Writing genre fiction with an audience is better than writing something noone will ever read.

Writing fiction that makes you not want to throw up is better than writing fiction based on algorithms.

Mods rejected my erotica, and now my mind’s a complete blank. Can any of you give me a writing prompt so I can start writing again?

I am trying to write a visual novel with some choices and branching paths and its killing me. Its hard enough to tell a linear story that is good.

>>23543618
>>23543665
Solution: develop completely pedestrian tastes and wholeheartedly enjoy writing cool dumb shit for the lowest common denominator

>>23543687
Autistic boy is bullied and ostracized, so he passes time alone and depressed in the library. The librarian mommy notices him and starts a relationship with him to cheer him up so he doesn't do a mass shooting like the FBI is trying to groom him into for the sake of their political agenda.
>>23543706
What's the moral or overall message of the visual novel? I think having a clear purpose or end in mind might help. A mind wandering senseless vs a man who knows whither he shall go so he can think up solutions to reach his destinations.

Rhetoric:
https://files.catbox.moe/3m2tzh.apkg
Critical Thinking:
https://files.catbox.moe/jesslo.apkg
I honestly recommend them. I think the knowledge in them is pretty useful.

Posting it here for those who haven't seen it.

>>23543687
What site?

>>23543706
First write a linear story and when that's ready, if it's ever ready, then you can add choices and other paths. That's the only sane way to do it.

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>>23543552
1

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>>23543552
2

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>>23543552
3

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4

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>>23543552
5

People go to the shopping centre to learn what is next going to be desirable. The windows of clothes are hung with the latest thing stitched in china. But mostly people go to shopping centres to take worried bites on dainty cakes. I think I should go outside and keep walking till I get to my work and start digging a hole big enough for myself and the other people with me. And I can stop digging when the hole is big enough for all of us and if the hole isn't big enough my children can keep digging the hole. It'll he good for them. Something to do for their 40 or so years of physical health but it'll be nice I'm sure in the middle of it they'll remember stories I told them about mountains being made of the same things that make hair and endless stream of them growing despite your best efforts, knoll, hillock, hill, mountain, cliff, fjord growing and sinking up and beside each other. As we shift the land around the seasons, the late spring dwarf mountains piled on top of ice.

Anyway, maybe they'll only remember this story this shallow thing that I crawl out of the hole with each evening after dragging the sun down with me into whatever depths I managed to dig that day

>>23543814
>Julian months
>Gregorian calendar
>Think you're clever changing anno domini to "her apotheosis".
>Tons of exposition
Just write, kai sat with her wrists conjoined together by metal bands.
More active voice would serve this narrative better

I would say even "wrists conjoined together by metal bands" sounds awkward as fuck.

>>23543850
I've found that I usually hate active voice 9 times out of 10 on account of the fact I almost exclusively read Victorian era literature and some postwar pomos like Pynchon and Gaddis.

Plot isn't the point of my stuff.

>>23543850
Her Apotheosis is the in world name for the enthronement of the ruling God Empress. Not trying to be clever. Also, Gregorian Calender is based af, no use trying to start another.
Exposition is the soul of literature. Modern literature does away with it because of goldfish brains.

I want to have my "I" protagonist leave and then come back and discover what happened when he was gone but im having some trouble because I want to describe these events in more detail from a narrator point of view.
Should I just charge ahead and do it or will the narration style change seem awkward? Alternatively would it be better if I go through it from the perspective of the character who experienced it first hand?
I want to avoid a longwinded section where the character tells the protagonist what happened for obvious reasons.
Any alternative suggestions welcome

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>>23543814
>>23543821
>>23543826
>>23543827
>>23543832
This is perfectly emblematic of the main problem of most writers here: You are all trying way too fucking hard. You are not whatever writer from the 19th century you idolize, you are (presumably) an amateur in the 21st century. Write exactly how you speak except when writing character dialogue. Use simple, direct, and comprehensible language. You don't have to go full Hemmingway and cut every unnecessary word, but shit like
>To wear the holy letters across her vogue was a trend that she so hated but still found herself adhering to for the sake of wishing to feel the presence of what she called, rather knew, Her Comforting Light, brush against her broken skin as if the words would head the bruises and scars that she writ herself upon her thighs as to know, rather than feel, the ever-presence of that unconscious collective maternal om.
is so fucking retarded that I'm amazed you can read it back and not cringe. Read that sentence aloud, say it in its entirety, and tell me that it's even comprehensible by the time you reach the end. Tell me you honestly think anyone knows what the fuck you're on about here, or that they would care by the time they reach the end. Tell me that if you read this in a reddit post you wouldn't make a thread about it here to laugh at the person who wrote it. Tell me that this sentence isn't easily 60% useless filler.

Like holy fuck man.

>>23543885
>Use simple, direct, and comprehensible language.
nta but there's no artistry in that

>>23543885
Stop telling people to stop being cringe. Cringiness is great.
Also there's a place for complex prose and simplistic prose as well. They're just different styles.

>>23543890
You are a dumb fuck and you don't know what art is.
Complexity is not art. Simplicity is not art. Medium is not art.
Meaning is art. Quality is art. Intention is art.
Vomiting words pulled directly from thesaurus.com into a run-on sentence is the exact opposite of creating meaning, quality, and intention. Only a pseudointellectual can't tell the difference between a complex, potentially difficult but ultimately meaningful and impactful sentence and what I quoted up there.
>>23543904
Shut the fuck up you stupid faggot and read the post. Christ you zoomer retards are some of the dumbest fucking retards I've ever had the displeasure of interacting with. You see ONE WORD, used properly, and flip out because your stupid digitally-addled brain has been conditioned like a goddamned monkey by Chinese psychowarfare. Fucking subhuman.

>>23543914
Making people like you seethe this hard means I'm doing something right. It's better than apathy.

>>23543921
HA got 'em

>>23543885
ooh do me next!

https://ctxt.io/2/AAAYngkGFg

>>23543866
It the anon you’ve replied, but I’m genuinely interested in your approach to writing. Any of your favorite books or writers you could recommend?
When I think of victorian english writers, I think the Brontës, Eliot, Hardy, Trollope, Carlyle, Tennyson, the Brownings, Dickens. Do you have some one you’d single out?

>>23544039
Anna Karenina is my favorite novel of all time. Tolstoy is my favorite author. I don't try to emulate him though, I do try to take character interiority and sincerity from him.

I also really love Middlemarch and Les Miserables. I love the opening scenes in Les Mis when Hugo introduces the bishop and I love that style of slow, passive writing that acts as a microcosm to the entire novel as a whole. Dickens is great too, but I find him a bit too plot focused. Jane Eyre is excellent.

Despite my love for Victorian literature, I find I take a lot of my style from Bolaño, Borges and especially Gaddis. I found Gaddis after I really began to write and it was like I found my twin. I think I'm closest in style to him. I love his long, detailed sentences and allusions. I'm also a huge fan of Proust, who taught me that the novel is more than the sum of it's parts. The big thing I've learned, given I write this stuff for myself and my actual ready to be published novels are closer to Tolstoy in plain, earthiness and simple prose, is that the novel is simply an expression of language and not every bit has to be immediately relevant. I want to mimic LSD when I write, which means I want everything to essentially be shown to the fullest extent of its possibility, which makes my work, admittedly, a bit psychotic. I work on it everyday. The bits I shared here are a year old and I rediscovered them and liked them so I shared them. It makes people seethe. Oh well.

>finish story
>feel empty inside
>start planning new one
>it's too hot to actually write it though

>>23544056
I remember reading Anna Karenina as a teenager and being amazed at how good it was; and then I reread it in my early 20’s and early 30’s and being in awe at how good it was and how much I appreciated about it.
I also read Eliot, Trollope, the Brontës, and a lot of the others I listed before (except Dickens: the only things I’ve read by him are Tale of Two Cities, Pickwick Papers and Little Dorrit), and I can see the mystique they hold over narrative technique.
Gaddis’ The Recognitions was the first book I read the summer after I graduated from uni and it became my driving force for the next ~5 years. It wasn’t until I was nearly 39 that I read JR and realized Gass’ introduction to TR rang so true I must’ve been playing dumb to the last decade: TR shows a world where the big questions are still valid and possible, but JR shows the world as it’s truly become.
Borges was also a big inspiration, as well as Rulfo and Onetti. I was always afraid of reading Bolaño in college because, like Pynchon, his novels always sounded like the kind of stuff I always wanted to write. I got over the anxiety of influence with Pynchon; but, despite owning a lot of Bolaño’s books, I have never read my of his works besides Nocturno de Chile and El Gaucho Insufrible.

