Patron Saint of Degenerate Erotica, maybe.

Just found out that I've been using 'As' too often at the start of my sentence. Is it a problem and how do you circumvent it?

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>Writing fantasy slop
Does anyone have any hints on how to storyboard it so that everything gets equal time? I know I want a revolution at some point and a big fire but I don't know exactly how it all fits

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>>23588692
>It's not just about chapters per week, but also about the wordcount of those chapters. Some popular stories only do once a week, or even less often, but they tend to be chunky 5k-10k word chapters.
3x weekly of, say, 1000 words is too little. 3x of 2000 would be fine, though the web novel scene is a numbers game, so 5-7 chapters weekly is always gonna be best. But yes you could get away with 3x weekly.
Interesting thank you! Maybe I'll do 5 times a week for first week or two. For context 90% of chapters will be 2k words, but a few will be 1k or 3k because it was initially written as traditional fantasy with 5k word chapters that I'm now splitting up.

>Just worry about getting that audience first.
True. That's my concern since I'm not a web novel reader generally, but it seems my target audience is.

What's a single line you're proud of? Don't worry about context or explanations, just post a sentence you're proud of writing. For my part,
>Maybe it was the stress of the last few days, or perhaps he’d simply aged as all young men must, but, for a moment, he thought Pa was looking back at him.

>>23588720
Maybe you could do a teaspoon of research before outing yourself as a deranged coomer.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/photos/world-news/photos-praying-to-santa-muerte-mexico-s-deity-of-death/photo-HphPvAfvvpqwiXALlYlEJI-7.html

>>23588761
i don't think it all needs equal time. just start writing and if a part is not long enough then write more. if it is too long then edit it. i mean you just come up with sentences to write, i don't think you can really plan how many words they take up exactly.

or have you had a problem with this in the past when writing? how did that happen? how did it work out?

>>23588799
Settle down anon, I was simply making a joke. Untwist your panties.

Okay, time for the big climactic showdown between the MC and the villain(s). So far, the entire story has been from the MC's perspective, as that makes the most sense. However, I'm considering having at least part of the climax be from one of the the minor villain's viewpoint as a way to shake things up and reveal their motivations to the reader. I don't really want the villain to be sympathetic, just offer an explanation for his actions. I guess I'm just hemming and hawing, writing this out while my brain works in the background, but feedback would be appreciated as well.

>>23588822
why can the reader not get some explanations in other ways? via dialogue? or via analyzing the villains actions or signals?

what is the current apparently wrong explanation the MC has in their mind?

>>23588700
Grounds keeping prose? What fuck does that even mean?

>>23588776
>A look outside reveals that in metropolitan Tokyo, it is a pleasant sixteen degrees, and the sun presages a mild breeze; such are the conditions which are thoroughly unsuitable for the invention of the utterly deranged.

>>23588840
Consider yourself lucky that you don't know.

>>23588846
Oh, that really helps. Thanks so much for your insightful take

>>23588867
It's kind of a Voldemort thing. Just go back to what you were doing.

>>23588840
It's a really horrible pun (and not in the good way) on 'Gardner Prose', as in prose at a Frank Gardner level
Way too much of a stretch. Some op thought it was funny and it's just kinda stuck in the op since then. Should really be removed

>>23588832
>why can the reader not get some explanations in other ways? via dialogue? or via analyzing the villains actions or signals?
This villain isn't present during most of the story, he appears while the MC is hunting down who he perceives as the sole antagonist. This guy is revealed and the MC decides to go after them as well, so there's not really an opportunity for exposition. This is a short story by the way, just for context.
>what is the current apparently wrong explanation the MC has in their mind?
The main villain is a demon that slaughtered MC's family, the minor villain is the guy who summoned the demon, and the reveal will be that he's going to ask for power in the form of becoming governor of the territory where the story is set. So MC really doesn't have any idea what the motivation is, just that the guy summoned the monster responsible for his family's demise.

>>23588897
Thank you for the explanation

>>23588840
>take a 2 month sabbatical from wg/ to work on writing
>prose becomes English instead
>go on /wg/ for advice
>see grounds keeping prose in new iteration of OP
what happened?

>>23588905
so MC knows the guy summoned the demon, but not why?

in a short story it might be bad to switch pov because you already have relatively little space to work with. of course could be pulled of anyway though.

can the demon talk and somehow tell MC or say something that makes MC figure it all out? or is the demon not there either?

is it important for the story that this is the reason the demon was summoned? or can the MC not just find out that demons are usually summoned for personal gain some other way and then just connect the dots or not go into detail? or he could as the summoner before he kills him maybe?

>>23588761
>>Writing fantasy slop
We really need a more accurate word than “writing.” More like excreting, since fantasy is all shit.

>>23588700
>>23587917
>do you have an example from a novel where you think that the characters don't have needs and wants?
What are Harry Potter's needs and wants?

>>23588975
>What are Harry Potter's needs and wants?
Ginger dick.

>>23588975
Uh, to get out of his horrible living situation, and to find out what happened to his parents? Were you really unclear on that?

