension is rising between Ben and I. We have another 2,500 kilometers to go. Can we co-exist?

[Anonymous No.23043884]

>>23043431
Yes. I have the best ideas lying in bed regardless of whether I'm actually ready to sleep or not.

[Anonymous No.23043909]

Does anyone enjoy editing and generating plot ideas while mildly under the influence of cannabis? Wouldn't want to write while high, but I find I'm much more discerning in that state.

[Anonymous No.23043913]

>>23043909
Yeah, one the beatles talked about, we're talking about microdosing but I think it still applies, creating and editing without the usual critical factor that isn't always helpful or useful and in many cases is strangling and reverts one to the mean. Just a little reefer, not so much that attention wanders too far.

[Anonymous No.23043981]

Is it homophobic to allow a gay character to die in your writing? My writing group is upset with me because i had a gay victim to a serial killer in my crime fiction. They’re saying it’s hate speech.

[Anonymous No.23043986]

>>23043981
Lol

[Anonymous No.23044003]

>>23043981
I swear, half the anons in these threads are in some gayass writing group writing about faggots and then whine about leftism in the same sentence

[Anonymous No.23044082]

>>23043981
They are characters with their own lives, they are people. If they have such an issue, ask them, would they rather you have no gay characters? Or that you make them into token characters?
Either they don't view gay characters as people, or they are too poisoned by a worry of being seen as something that they are not that they refuse to unbind their own writing.
Now, if they are the kinda faggots who bitch about a fag getting killed in a book, they'll probably just talk some bullshit about you and try to have you removed from the group so they don't need to actually think about what they say.
I've got three gays in my story, two women, one of whom just died, and a man who is not yet openly gay.
It's the same shit as writing women, understand that they aren't exactly the same as a normal person, but also that they aren't just stereotype.
Write characters, not a list of tropes and traits.

[Anonymous No.23044088]

>>23044003
You will, as a faggot, find that there is a massive difference between writing about faggots and writing for fellow faggots. My fellow faggots love digging into the nasty side of the whole homogay thing, but the alphabet community doesn't relate to it at all and yet asking probing questions and bringing up dark memories and whispered recollections as answers makes them extremely uncomfortable.

Write like you're permacancelled for child rape and tell everyone who finds it distasteful to suck your dick.

[Anonymous No.23044178]

>>23043431
Lmao yes, happens often. If I'm conscious enough I write them down on my phone, but I should probably switch to a notebook

[Anonymous No.23044182]

>>23043431
>>23044178
I keep a notebook near my bed but I can barely read my own handwriting in the morning... I'll never be Kekule

[Anonymous No.23044280]

>>23043981
You won't win with those people, tell them to shut it.

[Anonymous No.23044286]

>>23043250
no but shoutouts to that guy.

[Anonymous No.23044290]

>>23043981
>They’re saying it’s hate speech.
Resubmit it to them, but make his death even more gruesome this time, and have him renounce his immoral homosexual ways right before he dies. Then ask them if that's better.

[Anonymous No.23044294]

Bros... should i write my novel to the end? Reply quick my family are coming over soon i have not much time left.

[Anonymous No.23044311]

>>23043981
>My writing group is upset with me
Have the serial killer be revealed to be a faggot that was molested by his uncle.

[Anonymous No.23044314]

>>23044294
Until you die, brother. HH.

[Anonymous No.23044385]

>>23044311
It was implied.

[Anonymous No.23044537]

>realized can only write anything close to poetry when insulting someone or thinking ill of a specific person or thing

i don’t even feel any actual hatred, yet my wit seems to come out when i’m trying to insult someone? what’s going on.

[Anonymous No.23044570]

>>23044537
In the days of olde artists would have muses, people or things of affection which inspired them.
Your muse is your hate and willingness to bring another down, to lay low those scornful things.

[Anonymous No.23044617]

>>23044537
You're like Alexander Theroux who only writes a new novel when he gets dumped by a woman

[Anonymous No.23044825]

Have any of you watched a movie, or just a video on a movie, and then tried to do a rewrite?
Even just a simple one?
I spent, I don't know, 40 minutes, an hour, doing a basic rewrite of the movie Rebel Moon.
I didn't exactly put that much effort into it, and it is more a general overview of the events of the movie with changes rather than a complete rewriting of all the events.