>>23544090
*until I was nearly 30
I’m not even 35 yet

>>23544056
All these big names, and still you write like a 15-year-old, stumbling in your own trickery?

Open scene with a chase/fight before the protagonist even talk or after?

I am not sure whether i should include a conspiracy theory trope in my novel showing at the end, that the thesis was kind of a twist and that the protagonist was caught up in a global conspiracy. I feel like it would cheapen the message i am trying to pass across.

>>23536128
>>23536135
>>23536136
>>23536226
>>23541780
>>23541230
This is not how you write a book. You're getting completely lost in the details, while forgetting the purpose of what you're doing.
You don't paint something by starting with the details and then thinking about composition, you don't draw a human by drawing a really realistic eye and then the rest of the face.
You'll end up giving up, or take a really long time to make a giant mess.

Stories are simple, they get complicated later. But being too complicated for no reason is a bad thing, not a good thing, sorry. Write with a purpose, have a plan for the ending/event that everything is leading towards. Do not plan for a large amount of stuff to fill your story because you have big ambitions. It's better to come up with a single event, and then put in whatever ideas you're passionate about into that, rather than getting excited about a million things and then trying to somehow connect them all.

>>23544316
>you don't draw a human by drawing a really realistic eye and then the rest of the face.
Some teenage celebrity on youtube does exactly that though

Recently found the Patterson and Dan Brown masterclasses online for free. I want to summarize it here for /wg/ so they don't have to subject themselves to it.

First off, if you're a new writer, you could do worse. Patterson is all over the place with his advice, Brown is very systematic with this, but both have some useful nuggets whatever you may think of them or their writing. Both are fairly transparent about what they write (page-turners) and the experience they're trying to impart to the reader (momentary distraction/immersion). Both are surprisingly down-to-earth. They genuinely seem to love writing. Patterson used to write ad copy so he's very savvy with marketing and branding.

Both write thrillers and are therefore concerned with suspense and movement of plot. The idea of promises and payoffs is emphasized (Sanderson also talks about this a lot in his lecture series; it appears to be a universal of commercial fiction). Brown puts it this way: you should try to raise as many questions as possible in the first chapter and you should have answered every question by the end of the last chapter. The opening pages make a "contract" with the reader in which you promise to answer the questions you've raised if they just keep reading. The other two elements that Brown mentions are "clocks" and "crucibles" (the three C's). All this means is to put the protagonist under time pressure (Brown apparently confines his books to just 24 hours) and to prevent them from easily escaping their perilous situations. To keep raising questions, Brown recommends ending a chapter with withheld information, again promising the reader that the information will be given if they keep reading.

Patterson talks about the same techniques, albeit more vaguely. He stresses the ideation phase a lot more (again drawing on his marketing background) and suggests keeping a database of ideas (for him, a physical folder) which you can frequently browse and add to.

For use some kind of outlining as part of their process. Patterson seems to use it more heavily than Brown, but Brown's system is more methodical. Patterson's process is similar to what McKee recommends in his book, Story, just lists of scenes to start. Each scene is a sentence or two containing just enough to explain what it is and how it will propel the reader to the next scene. He'll revise this outline several times, ordering the scenes, adding twists, writing notes to himself, and generally trying to increase the stakes/tension/suspense with every pass. Finally, he writes the first entire draft all in one go (usually in a month), putting TBD on any chapter or section that he's blocked on, doing this through multiple drafts if necessary. He emphasizes rewriting as the actual meat of the process and as the thing that separates amateurs from pros.

Brown has a 13 step process which he goes through in one video to generate a brand new thriller idea from scratch.

1/2

>>23544351
1/2

Step one: choose a world and find its gray area. Brown is very location driven in his narrative. He first focuses on a specific "world", e.g the world of winemaking, then explores its moral gray areas for possible conflicts he can use, e.g the use of pesticides, alcoholism, land rights, etc. He then picks one to serve as the main situation for his protagonist. Step two: make the protagonist. The protagonist is derived from the world, generally someone of unusual capability in that world, but who is down on his luck in some way to make him sympathetic to the reader. Step three: make the villain. The villain has to serve as both the clock and the crucible, forcing the protagonist to take action. Step four is to check that you have the three C's. Brown recommends actually putting them on the page for the reader--even the contract. Step five: figure out the opening. The opening has to introduce the protagonist, world, and conflict and raise as many questions as possible. Step six: fast forward to a general sense of the ending based on what you have so far, just the "what". The "how" can be thought through in detail later.

Step seven: brainstorm/research some locations. Brown structures his novels based on interesting locations (almost like a theme park) and lets those locations suggest the scenes. E.g a giant wine press machine could be the site where someone is crushed to death. A well-guarded corporate high rise could be a place the protagonist needs to break into. Step eight: add supporting characters. These characters should heighten the contrast of skills and raise more questions. A common trick is to add a romantic interest of opposite skills to raise the question of "will they/won't they". Step nine: escalate the stakes. Pretty self-explanatory, the story should push the needle the longer it proceeds, almost always coming to the point of life vs. death. Step ten: build the obstacles. Again you can use the locations as obstacles but this step is more about figuring out how the protagonist overcomes those obstacles and how the story might continue as those obstacles are overcome. Step eleven: occasionally remind the reader of what's at stake for the protagonist. Step twelve: motivate the characters to move from location to location. Finally, step thirteen: make sure every question has been answered.

Patterson also gives some advice on publishing: you should remain persistent (his first novel was apparently rejected 31 times before it went on to win #1 novel of year). You should get an agent. A good place to look are the acknowledgement sections of books in your genre. A good query letter is important. Something that clearly makes a case for publishing your book--and not all publishers care all the time about best-sellers, some also want to publish stuff that will win literary awards (this explains the current shitshow in literary fiction--the awards have been hijacked by identity politics).

>>23543890
The artistry is in the message, dressing up a turd muddle the message.

>>23543724
Here’s my attempt at your prompt. I don’t know where to go from here, but I suppose it’s a start:

(1)

The boy stood as tall as he was wide, his powerful shoulders set close together. His belly protruded like a gorilla’s, and his gait resembled that of an ape—head thrust forward, back hunched, swaying with primal rhythm. His small, dark eyes held a hungry, restless glint—a feral fire often concealed by the shadow of his fat, brooding brows, making him appear dull and harmless despite his imposing stature.

It was this feigned dullness that made him fall victim to bullying. And it was his deep patience for those he deemed smaller and weaker than himself that made him bear the brunt of it without flinching or fighting back. The adults deemed him a poor, dim-witted creature—one who needed protection from the endless jeering of his classmates. But the boy knew better. He was no prey animal in need of protection; rather, he was a smoldering magma contained within flesh and bone.

Deep within him burned a bestial rage—an inferno that threatened to consume everything in its path, including himself. He understood the consequences of losing control: no human force could hope to stop him except the cold metal of a bullet. His powerful hands could snap a grown man’s neck like brittle twigs, and his feet could grind bones into dust. If he were to lose control, they would put him down like a wild animal.

So he suppressed the rage that surged within him, burying it deep in his heart—not out of fear of death, but to protect his poor mother’s soul. A boy’s sins, he wagered, reflected tenfold upon their parents. Only a man could shoulder full responsibility for his actions. With that in mind, he stoically endured every insult and taunt that came his way, counting down the days until freedom. Soon, he would escape the confines of rules and constitutions, and the grim concrete jungle, with its trash-strewn streets, would welcome him. There, his formidable strength would find purpose, allowing him to fight, kill, and rule as men had done since time immemorial. Until then, he remained ever patient, ever restless within his skin.

In the final years of his high school days, the boy found solace in the dim hall of the library. Children of the Internet age found little use for ancient tomes and the moldy yellow pages they held within. The few who frequented the library typically occupied the lower floor, either monopolizing the aging computers or gathering at the round tables to discuss their studies, futures, and romance. Few would venture to the second floor, and fewer still would navigate the labyrinthian shelves to find the boy sitting huddled on the gray mattress floor like a great gorilla with a thick book in hand. But one must always keep in mind that “few” doesn’t mean “none.”

“What are you doing, sitting here in the dark?” A sweet voice came from above the boy.

>>23544386
(2)

He didn’t need to glance up to picture the librarian standing over him, a gentle smile gracing her features—the kind one might reserve for addressing a pet. In his mind’s eye, he traced the faint creases at the corners of her cherry-red lips and the soft strands of light brown hair framing her pale countenance. And he had no trouble seeing the soft mounds undulating beneath her white blouse, kept firm and erect by the black brassiere that showed through the thin fabric. So vividly was her image etched in his mind that he felt no need to look up from his book.

“Reading,” the boy said from beneath his shadowed face.

“You’ll ruin your eyes reading like this. You’ll also ruin your back. Trust me, I know a thing or two about bad eyes and a bad back. Come on, up you go.”

The librarian tugged at the boy’s shirt, but one would need a forklift to move him if he didn’t want to be moved. In this instance, he felt no reason to budge. The gray carpet where he sat was nice and soft, far superior to the small plastic chairs in the library. And the letters of his book remained perfectly legible until the librarian came and blocked his light with her voluptuous form. If she would only go away, it would be so again.

The boy didn’t voice this opinion. He simply sat and waited as the librarian tugged, pulled, and reasoned with him. With endless patience, he was certain she would eventually give up and leave of her own volition. Or the bell would ring, and he would return to class, where the tiny, noisy children were waiting to test his patience. Either outcome seemed reasonable and unworthy of raising his voice in protest.

I know this is hard to answer without specifics, but when, generally, should you leave out a formative initiating event and start with the more relevant one that kicks off the main plot? I think I'm about to answer my own question.

The protagonist had a falling out with a friend and changed his whole personality and outlook because of it. It's not the sole cause of who he is or why he's doing dumb, illegal shit with charismatic weirdos, but it does have some keys to it. It also just fucking haunts him the whole story. What are the benefits of putting it up front vs buried somewhere later vs distributed piecemeal (I don't like that one).

>>23544429
You can bury it until it becomes known to the character. It can work up front as a character study that the character is oblivious to, but I don't think that we naturally tell stories that way. If it haunts him, does he know what it is that haunts him? When you do it that way, it's usually a dead friend, and that's played out but the device itself isn't.

Move it closer to the realization and see what happens.

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>>23543552
I'm working on a military sci-fi story that heavily features mecha and I'm trying to decide how much I want to focus on the physical description of the mechs. Natural, the bulk of mecha fiction is reserved for more visual mediums, and I'm wondering if I can get away with a descriptor of their general silhouette plus a major defining feature like the shape of the head or the primary weapons.

>>23544562
maybe for inspiration/reference, you can see how and to what extent warplanes and tanks are described in military fiction. I know it's not 1:1 but I think you'd be surprised how much you can get away with not describing

>>23544562
You should pander to mech autists as hard as you can, because nobody else is going to read it.

I feel the less self aware my writing becomes the more free I feel to do whatever I want. My writing is mostly in a conversational tone, and not many figures of speech.

What's a smart way to have a character know something about another character (main) early on (but having it revealed to the main character and reader only way later) without making it a "teehee I happened to be passing by and eavesdropped on you".

There's a written letter element in the middle of all this, but using it for this effect seems too obvious and cliche.

>>23544600
Have them ask a seemingly innocent question and then later the main character will go like, so that's why he asked me that question.

My characters in my story are larger than life and talk like cartoon characters. How do you give characters a unique voice without going this extreme?

>>23543618
lol. Just accept you’re a simpleton. Real writers don’t have magical pixie dust as a plot point.

>>23544711
You have a very narrow view of fantasy. It's not all Tolkien-inspired D&D ripoffs. You betray your ignorance.

>>23544732
Just because some stupid tween shit like Eragon was the most profound book you’ve read doesn’t mean it’s actually good. You’re just a retard.

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>>23543552
How do I maintain emotional energy to finish out a book. I'm 41k into a first draft, over half way done with the entire back end planned out. But I've gotten to know the characters so much better and really let loose with letting them emote and vibe through trying times. But I find it a bit exhausting. It's like an entire universe's highs and lows are burning through my brain and it's a bit much. Pic related, it's how I'm trying to be.

On the upside, I'll be in a much better place to strengthen the characters when I do my second draft.

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>>23544761
You're seething madly. I don't even read fantasy that often. The last fantasy-esque work I read was "Jade City" by Fonda Lee. Nothing to do with D&D or Tolkien at all. Your mind is pudding; you're lost in a world of ghosts.

>>23544512
>I don't think we naturally tell stories that way.
That was my problem with it, it's reading too much like a biography. But I don't want it to be a hecking epic surprise twist, because it isn't that either.

Should I take a break from continuing my story to rewrite a section that I am 100% sure will get rewritten eventually?

>>23544914
Allow yourself one singular rewrite. Is this the single thing you want to do over, or do you want to pocket it for later? I had a small bit I needed to re-write but I didn't want to get bogged down, so I told myself I get one do-over for something I wrote.

>>23544922
As of right now, it's the only section that I am absolutely certain will get a rewrite. It won't change the story, just change a section to first person, since it's a character relaying their account of events.

>>23544914
If you're going to rewrite it, then you should probably rewrite it with complete knowledge of the story. And once you're done, there will be a lot of other things that you'll want to change, so you should probably do that all in one pass for the sake of consistency.

Would I use quotation marks here?
>The building next to that one, an inn by the name of “The Lone Oak Suites”, caught his attention.

>>23545007
I think it works without quotation marks

>>23544993
This, the only time I'd rewrite something while working on a draft is if it is serving as a model for what comes before or after it.

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Think I'm ready to start posting a new web novel project at RR starting next week. I'm probably wasting my time since it's mostly conventional fantasy and not litrpg or isekai or wuxia or xianxia, but it turned out more fun than expected. My stories tend to get too bleak and grim, but this has some nice moments in it too. It's probably the comfiest thing I've written since childhood.

Maybe at least a few people will like it.

>>23543552
Hi, I want to write a female character who's a military officer and whose parents didn't love her enough, in contrast with a male character who's more cultured but more naive as well.
I want to make it come out in their mannerisms and language that one is the arm and one is the brain, but I'm not sure how obvious and marked I can make that be before it becomes corny.
Would she use "vulgar" and "presumptuous" in an insult?
Would he, if only just to sound smarter to her?
Would she be visibly annoyed at the fact that she doesn't speak as many languages as him?
Would he constantly talk using a higher register, or speak about the same way as her most of the time?
What do you think, please and thank you.
>>23545007
No.
>>23544914
I'd not, rather spend some time on an outline if you want to take a break from the main story.
>>23544794
A book ends at some point, but image what more cool things you might do in your next book with these new ideas.
>>23544600
Someone close to you told me.
>>23544562
I don't see why should be very specific, but then again, I'm not a nerd.

>>23545179
Does conventional fantasy do well on RR or is it mainly the genres you mentioned like litrpg that get traction?

>>23544111
Without more context, I'd say do it after. The opening scene should reflect what your story is about as a whole and who your main character is. If you just throw him into a fight without us getting to know him at least a little first it will be hard to care about the fight. Opening action scenes work well for movies, but it's harder in books. But if fighting is a critical component to your character, like he's a boxer or superhero then maybe it would work. Like if it is Batman, the less talking he does the better, usually. His actions show who he is. But in Batman novels they usually narrate his thoughts too.

>>23545284
It used to do well. If you look at the all-time best rated lists, many top-rankers are non-meme fantasy. But they've become rare guests on the trending lists in recent years. There are exceptions too, but those are usually by authors who already have a big following from their earlier works. My expectations are low.