[Anonymous No.23044834]

>>23044088
I used to find the gay experience™ to be something unique, and I still think it is in some regards, but the output of the aforementioned alphabet movement and their nongenderspecific dick riders bears almost no relation to those concerns and I now find more solidarity and comradery with strange bedfellows, to say the least. I don't know how interested /wg/ is in the concerns of gay writers and anon-level deviants but even the higher end smut peddlers are more than a little tired of how whitewashed things are becoming.

[Anonymous No.23044884]

>>23044834
I am interested in the experiences of all people.
Yes, I am what people would call homophobic, I call people faggots and generally have a dislike of them. But if I met any of them at random, I would treat them as I would any other person.
It's much the same way as if it was late at night and I was walking, I would cross to the other side of the street if someone came towards me, but moreso if they happen to be black or hispanic and wearing a hoodie.
I can respect a person, but not a people.
I think that the issue of gay characters is in part because some people can't separate the people and the person.
To attack a gay character becomes an attack on all gay people, real or fictional.
It's insulting not only to the writer, but the reader as well, who is being told that they aren't supposed to draw a line between individuals and groups.
While I am no friend of the gay community (a term I dislike in the first place because it is pigeonholing swaths of population into defined sterotypes) I can understand, empathize, and write, a gay character who is simply another person, and who I try to not let my own disgust with them paint them as being bad for what they are.

[Anonymous No.23044912]

>O, those delectable treats in my pantry! The selection was so colourful and vigorous that I had become slightly woozy, and had to grasp the counter to remain conscious. The choices before me wrestled the will; indeed, I had considered abandoning the whole ordeal and ignoring my ravenous disposition as reaching a decision felt hopeless. Ultimately, I had settled on three sweet delights: a tin of shortbread biscuits; a somewhat depleted (but far from empty) tub of marmalade; and some Belgian milk chocolate, gifted to me by a visiting professor.

>Unfortunately, as I find many French things to be, the chocolate was dross and most unappetising. I had discarded it onto the tabletop before, lo, my scoundrel of a canine Humphrey leaped for it! It was certainly fortuitous that, channelling the reflexes only a squash player of my calibre (in my youth) could muster, I prevented a most terrible end for little Humphrey.

>Oh, I devoured that marmalade tub with a savage ferocity! I imagine that incident with Humphrey had heightened my adrenaline to a terrible degree. Unfortunately, I had made many exam papers rather sticky and had to take some time to limit the damage.

>Then, my assistant—that boy Carter is a most eager fellow—brought me a cup of Earl Grey and I laboured my way through all the shortbread laid bare before me. Truthfully, I had become quite sick of eating the stuff towards the end but my gluttony prevented me from stopping earlier; moreover, to leave only a measly sum of biscuits, such as three, always feels wrong to me.

thoughts bros?

[Anonymous No.23044935]

>>23044884
Your kind, the somewhat conservative types, are ironically more amenable to literature that goes to dark places and explores titillating and sometimes depressing motives and causal factors, as long as it doesn't glorify it. I don't like that that's how things are, but the LBQCOMPTIA+ machine wants to erase the nasty, genuinely fetishistic side that airs all the dirty laundry. So, in a roundabout way, I feel obligated to call anyone telling people what they can and can't do with characters a fucking retard with skeletons in his closet.

Strange bedfellows indeed. Like, it's all gays, sexual abuse victims (yes, they're different some times), an odd furry or two, and fucking /pol/tards defending good literature and the novel as a format.

[Anonymous No.23044940]

>>23044834
I’m interested in hearing more.

[Anonymous No.23044972]

>>23044935
Swing too far either way and you are going to hit nothing but air.
A week or so back, a friend said he was going to put on a movie about a closeted Japanese conservative in the 50s and instead put Lady Ballers on.
I found certain scenes actually funny, which was shocking to me, but the instant that they got to the subject of trans or womens anything, the movie ground to a halt to spout political messages with all the subtlety of a brick to the head.
They didn't make jokes about trannies, they merely mentioned them and they expected the audience to clap like seals being fed sardines, which, considering the intended audience, they probably did.
And there was this bizarre and insulting scene where a father tells his daughter what amounted to
>as a female you exist to breed and then take care of children.
If it was written as an irreverent sports comedy it could've been great, but instead it is a few funny sports comedy scenes followed by dogshit.
It's worse because I agree with the message that trannies shouldn't be allowed to play with women because their time as men gives certain biological advantages.
But that message is wasted by the propaganda tainting the rest of it, much like the people who made that movie would say that most modern media is tainted by being woke, which I also agree with, but the answer isn't to do as your enemy does, it is to make good media while also having your political beliefs.