>>23545272
>"vulgar" and "presumptuous"
depends. did she (over)hear someone calling her vulgar and presumptuous or something? depending on the rest of her characterisation, she might never insult another person in this way/on things she's insecure about, and instead insult people on things that she DOESN'T "suffer" from. maybe she never gives up and will call out people for giving up too easily, that sorta thing?
>would he
if he really is more "cultured" (depends on your definition of this...) then probably not. if he's simply more educated and feels like that's all he's got going for himself, then maybe
>visibly annoyed
corny, she's not a cartoon character. if it bothers her that much, maybe she changes the subject to something she's more knowledgeable about
>higher register
possibly. or he could dumb it down and be patronising. maybe give his overall characterisation more thought first

>>23544351
>>23544354
Interesting, thanks.

> putting TBD on any chapter or section that he's blocked on, doing this through multiple drafts if necessary. He emphasizes rewriting as the actual meat of the process
Pretty much what I do. Just endless drafts, rewrites, and revisions. I always thought it was inefficient but if this guy does it too then I guess I'm okay.

I do my the opposite as Brown. Character first, then build the world around them. I just find it more interesting what the person and their problem is about rather than the world. I suck at worldbuilding though. Guess it works for his style of book, those steps.

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Hi guys, I've decided I want to try a litrpg, because that seems to be where the money and readers are these days. Please give feedback on my first chapter and be kind because I'm new to the genre.

>Wrote 2500 words about the introduction of my secondary protagonist
>Let them cool for a day
>On reread, realize it's a whole lot of nothing, because none of these characters will come back in the story later, and I should just go straight into the meat of it.

>>23545341
Its a funny parody I guess. It made me chuckle a bit.

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>>23543618
>he thinks that writing genre guarantees him an audience

>>23545352
Save editing for the editing stage. Stay in freeform mode. Acknowledge the critical thoughts and consciously set them aside. Save them for later.

>>23545393
That's not even logic. That's barely even jumping to conclusions. No wonder you're such a failure at life.

>>23545352
Edit and refine this before moving forward. The act of editing like this is building essential muscles as a writer.

Editing IS writing. And every piece only has one chance at a first impression/first 500 words for readers to either read on or drop you.

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>>23545434
>you're such a failure at life.
lol

>>23545417
>>23545437
That's my opinion as well. I wrote the words, I know now why they don't work, I will edit them (as much as I will edit a first draft, so I can excuse my stiff dialogs, shitty names and spotty paragraphs, but I try to at least have the rythm down).

>>23545462
>That's my opinion as well.
But anon... those other two anons submit contradictory points.

>>23545341
Kino

>>23545467
Yes I agree. I'm tired, I just wanted to quote the second one, sorry

I have no idea why anyone would want to read a story that involves showing actual stats. It works for a game because they are numbers you can control. You get a rush seeing the numbers go up. Just seeing other people's numbers does nothing for me.

>>23545486
It's for retards who have been raised on video games and never actually read a fantasy book.

>>23545486
It's like Dragonball power levels, it's an easy way to compare and quantify strength of a character in an objective manner and also show growth
>Character A has 100 power level, Character B has 1000, Character C has 100000
>Know from a glance that there's a huge gap between them immediately
>Don't have power levels, have to come up with some other way of showing that Character C is worlds stronger than even B
It's the same reason xianxia novels use different levels of cultivation to give a general idea of how strong each character is without having to go into much detail about them. Granted I'm not saying it's a good system, but in the scope of them basically writing shonen anime, it does make sense.

>>23545520
I still have no idea what "Cultivation" is desu

>>23545525
think alchemy but your soul is the project
godhood is the goal and you're basically adding exp to yourself until you ascend

>>23545520
>Character A - defeated by bug
>Character B - defeats bug
>Character C - defeats elephant

>>23545525
It's the process of trying to reach godhood through means of controlling qi, whether that be eating pills of different alchemical materials, researching manuals for different techniques, or meditating for thousands of years. It's basically level grinding but without video game elements, so you can see how it inspired LitRPG and other similar stories on Royal Road.

>>23545525
Its like spiritual martial arts with tiers of power like its a game but not quite a game. It increases in level of power are extreme. The protagonists from what I see normally seem pretty neutral most of the time and easy to self insert to, characters like Meng Hao, Linley Baruch, and Ji Ning are examples of this. They start very weak and then get really powerful by the end.
Traditional chinese medicine somehow makes its way into this and is often the power system of these stories with pills and herbs in them. There's something with qi, meridians, qigong, etc.

All around, it sounds cool like this. But the execution of many of these stories is just power fantasy wank that doesn't really explore deeply into his. I hear there's some stuff that isn't just like this, but most of this stuff is pretty formulaic.

Jeremy Bai (also known as Deathblade online) wrote a book called understanding chinese fantasy that delves deeper into these things. He's a translator, and the one that worked on I Shall Seal the Heavens.

>>23545552
>>23545546
These are right too.

If there's anything western fantasy should copy from xianxia.xuanhuan, it should be flying on swords like they are hoverboards. That's really cool

>There are many ancient Chinese texts that could be classified as xianxia, such as the Classic of Mountains and Seas from the Warring States period.[7] Xianxia novels were popularized during the Republic of China period, but it was the 1932 novel Legend of the Swordsmen of the Mountains of Shu that sparked the modern popularity of the genre.[8]

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>>23545552
>>23545561
>>23545591
its popularity makes perfect sense in the sinosphere but i don't know how it got such a huge following in the west, especially vs wuxia

it's the equivalent of a genre based heavily on hermeticism and kabbalah or any other obscure esoterica surpassing sword and sorcery

>>23544794
>with the entire back end planned out
this may be your problem. if you have a destination in mind with some plot points imagined along the way, good. if you have a checklist of this scene will go to this scene will go to this scene with no room for deviation you may have inadvertently sucked the fun out

>>23544351
>>23544354
thanks a lot for sharing
these seem much more structured and systematic than neil gaiman's masterclass

I can't get into Chinese fantasy. The names are just too foreign looking to connect to. And the whole concept of reincarnating into a god just seems too outlandish. Just give me some medieval not-Europe setting with a swordsman fighting a dragon.

>>23545598
I doubt anyone who reads cultivation really cares about its roots in Chinese mysticism, the cultivation is just a framework that allows for straightforward power progression and in turn more of a sense of power fantasy. Same reason for the explosion of popularity of isekai in both the East and West, there's a general feeling of lacking control in their lives, so people flock to stories where they can imagine that's not the case.

>>23545460
you've never read "the ant and the grasshopper", have you. https://www.read.gov/aesop/052.html

>>23545618
So I have more of a "vision" or set of way points to get through, not so much a checklist. And each time I hit a way point, each of the following ones change and shift as I'm going. Its not a matter of fun, I'm having a blast. It's more, these characters turned out to be a bit more touchy feely emotive than I thought, and writing through that is a bit emotionally exhaustive, especially as the plot goes through moments of interpersonal hardship. I find it hard to write an emotion without feeling it myself.

And yes, I realize I might be writing a soap opera for men. A schlocky, pulpy, sci fi soap opera with some moments of gun fights.

>>23544351
>>23544354
Interesting ideas, thanks so much for summarizing

is joss whedon a good writer? i know the internet kind of made fun of him for a while, but how good are his stories?

>>23545312
Thank you for your input.
She didn't hear anybody call her anything, rather the dynamic between these two characters is that they need to do a job together because they each have skills the other lacks, but the woman is annoyed at how the man seems to try and make her feel stupid at every possible chance, while the man is annoyed at how the woman doesn't seem to respect him or his expertise one bit.
The woman didn't get enough love from her parents, so she enlists in the army to prove to her father, a retired Navy LTCR, that she can make it on her own; she's dangerously attracted to a CIA operative who reminds her of her father.
The man is cultured in the sense that he's seen the world, grew up making lots of different experiences and learning about the arts on top of the sciences, but he has a lot less experience than his colleague/partner at what they're doing, she's a military officer with field experience after all.

>>23545627
plus dragon ball and berserk already btfod the fuck out of that trope, i doubt any other story can do better than that without appearing too juvenile

>>23545658
Not great on the whole, other than having strong, static sitcom characters that still have some room for growth and development. His dialog is solid and the quips work in his own series; it's the copies where it went to shit. He did some solid arcs with Buffy and something in there is greater than the sum of its parts. I don't think he's awful but it's hard to judge outside of nerd soap operas, which aren't great on the whole. His writing was part of what made tv dramas start being taken seriously in spite of the acting and schlock premises.

which action scenes from books have you learned from?

How is magic usually written in fantasy stories? Characters' hands glow, sparkles come out, and the person is healed? Or do most writers tend not to discuss the special effects aspect and make it invisible? What do fantasy fans expect/want?

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How can one fix their vampire habits? I cant write during the day, I spend most of it either working, studying and the few moments left I have are used to try and relax from it all, at the end of the day I only have after 11pm as time for myself. I kept this up for a while but now im simply incapable of writing during the day, I feel uninspired, the words arent quite hitting as good, overall my writing is better st night. Is my brain wired to only being capable of creative endeavours at night and if so how do I fix this, I have been too sleepy lately...

>>23546000
Here was some half-schizo shit I found on the topic a few days ago https://gwern.net/morning-writing

Does anybody have any advice/books to read on writing from a child's perspective/children's dialogue/child psychology? I'm writing something that has large portions set in the protagonist's youth but I want it to be convincing.

>>23546021
simplify, simplify

>>23546021
Read and study the book Stand Before Your God.

I love em dashes—they make me physically aroused.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
em dashes yeah

>>23546000
I know it sounds like mumbo jumbo but: yoga nidra, also known as NSDR (non-sleep deep rest)

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My MC uses a sword that floats a ways from the hand

I based it off of Vivec's Sword Not Held but I don't know what to call it, I like the sound of the Sword Not Held but I don't want to rip off of it.

>>23546072
Have been.

>>23546171
Thanks, will do. I forgot to mention in my post; for inspiration so far I've read
>Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
>The Sound and the Fury
>Confessions of a Mask (currently reading)
I'm starting to wonder if reading a book written by a child would be good.

>>23546021
Just hang out in a playground for long periods and listen to how kids talk. They're surprisingly intelligent compared to popular belief.

>>23543885
>>23544362
If you can't see the beauty of this then I don't know what to tell you.

>The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellissed panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling.

>>23546333
>hang out in a playground for long periods
not an option for the creepy NEETs here on 4chan. they'll get beaten by suspicious fathers

>>23546538
Just bring a newspaper and pretend to read it but poke eye holes in the front. Very inconspicuous.

>>23546593
What's a newspaper?

>>23546248
sounds similar to the dnd spell Spiritual Weapon
in mine I called the weapon a character gets a spirit weapon because he can summon and dismiss it at will to his hands, and it can change form each time it's summoned. the name was definitely influenced by the dnd spell, but it's slightly deeper in that the weapon is bonded to his spirit.
call it whatever. nothing new under the sun

>>23546289
reading a children's book would be the best choice. I'd recommend Roald Dahl, but that's just because I like him and he has a bunch of child protagonists

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How do I write a good fight scene with swords?

>>23543872
Can someone help pleasee
Tl:dr its about switching narration from I to omniscientish narrator and back again

>>23543872
Why do you think the protagonist and the reader need to learn at different times?

>>23546738
I do not know, but I can imagine you would want to focus less on the visual of how the fight would look to a bystander, and focus on how holding the sword feels to the user. Its weight, the awkward balance of swinging it, the sounds they make, maybe the wielder's thoughts of what type of swing to make next. I've never read or done one, so those are just guesses, but if you purely describe the action it won't have as much impact as it would watching a movie.

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>>23546738
How about you start by reading your own picrel.

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Oh boy, it happened again. A person-shaped hole appeared in my story and it was so perfectly outlined that I didn't actually have to be creative to fill it in. I just wrote down the obvious attributes of the hole, like
>male
>soldier
>mid 20s
>X, Y, and Z personal connections
> A and B aspirations
>1 major motivator
>2 major twists in life
>1 major turning point
>4 major outcomes

And each of those things links up to something else I've already written so all I have to do is come up with how the characters interact in those scenes, which is the fun part.

The best part is this character links to 2 characters that also haven't been fleshed out much, and just by linking them a lot of things have been nailed down about them, which in turn nails down other things about them, and so on and so forth.

>>23546905
cool snail

>>23546875
I've read the entire thing years ago. The only fights I remember were against sorcerers, and monsters either made his sword useless or he would quickly end whatever is in front of him in a gory fashion. I am not sure if there are any prolonged melee fights in there, as I can't remember. Though now that I'm skimming it, I can tell that a good sword fight needs non-sword action to spice it up.

>>23546945
Watch videos of historians that show how real swordfights went. I heard a lot of them resorted to kicking.

I just started lurking in these threads to glean some insight and advice and I've been meaning to ask your guys: do you read a lot or very little while you write? I don't mean the reading you do as research, I mean for fun or recreation, or just general interest.

>>23547012
when drafting, no. I don't want to contaminate my voice. when editing a draft or when I'm on break, sure.
I spent years and years reading books, I've read a lot of them, so taking a break to write is no big deal.

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A curvy, red company logo found its way into Sawyer's feed. He instinctively glanced around his shoulders, a vestigial behavior born of a long time ago, muscle memory that told him to check whether a parent or a sibling might catch him with his pants down using the family computer. He clicked Easy Apply.

The next logo was more austere, more conservative, modest. He figured it was probably something insurance related. They were trying to project reliability, stability, tradition. Sawyer was already fantasizing about the possibilities, about this one being the One, about a long and fruitful partnership. This company wasn't just another notch on the resume, a year that you could use to monkey branch for more Benjamins. He applied.

Up next was a familiar logo, a legacy company. This was the sort of place where decades of ancient code still ran every day on some mainframe, where boomers had created job security for themselves by learning domain knowledge and by using languages no one under the age of forty knew. He licked his lips, drinking in the MILF-y aesthetic, and applied. Not his type, really, but he wasn't in a position to choose. COBOL was superior to thumb twiddling. A cougar was superior to unemployment.

Sawyer didn't even read the applications anymore. All he saw was blonde, brunette, redhead. When he closed his browser he checked the time and realized he must have just applied to a few hundred jobs on LinkedIn over the past couple hours. He told himself to keep his chin up, that it was only a numbers game. But that reassurance didn't change the fact that it was Friday night and his dry spell was unbroken and he was more blueballed than he'd ever been.

>>23547114
>tindermeiser
supposed to be tindermeister

>>23546945
I don’t see many books with a prolonged, detailed sword fight where every blow is spelled out. Usually, it’s a smaller part of a larger action sequence.

Anon lunged with his blue blade glinting in the candle light. Swiftly, I parried his attack with my own sword, and we danced in a chaotic whirl of steel that sliced through the dim hall. His agility rivaled that of a leaping frog, and his raw strength bordered on madness. I strained to match his frenzied attacks, but he was pushing me toward the stone wall, where his blade would surely taste my blood—unless I think fast . . .

Or in the case of a light novel, there would be some random jackass standing on the sideline, explaining the backstory of every secret move between swings.

>>23547012
I barely read anything, ever. I watch animes. It helps me to key in which tropes are overused and don't work, and also to better visualize how I want my characters and scenes to look.

>>23546669
I think I'll call it the Ungripped Blade. Quick and short and gets to the point.

Has anyone here published with readict?
https://www.readictnovel.com/getpublished
Seems like it might be slightly more fun than being a copywriter

>>23547012
I read 87 books in 2023

>>23547019
>>23547138
If you don't inhale books daily you are a terrible writer

>>23547207
99% of books, or any medium, aren't worth inhaling and will only make you adopt bad habits.

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>>23547194
Yeah bro can't wait to get published here, it's going to be my springboard.

>>23547194
>As a writer, you will be provided with an outline and character descriptions from which to work.These books will be ongoing, and Readict will own all the intellectual property rights in perpetuity.
Obvious content farming aside, with a premise like that you’d think the site would be full of furry smut. But it’s just your usual Wattpad billionaire / werewolf nonsense—but somehow worse and more sanitized.

>>23546813
The reader follows the protagonist, the protagonist does something, then leaves and comes back to discover what happened while he was gone.
I want to avoid having the character tell the protagonist through dialogue and have the reader see what happened through third person perspective, but Im not sure how to leave the protagonist for this and then go back to protagonist first person perspective after.