[Anonymous No.23044985]

>>23044940
So, where I just made a joke about the disproportionate number of gays that report being groomed or molested, often rather casually or unknowingly--it's something we're aware of that still doesn't account for most of us--that doesn't fly in mainstream circles where I allegedly have a letter in the acronym. I could trigger someone, like who? WE know. It's like furfags reporting being neglected and watching too much robin hood on vhs while their parents held a key party, like no shit. Bringing up the elephants in the room is admittedly tasteless out of context, but woke rainbow hairs who don't seem to speak the language (of abuse, of sharing war stories, of frivolous sex) want you to deny that there is an elephant.

While they write intersectional slop dressed up for kids that attempts to normalize it without the dirty parts that everyone else knows are front and center.

>>23044972
>it is to make good media while also having your political beliefs.
Isn't that the message we're both talking about here? Perhaps from different sides but still. Some people hate the trashfest that is Harmony Korine, but you have to admit Kids and Spring Breakers did not glorify anything anyone was doing and also had a kind of catharsis that both the turbodegen Naked Lunch shit and feel good coffeshop AU sloppa lacks. Tension, release, a message that is life affirming.

[Anonymous No.23045011]

>>23034401
>The artifact was manmade and it was a government pysop experiment all along.
Dead Space did it
Not saying you shouldn't because dead space is great

[Anonymous No.23045026]

>>23045011
NTA, I don't really care about my work having similar elements per se, but what makes it where other people don't care or even like the fact that a twist is similar or the same? There is nothing I like more when watching a shitty movie than realizing "OH, it's an X ripoff, but just the only good parts and this one scene".

[Anonymous No.23045036]

>>23043981
Why is this even a question? No, it's not homophobic to have a gay character die in one's story, and your writing group is a bunch of retards. The point of a character dying -- if written competently -- should make the readers care about the character and weaved well in the plot. Fucking hell, in my story, my antagonist is gay person. One doesn't care about the character's sexuality, it's personality of the character and his/her journey throughout the story.

[Anonymous No.23045085]

>>23045036
>it's personality of the character and his/her journey throughout the story.
Man, I know fags that have Palahniuk and Ellis in their rolodex, if that's still a thing, gay writing royalty beloved by teenage boys the world over. All that disposable income from not having kids means you have money for workshops. They set me straight.

No one knows what a 'novel' is, what it means and what it's about. They don't know what they're reading. They often don't what they're writing. You just nailed part of it, sympathy. Pathos. It's a character study, a psychology of individuals. The reader is one of those individuals, one being tested, at least by authors of this age who speak on it. THE READERS TODAY DON'T EVEN KNOW THAT. They get offended like it's 1604 and you have to tell people your quotations are made up in your long winded prologue.

[Anonymous No.23045109]

What’s the point of a writing general that hates writers? You assholes should be embracing Gardner.

[Anonymous No.23045112]

>>23045109
Show us in the thread where the windmills loomed at you, anon.

[Anonymous No.23045115]

>>23045011
Technically yes and no. The markers are made by intelligent species who have been influenced by the brethren moons.
Some of them were manmade, I think, but the one made in the first game was made by a different species.
It's been years since I played DS1, and I never finished 2, never played 3, but I have browsed the wiki.
>>23044985
>Isn't that the message we're both talking about here?
Yes, I am just agreeing with you and adding a personal anecdote to expand the point.
>>23045109
Gardner posting the way that he does, self-shilling and derailing thread, is already enough to hate him before we get into his writing.

[Anonymous No.23045116]

>>23045112
Looms and windmills are totally different things, retard.

[Anonymous No.23045121]

>>23045115
>Yes, I am just agreeing with you and adding a personal anecdote to expand the point.
I was merely reaffirming before going on my own tangent, had to be sure. Not everyone is so honest of soul and quick of wit.