Basically narration style switch advice, Ive considered going to the POV of the character central in the event but it feels a bit stilted when I try.
I was really tired when i made that post so it probably wasnt as clear as it could have been

>>23547305
I don’t know what kind of book you’re writing, but here are a few methods I’ve seen:

- In light novels, the writers don’t give two shits about maintaining a consistent POV. They will write one section in the first person and immediately switch to the third person when they feel like it.
On my way to school, I bumped into my classmate Kek-chan. We talked briefly before she ran off in the opposite direction of the school. “Guess somebody’s skipping class today.” I shrugged and moved on.
***
Kek-chan knew something big was happening—or was going to happen—in the middle of Tokyo. She couldn’t explain it, but she always had this strange feeling when something was about to go down, and over the years, she learned to trust it.

- Next, you have the contemporary method of stating the character’s name before going inside their head.
Anon
On my way to school, I bumped into my classmate Kek-chan. We talked briefly before she ran off in the opposite direction of the school. “Guess somebody’s skipping class today.” I shrugged and moved on.
Kek-chan
I knew something big was happening—or was going to happen—in the middle of Tokyo. I couldn’t explain it, but I always had this strange feeling when something was about to go down, and over the years, I learned to trust it.

- Then there’s the classic “I didn’t know this at the time, but this is what happened.”
On my way to school, I bumped into my classmate Kek-chan. We talked briefly before she ran off in the opposite direction of the school. “Guess somebody’s skipping class today.” I shrugged and moved on. Unaware that Kek-chan was heading into danger…

>>23543872
Maybe read Bolaño's Savage Detectives for inspiration? That's the only thing that comes tom mind rn, besides some Gothic Victorian Novels and maybe Poe where someone introduces an interesting subject to a novice, leaves, then comes back to horror.

>>23547380
What im struggling with specifically is for the mc to start a conversation with Important Supporting Character and then tell the reader what happened in third person before going back to the mc talking to ISC with it being clear he was just told what happened, basically the way a lot of movies solve that specific situation

>>23547442
Chapter 1
… and then I sat down and listened to his story.

Chapter 2
Yes, I did it. I shat on your lawn. It all started last Friday, after we met up for dinner at Applebee’s…
Alternatively:
He said it all started last Friday, after we met up for dinner at Applebee’s…

Chapter 3
“You bastard, how could you?” I jumped up and screamed at him with all the indignation I could muster.

>>23547380
Honestly I think a fun way to do it would be switching POVs, but not immediately telling the reader. Write with different characterization for the new perspective character, then after a few pages clue the reader in on what's happening and whose perspective you're seeing if they haven't caught on already. That sort of moment sticks with a reader, so if you do it right it could be one of the highlights of the book.

>>23547456
This was one of the first things I considered, but I thought it might seem confusing and inconsistent if that was something that only happened once and then never again. But hearing it from an outside perspective I think you might be right about it being a good thing. I will write it out and see how it turns out, it will be obvious Ive switched character (and to which) very quickly but that might also just be more of a good thing than anything else.
I also felt like it might make the reader expect the narrative to switch again even though I dont plan on it, but I suppose that doesnt really matter even if it does.

>>23547455
In this case it would be more like

Ch 1
And then he told me what happened after I left.

Ch 2
After everything had happened funny guy ova heee' on 4chan got smacked in the head with a paddle for his crimes and was then laid to rest outside Applebees, his favorite restaurant, out of respect for his fawtah.

And then Ch 3 is where I have an issue with the smooth transition. Just going something like

Ch 3
I stared at the yankees game while I took the new information. So much had changed.
"So what, fuckin applebees is haunted now?"

or

"Hmmm I see"

Seems a bit inelegant, although it mostly gets the job done.

>>23544351
>>23544354
All these words and made-up terminology just to say "WRITE EXCITING, NOT BORING". Whoa, messiah!

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>tfw I lost my sense of imagination after I took Fluanxol
I can't write anymore, fellas. What should I do to get my imagination back? At this point, I will never finish my biker novel.

>>23545361
>>23545472
thanks, do you think it'd fly on RR?
>>23545486
you should read the one I posted

Is there some AI tool out there that could check your work for similarities with other works of literature in the language? I'd hate to be completely unoriginal or even unintentionally and independently echo some exact phrase and have it look like it was lifted.

>>23547550
>sense of imagination
What do you mean? Are you actually unable to visualize now like in the apple meme?

>>23547700
Why care?
Worry about someone reading your shit before you worry about plagiarism.

Im just starting out writing and whipped this up, is there any glaring issues?
>It was while it was pissing down, as Joe left the damp discomfort of his cramped apartment, that he had come to a sudden, terrible realization; his left shoe had a mighty hole in the soul that was allowing a deluge of filthy puddle water to completely envelop his tattered left sock. He took solace in the fact that his right shoe’s integrity remained unperturbed. It was the small victories, in contrast to the overwhelming defeats he seems to suffer, that helped him get by moment-to-moment. You see, Joe had a terrible secret. He was late for a train, a very specific train with no destination, or at least he didn't care where he was going. This journey he was about to take was to remedy some of the issues he had been facing as of late. One such issue was a chronic lack of sleep which he now put down to the environment in which he slept. The solution to which, he had performed incredible feats of mental acrobatics to to come to, was to forgo bedding entirely, and replace his soft feathered pillows with a steel rail that ran parallel to its twin for some 10 kilometers before arriving at a trainstation of which Joe didn't care to learn the name.

>>23547875
from a first glance
>not sure about that semicolon
>soul -> sole
>odd comma placements making clunky sentences e.g. The solution to which, he had performed incredible feats of mental acrobatics to to come to, was to forgo bedding entirely,

some of the sentences are a bit long winded, but your voice is distinct and I could understand what was going on so not bad.

>>23547875
you have a clear voice which is good and helped with atmosphere
but
too many adjectives
too many synonyms that don't quite fit
clumsy sentence construction

>>23547875
Your first sentence is a run on.

>>23543738
Thank you for this

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What the fuck guys what if I'm not good enough?

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>Want to criticise life in the modern world
>Any mention of tiktok-likes, celebrity culture, consumerism, etc immediately feel gimmicky
What am I to do?

>>23548030
You may not be good enough, but are you really that bad?

>>23548105
Make a broader allegory that relates to it, but remains entirely its own thing.

>>23548030
git gud

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How do you stop thinking your fellow writers are retarded?

>>23548105
Stretch the thing you're mocking out until it reaches an exaggerated conclusion and describe life with it. For example, think of TikTok, except it had morphed into something so all encompassing that you literally cannot escape it because it's built into our homes, vehicles, and workplaces, and now everyone has a channel that uploads videos against their will, but society just learned to accept it, as those who decried it were labeled boomers or something to discredit them.

I’m trying to write a first rough draft and am getting bogged down in a lot of small details that I want to expand on later (not necessarily in the order I’m putting them, just traces of things I want to carry through the plot). The problem is that I’ve spent way too much time (technically years) thinking about this story, to the point that I almost consider it a different world like a dream land or an alternate dimension.
So I started rewriting the outline from scratch and began to accelerate way too quickly into endless minor characters, side characters, themes, motives, and have sort of lost track of the main stories. I became a little distraught and had to stop and actually set down a simple statement of purpose that also became a laundry list of themes and topics I wanted to represent in the characters and plots.
I think, at this point, I just want to pare back the narrative to just the principal voices and peel the layers of convoluted plots and the web of secondary characters that I’ve built up over the years.
Does this sound like a good idea? just going back and starting from scratch with the main stories and working in the details afterwards? Or should I just keep trudging on even though it feels like I’m sinking into a lot of minutiae.

Is this correct?
>Then, with a sharp glance, he said, “He’s an adult and a paying customer.”

>>23548731
It's creative writing so you could get away with it, but it's style heavy in a few respects.

First, you're technically saying the dialogue is conveyed via a "sharp glance". Action tags are also usually separated from dialogue by periods but I can't recall if it's fine if there is a dependent clause with "said" in it.

Lastly, I find that "then" to he bogging the sentence down. It forces the formation of the sentence into an apositive to be very clunky to read by having a comma (semi-pauses) almost every other word in a sentence not saying a lot. Lots if other ways to do it though. "Sharp" and "then" aren't really conveying much either. I probably would just have edited to:
>A sharp glance. "He’s an adult and a paying customer.”
>He glanced up. "He’s an adult and a paying customer.”

>>23547556
there's already one anon in this thread making a "parody" of the genre. you're really trying to be #2?

>>23549032
Why not? If the market isn’t already saturated with crap then it can’t be saturated with parodies of crap.

>>23549032
I didn't see it, where

>>23549090
there is no market for litrpg parody though, you'd just be doing it for the fun of it

>>23549102
NTA but most of whatever's on RR doesn't seem that "earnest" either
it might just be because so many i've seen are isekai but they all have that smug self-aware 2018 onwards muh funny hijinks tone

I wrote mine because I was bored and it was funny

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I want to write fantasy slop goddamn it.

>>23549177
That’s like saying you want to be lobotomized.

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>>23549206
Anon, I'm tired of writing how brow fiction and poems only for you fags to tell me I'm being pretentious because you didn't get it. I'm converting to fantasy slop. It's going to be the next ACOTAR and sell more in one week than I've ever sold elsewhere.

People rag on cultivation webnovels too much. Imagine having to pour out 5 chapters per week, which is the schedule writers have on qidian I think. Of course the end results going to be kind of not super great. Unless a writer is extremely talented I think, that's barely any time at all.

>>23549223
i would be too paranoid about just not being able to shit out anything and would need at least a 2-month backlog at all times

>>23549212
high brow* Hehe, in my anger I made a oopsie. Point stands.

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>>23549177
Do it. I'm writing sci fi noir crime thriller slop and having a blast. Embrace the fact that it'd garbage. Set aside any pretenses of pleasing anyone other than yourself. Write for the joy and desire of writing. And have the humbleness to accept that just because you wrote it, you aren't entitled to others thinking it's "good." Do those things, and be free.

>>23549212
How about you try writing a manifesto?

>>23548496
Wow. A homophobe on 4chan. I am so shocked.

>>23548931
Not the anon, but do you offer editing services?

>>23549206
Still seething madly, eh? Have you yet figured out that no one is taking your advice, or even cares about it? You're a thoroughly unpleasant fellow & you've shown no evidence that you write. inb4 "I'm too intelligent for you" Then what are you doing on 4chan? Right.

>>23549326
Nice strawman.

>>23549339
Pathetic cope. Your posts are not value-added.

Hi, I want to write a book about a schizophrenic man who ends up believing he is God but then he realizes it's true and he has to die in the end. He believes (and in the story it is true) that everyone can hear his thoughts. He is almost run out of town because some people really hate it but some people like it. And he hears sounds as speech from birds chirping, dogs heavy breathing , and running water. They all speak to him and these are the voices he hears. Is the idea good enough? Is it interesting?

>>23549372
So, "The Owl Who Was God" by James Thurber?

>>23549372
Why do you want to write my biography? I don't think it's such a great story.

>>23548931
>>23549261
I'm curious about the same. I've done the math and I'd have to pay around $900 for an editor. Seems like a huge gamble when they might or might not even do much. But I like that anon's style.

Are the comments on Book-Dao all bots? Because I really hope the Chinese guy who roasted me by saying "Face the wall and repent!" isn't a bot

>>23549571
Do you mean https://www.bookdao.com/ ? I tried reading it but it was written in some sort of crazy moon language.

I see anons saying RR isn't a money cheat code but I don't understand how it isn't. My god every time I look at the rising stars list my head hurts. Anyone can write that drivel

>>23549823
I'm going to do it. I'm going to make it.
I will be a slopCHAD and none of you will be able to stop my acquisition of wealth and riches.

>>23549859
Post your progress here, I wanna know if it's as easy as it looks

>>23549823
good luck
you can go to vegas right now and bet on some longshot. odds are you wont make it, but there is definitely the possibility that you do.
but if you enjoy what you write at least you'll get something out of it when your numbers don't come up

>>23549947
>you can go to vegas right now
I wouldn't recommend it. It's going to be 118°F this Sunday.

>>23550039
the casinos are air-conditioned, as is every other building

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Good job anon for writing about a robot waifu months before this anime came out.

I wrote myself into a corner, I mean not really but also I did.
I have point A and Point B laid out already I just need like 5 sentences to connect them and I can't decide how to do it without it feeling forced.

>>23550274
Go back and plant/foreshadow something that can be used to get out of the corner. A book is read linearly, but it doesn't have to be written that way.

>>23550177
Did you forget about the Gatebox Okaeri? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkcKaNqfykg

I have never written magic before and no matter what I do I feel like I need to have a hard scientific explanation for how it works, which of course doesn't exist.

Like I want to have an archer infuse his arrows so they fly farther and faster, but I have no idea how to convincingly do this. I don't want to involve gods or faeries to bless the arrows but just having him wave his hand over it and all of a sudden it works 100x better feels cheap.

>>23549326
You seem obsessed. Touch grass.

>>23550441
Pathetic attempt at deflection.

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I have a scifi short story idea about a visit to Oumuamua in the future to catch up with it and examine similar to Rendezvous with Rama. The "beings" they encounter and their communication method is very addictive pleasing musical notes to human ear.

When they communicate ideas to each other this musical sensation of side effect in humans also start to trigger memories where they felt anything similar to the idea the being is communicating. This effect becomes more robust as the humans get used to these sensations in the sense that they are able to differentiate between different moods and very crudely understand the general feeling in the alien communication.

This musical effect and its translike sensation takes its toll on the humans and they waste and wither away in this "high" mind, years pass and they only feel minutes as a result of getting more and more tuned to the alien communication around them.

I don't want the aliens/beings be aware of the humans on the "ship" and I think the aging and withering away ending is weak.

Any ideas on how to improve it or suggestions? Also English is not my first language so no bully.

>>23550549
>and I think the aging and withering away ending is weak.
It's a short story, you should end it with that suspicion and let the mood hang. Make it where it isn't obvious at first and then bring out the twist.

I'm trying to format for an ebook at the guide says
>To ensure that your book body text displays consistently, you'll want to indent paragraphs (Tab spacing doesn't convert to Kindle) and set line spacing.

So a) wtf why doesn't tab work? I used tabs for 200 pages, now I gotta go back and delete each one manually? and b) how do I mass delete all tabs at once?

This is really dumb. They should just make their dumb program recognize tabs since that's literally how everyone types.

>>23550434
You need to consider limitations and requirements.
Like each shaft has to be carved with runes or whatever. You can keep it small and just make a weak fire arrow that could light a torch or something with a few runes, or you could spiral them around the shaft and make one that rivals dragonfire.
One can be carved in a few moments, the other is going to need a day or two and a magnifying lens.

>>23550609
Doesn't all e-book reading software including Kindle let readers pick their indent, font, size, spacing options themselves? That's probably why. Whatever guide you're reading is probably suggesting a way to FORCE indents, which is retarded. Let readers decide how they want to read your ebook

>>23550662
I have no idea, I don't have a Kindle. I'm just going by Amazon's own guide. It says not use tabs.

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200645680

I've heard people recommend using Vellum. I might download and try that.

Okay I found if i Ctrl+F and search \t and replace all with nothing it deletes all tabs, all 1510 of them, Jesus

>>23550680
Oh, shit, you're saying you use tabs? I thought you meant you wanted to go in and add manual tabs to each paragraph

>they should make their dumb program recognize tabs since that's literally how everyone types
I'm reading this correctly now.
And no, dude, 'everyone' does not use tabs. I don't think most people do. They let Word and other writing software handle automatic indenting, which doesn't include manual /t markers. You should be hitting Enter when finished with a paragraph and moving on to write the next, without tabbing each time. If you want indents for visual display, adjust those settings in your writing software (pretty sure word does it automatically? I use scrivener, which also does.)

>>23550609
The short of it is that epub is basically an html file in a container that also has stylesheets, tab isn't a recognized break (i'm thinking it probably parses as &nbsp or something else that goes retarded, tabs are in some retarded digital markdown that emulates the tabulator on a fucking typewriter) when you want whatever forces a <p> break when it converts, lest it end up like a reddit post when you don't reddit space.