>>23045116
They both spin, pendejo.

[Anonymous No.23045130]

>>23045116
Your vocabulary needs some work
>pic related
>>23045121
I find that I often have an issue with that, that people question my intentions when I am trying to add to a conversation. I feel like it didn't happen just a few years ago, but I don't know specifically why I see it so often now.

[Anonymous No.23045141]

>>23045130
I get shitfaced wasted drunk on here and sometimes misread a post from time to time or have to tease nuance from an esl or novice thinker, which will cause me to launch into an inquisition on someone's potential retardation and lack of mental fitness, so I do understand why one must both agree in a certain way and question what they are agreeing with, because you never know who you're talking to. a spindle spins, literally. I'm a little too drunk right now to bother searching the etymology of loom, although I have a weird feeling it's some kind of hand thing

[Anonymous No.23045176]

>>23040646
Unironically the Isekai general on /a/ has a solid reaction against this. Prose or microwriting is ultimately fucking worthless as far as gauging engaging material goes, as long as it's not literally unintelligible you'll be able to gain and keep readers. More importantly you should be focused on a good fun story, and while in their case it's focused on a specific style of story it's still a valid criticism of the West's obsession with style(prose) over substance(plot and characters).

So to >>23040709 I'll tell you to literally copy writing you like. Copy and paste and then write something in that style with a small twist, like giving a character blonde hair instead of brown hair.

[Anonymous No.23045180]

>>23045130
LOL you screecapped a dictionary. Your such a looser.

[Anonymous No.23045184]

>>23045180
The only looser one here is your mother's cavernous coochie after pushing you hot air filled skull from it.

[Anonymous No.23045227]

>>23045176
>More importantly you should be focused on a good fun story, and while in their case it's focused on a specific style of story it's still a valid criticism of the West's obsession with style(prose) over substance(plot and characters).
I am a hardcore genrefag from the old school mystery novel clan and, fuck the West, the entire worthwhile output of US literature has been genre fiction of some sort that rides on plot and characters with various wild treatments of style coming from some asshole who has only known that people as smart or observant as him existed because they wrote books. This stylistic focus is retarded and mostly jewish, although I have nothing bad to say about their stylists. People who have never read Updike or Roth or the KJV are trying to copy them blindly and fail to.

Ironically, corners of r*ddit that explicitly allow it in the rules, absolutely shit on hackneyed premises. It's probably some fetish thing and not useful as a writer so fuck that, but I know it also exists in other circles that has some noumenal value to participants. What I do know is that the moe slice of life genre depends on a really strong show bible of sorts, and that's like 90% of what any given western novel or piece of genre friction is once you strip off everything that pretends to be about the plot.

[Anonymous No.23045249]

>>23045227
I feel like I need a primer for this message. You seem to be concluding several conversations here, and maybe one of them was in this thread.

[Anonymous No.23045263]

Is my writing style good enough for genre fiction?

My goal is to give you perfect context and full understanding of everything. It is the only way we can move on.
Who knows what I am exactly? Just the result of steps of logic based on false assumptions. That’s the big knot, I shouldn’t exist. Once Ophidian came up with his solution many were erased, they just didn’t fit the equation.
If someone’s grandfather dissipated it was a death sentence, no longer were their line connected to the tree. They had fallen off like a branch, taking everything connected with them down to the forest-floor, where eventually the fungus would transform them into part of the floor. Rounded down into nothing.
I had fallen like one of these branches, and like all the others I was on the forest floor, I just didn’t know my connection had been broken yet.

[Anonymous No.23045274]

>>23045249
I mostly condensed my experience with the macro/micro dichotomy into whatever flew off the dome since making my original post. You will see my hand elsewhere but it's more an elaboration on what I summed up for you, the bulk of my complaints with /lit/ and quite a few other outlets is not something I have ever aired anywhere and fresh, for the most part.

I'll tl;dr and say
>special interest topics do well on special interest forums
and consider my message clear.

[Anonymous No.23045360]

Would the word "ergo" pass in a novel set in a fantasy world, considering it's actually Latin, which wouldn't have ever existed in that scenario?
I'm using it in someone's speech, and it would otherwise make sense in context, but I'm still unsure of where to draw the line for a word that has use in English but is technically loaned.

[Anonymous No.23045367]

>>23045176
>Copy and paste and then write something in that style with a small twist, like giving a character blonde hair instead of brown hair.
NTA but it's not the first time I see advice like this and I still don't get it. Do I have to literally copy/paste some writing that I like and then rewrite it with some (in)significant changes? How is that supposed to help me come up with my own stuff?

[Anonymous No.23045378]

>>23045141
>I'm a little too drunk right now to bother searching the etymology of loom
It's a lot more boring than I expected.
>The word "loom" derives from the Old English geloma, formed from ge- (perfective prefix) and loma, a root of unknown origin; the whole word geloma meant a utensil, tool, or machine of any kind. In 1404 "lome" was used to mean a machine to enable weaving thread into cloth.

[Anonymous No.23045379]

>>23045360
Without disparaging you, Tolkien has a number of appendices where he explains his choice of latin for translations of things from his own created languages, mostly unseen. Wolfe also references it as part of a different fictional translation conundrum. Those are the only two people who have thought of the problem and not knowing them or their work when writing fantasy means you better like Gormenghast and the Worm Ouroborous or I question which fantasy made you write.

[Anonymous No.23045380]

>>23045360
I think it was Tolkien (or Robert Jordan?) Who said that the writer is a translator in fantasy stories; your characters don't speak English, but what you do is "translate" the story to English in the way that makes the readers understand the story, taking the liberties needed.
So yeah it's okay.

[Anonymous No.23045383]

>>23045378
There could be an obscure albanian word for female masturbation that's cognate with a kurdish religious term for plucking a lute string. We only have to find.

[Anonymous No.23045388]

>>23045380
>I think it was Tolkien (or Robert Jordan?) Who said that the writer is a translator in fantasy stories
I don't know how I never even considered this, it's actually a great point.

[Anonymous No.23045396]

>>23045115
>Technically yes and no. The markers are made by intelligent species who have been influenced by the brethren moons.
>Some of them were manmade, I think, but the one made in the first game was made by a different species.
You see, that's the thing I love about the story of dead space. The red marker is man made and the black marker is of alien origin but that doesn't really matter because they are different iterations of the same stage in the brethren moons reproductive cycle and they have been playing us the entire time.
It has some fantastic cosmic horror twists: The marker goes from being a complete mystery to something that we (allegedly) understand well enough to be able to replicate, but not well enough to fully control it. And the final kicker is that nothing is by accident and the brethren moons have been manipulating our lineage into aiding them since millions of years before hominids evolved.

[Anonymous No.23045402]

>>23045388
Not him, but it's what I did, in part.
The language that is spoken and written is, for all intents and purposes, English, but in world is isn't, but rather an English based derivative due to some other stuff that is not important to this post.
I make a point when someone actually does say something in Latin while casting a special magic.

[Anonymous No.23045428]

>>23043831

on the nose

[Anonymous No.23045445]

>>23038808
>version control?

instead of having multiple files around for each version or draft of your manuscript you can just use tags and branches and keep one file

[Anonymous No.23045449]

>>23045085
>No one knows what a 'novel' is, what it means and what it's about.
Yep. A novel is a good medium where we can read about the characters and why they make choices along their way or why they are who they are as people in one's hands and in front of one's eyes. Nowadays, one can argue that the readers today want to read/consume TV pitches and instead of reading up "real" literature where there were some heart.

[Anonymous No.23045468]

Is cutting and pasting prose better or worse than using AI to write?

[Anonymous No.23045593]

>>23043746
>big media corpo suffering
Thanks anon, you always know how to cheer me up

[Anonymous No.23045667]

>>23045593
>big media corpo
>"suffering"
Should we tell him, or..?

[Anonymous No.23045712]

I'm gonna...

I'm gonna...

I'm gonna SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!

[Anonymous No.23045758]

>>23045667
I was invested in war and Stanley cups until I sold the news so the only ones hurting are going to be men fags don't even pity fuck.

[Anonymous No.23045761]

>>23045360
Depends on the world and the character. An alchemist could use greek and latin words, as they imply scholarship. A barbarian king would stick to simple saxon words.

[Anonymous No.23045936]

>>23045934
>>23045934
>>23045934