You should be able to go into your global formatting options and indent after line breaks, and move that first tab to where the indent is. Or just delete all the fuckers.

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>>23550727
Pic related is what Scrivener has, I haven't touched Word since I was forced to in college.

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>>23550734
And here's what Word has. There's your tab stops and left margin right there.

>>23550754
Wow Word has changed a lot since I last used it

>>23550705
>You should be hitting Enter when finished with a paragraph and moving on to write the next, without tabbing each time.
That's not how I learned to type. Yeah, you hit enter, then tab to indent, then you start your paragraph. That's the whole reasons keyboards have a massive Tab key still on them. I never heard of until today people don't use this. I've been doing it this way since 1995.

>>23550727
>You should be able to go into your global formatting options and indent after line breaks, and move that first tab to where the indent is. Or just delete all the fuckers.
Yeah that's what I'm doing, but I never heard of such a thing before now. I don't like having it auto-indent for me, just like auto-cruise control or lane adjustment in cars. I like to tell it when and where I will indent.

Anyway I put all the auto-indents to 0.5" so hopefully that don't complain about it.

>>23550787
>since 1995, 30 years ago
Yes, you're an ancient relic, friend. Software has moved past manual tabbing forever ago, and that's why most software, including fucking Kindle, the biggest of all, doesn't recognize it

I get that oldfags like you have some pride in being an oldfag, but don't be the boomer shouting at the cloud in the sky. Tabbing after each paragraph is tedious and pointless, and we moved on from that literal decades ago

You also hang your clothes up on laundry lines because laundry machines are newfangled tech? "Not how I learned how to do it!" C'mon man

>>23550787
I hate to say anon is right and Word had it back then, tabbing is some granny shit you learned from a typist who kept all the commands taped to the bottom of her keyboard and never learned GUI word processing.

But yeah, I ran into the same problem and just deleted all the tab sets in global.

>>23550784
I haven't updated since anon learned typing.

>>23549823
>Anyone can write that drivel
Yeah, but that doesn't mean yours will get to the top or make more than a day or two of groceries.

>>23550434
magic isn't science, otherwise it would be called science and not magic. You don't need to systematize anything unless you're creating a turn-based rpg or a battle shounen (and even then, most battle shounens break their own rules for dramatic reasons).
Creating a hard magic purely because you're concerned about ruining tension with asspulls is like using a bazooka to get a bit of dirt out of your carpet. It's saying that you have so little confidence in your ability to not just randomly invent deus ex machinas that you have to tie one of your hands behind your back and impose a whole bunch of dumb, arbitrary rules on your story, instead of just, y'know, not writing any deus ex machinas.
You want a guy who's a magical archer? Just say "Bob is a magical archer." Establish that he can shoot arrows superhumanly fast. All you have to not do is have a scene where Bob's in a tight spot, and says "Oh, that's right, my magical archery also gives me the ability to do [totally unrelated, never-before mentioned thing] which instantly resolves this situation!"

>>23550886
It's not some magical lottery. 99% of stories die on RR because they're incoherent garbage written by first-time authors. I can write, which puts me in that 1%. Which means I just need to follow the proper formula, which I'm pretty isn't complicated.

The few times I've seen anons here post their royalroad story, it didn't belong on the site, obvious as fuck. I genuinely feel like if I wholeheartedly commit to the slop, not some dumb fucking parody or slightly-adjacent-genre-that's-trying-to-squeak-by, I could blow up like any of the other rising star authors.

Am I coping? Honestly wondering. Has anyone given selling out a legitimate try in this thread?

>>23550609
>that's literally how everyone types
No, everyone sets their document's paragraph settings so that the first line is indented in the "body text" style. What century are you living in?

>>23550904
>I can write, which puts me in that 1%
Okay. But now read my post.

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>>23549261
>>23549540
Appreciate the kind words and glad it's helpful, but I barely have enough time for my own writing, much less extensively editing for others. Maybe someday I'll do it at scale for a few bucks but if you want to email me a page I'd be happy to give free feedback on 1k word sample or so (will take me a few days). Just email me at tookysmag@gmail.com

If you ever want to pay me back you can shill my blog to your neighbors or buy my novella, but seriously no worries:
https://www.amazon.com/Improvidence-David-Herod/dp/B0CWCF7J13

http://tookys.substack.com/

>>23550916
Yes, you said
>but that doesn't mean yours will get to the top
And I said the 99% that doesn't 'get to the top' are the
- off-genre
- and fucking retarded beginner writers
How about you recognize your own illiteracy before implying my own?

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I wanted to write a swordsmanship style based off Juyo from Star Wars, which was once described as

>seemingly unconnected staccato sequences

What are some other good ways to describe itl? I thought of

>a series of disjointed strikes, each one bold and from a strange angle.
>Each blow struck with power and speed, with a variety of angles and abrupt stops that left Jonah uncertain of when and where the next blow would come in from

>>23550891
>Creating a hard magic purely because you're concerned about ruining tension with asspulls is like using a bazooka to get a bit of dirt out of your carpet.
Lol
Its true too, the more rules you make for no reason the more likely you are to break them

>trying to write
>historicalfag, have to do a damned phd's worth of research just to start the novel
god i hate myself, genrefags have no idea what i suffer

Will making a half assed isekai opening to "normal" fantasy webnovel make more people read it?

I know i shouldnt care about these things but it seems like slapping isekai or litrpg on top of some very standard stories is some sort of cheat code that makes people read it.

>>23551045
Have you seen other popular stories do this?
For that matter, do you have any idea what is popular? Or are you blindly jumping onto trends in a desperate attempt to make money? If so, congratulations on joining the graveyard of similar failed authors

>>23550891
I see what you're saying. I already have my healers get their power from magic herbs they eat, so I feel like there needs to be some kind of "source" for other magic too.

>>23550629
Runes could work. I can use that as a starting point maybe.


Overall I saw some people saying magic systems should have a clear cost, like a reason to explain why only MC or MC's class of people can do what they do. I guess I took that to mean I need to come up with detailed explanations for everything.

>>23551087
A lot of mianstream isekai is like that and if youve ever been on RR youd know how hot litrpgs are over there.
Im not really thinking but money but you could call it considering jumping onto trends, one reason for the temptation to do so is that my fantasy writing is already pretty close to the popular isekai/litrpg type stories.

>>23551146
You're missing my point. I don't know whether your fantasy story would lend well toward a hack job to turn it into an 'isekai.' I'm saying if you don't understand what makes these stories popular well enough to recognize for yourself whether you can transmute your story into an isekai, then you're ngmi.
Before you sell yourself out like a cheap whore at least learn the market. You really think you can slap an isekai start/a litrpg framework onto any old fantasy story and have it take off on royalroad? Come on now.

>>23550904
>I could get rich like these suckers if I really wanted to...but I just don't feel like it okay??
If only I got a dollar every time I heard someone say that, I'd be a millionaire by now.

>>23550891
>All you have to not do is have a scene where Bob's in a tight spot, and says "Oh, that's right, my magical archery also gives me the ability to do [totally unrelated, never-before mentioned thing] which instantly resolves this situation!"
This kind of absolute trash writing is exactly why you must have rules for your magic.

>>23550609
>I used tabs for 200 pages, now I gotta go back and delete each one manually?

HAHAHA
fucking retard

>>23551367
Youre kinda missing where Im coming from too. I can easily make some minor changes and make it a "lazy isekai"meaning the kind where the isekai opening doesnt really do much else than throw an unsuspecting protagonist into a world thats new to him. No reincarnation, no rpg overlay or anything that uses the setting very actively.
I was just wondering if anyone here had any thoughts on whether that would make more people click on it on its own or not due to basically every fantasy webnovel similar to mine has at least a minor isekai element (like the aforementioned).

>>23551480
>whether that would make more people click on it on its own
Stories do get an undeniable isekai-boost just for having that tag, but slop mass consumers can also be pretty picky, and won't hesitate to drop the work if it's not what they expect, or above that.

How many times do you usually rewrite your first chapter?

>>23551552
I don't want to think about it.

>>23551552
About 56.72 times on average, why?