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I'm writing a short fantasy story about a knight exploring some kind of dungeon, but I don't know if it should be an actual physical structure he explores or take it into some other dimension type of shit. I thought maybe he could end up in some kind of spooky hell realm type of place, but I don't know if that's too try hard.

>>23589002
Those are not needs and wants, those must be consistent throughout the story.
Their living situation is solved in chapter 3, so information about his parents is provided him chapter 5.
It's it a quest for knowledge, and those do not contradict each other so it is not an internal conflict.

Think Harry is just a walking camera, mostly reactionary protagonist, with little goals.

Would it be immoral to kill the family of someone who had killed yours?

>>23589032
Yes, but if done right it can be an interesting look at justice vs revenge.

>>23589032
OUT BY THE ROOTS

>>23589032
depends on the reasoning.

>>23589024
Nah. You should try the spooky hell realm first. Dungeons have been done to death

>>23589025
i don't understand why you just said "needs and wants" in your initial question if you mean something much more specific. so you mean contradicting needs and wants which result in internal conflict?

but then you say
>Think Harry is just a walking camera, mostly reactionary protagonist, with little goals.
which contradicts the internal conflict part.

also you say
>Those are not needs and wants, those must be consistent throughout the story.
since when? why can the needs and wants not change? does conflict not get resolved throughout the story and replaced with new conflict?

so really you mean conflicting needs and wants which lead to internal conflict of a main character that is constant throughout the book(s)?

that is quite specific and i do not think you ever really need that for a character. but it does make them more interesting so it is useful to try to come up with something like that. but just normal conflict is more important to make a story entertaining. of course a lot of conflict can be based on some constant internal conflict like that.

>>23589024
don't think any fantasy related original idea is really to try hard. just try it out and see if it works well. also many characters have ended up in hell, that is not really original either. just think about doom guy.

>>23589134
>so really you mean conflicting needs and wants which lead to internal conflict of a main character that is constant throughout the book(s)?
that's what need and want is

>>23588973
I like fantasy

>>23589157
No it's not

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>>23588973
You have an unworkably narrow definition of fantasy.

>>23589157
i guess you have picked "needs and wants" up as some kind of lingo that some authors use? apparently not everybody uses it that way. and you should have noticed that "need" as well as "wants" are both some fairly normal words that by themselves do not imply any contradiction. multiple people have now stumbled over this, so why do you still think this is common lingo that you are using?

my story SUCKS but I love it haha keep toiling over perfection nerds

>>23589177
It's rather be nothing than half-formed genius

>>23589160
And you’re a dumb faggot.
>>23589158
You too.

Just saw several people screaming at a certain IP for not having "mlm" (male gays) representation. Is this where the creative arts are, if you aren't having token samples of everything to fill out all your checkboxes you get gendies screeching at you? Why do they feel entitled to force writers to write about their preferred relationship type? As a writer it's a no win situation. Say you refrain from writing about e.g. asexuals because you fundamentally do not understand it and are not equipped to write meaningfully about it without putting your foot in your mouth, so someone screams at you for being asexualphobic or whatever nonsense, but if you do write about asexuals you get screamed at for not doing it right or fetishizing it or queerbaiting.

It's gotten to the point where writers are locked up in pillories for the public to lambast for not representing every special snowflake flavor. You're expected to write self inserts for every freak, cretin, and flag-obsessing tumblrina and if you don't you're a -phobe. Where the fuck do these people get off?

Ironically if you want faggot "rep" there already exists an entire genre just for that. But they never read that content. They pursue general works and then scream and throw a public fit for not having enough demiacepolypanqueertranssexuals while plastering the post in their made up vomit flags and acting like a crusader for justice.

As a writer it's a no win situation.

>>23589182
Stop trying to pick fights genreseether at least wait until it happens organically.

>>23589184
The thing is, these people can freak out all they want but it basically never has real consequences to the IP. People are learning they can, and should, ignore them

>>23588975
wants: his dead parents back
needs: to get over it and realize he can survive on his own

Summer is too hot to write, so I'm using my time to plan out and think of ideas for my next story that I'll start at the end of September. So far it's coming along well, but I only have two characters. Doesn't seem like enough to carry a novel.

>>23589191
this is only really a problem while he is addicted to the mirror though right? or at what other point in the story does this give some internal conflict?

>>23589200
I mean I'm sure his needs/wants change over the course of the however many books there are, 7? That was just the first of probably many examples.

>had massive realization that would fix a problem
>have to rewrite 7000 words
>worried it's too avant
>won't know unless I do
Fuck me, this is more work than I signed up for.

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>>23589182
>hurr durr you're dumb
do you even realize how obvious you are?

>>23589190
Gendies are chronically online and jobless, they can and will spam about it 24/7. I've seen them make over 100 twitter posts a day. No one wants to deal with that kind of PR issue, and, worse, many normies will nod along and encourage them, then parrot what the gendies are saying.

But you lose whether or not you cater to them. Voltron and Supernatural both caved and cannonized male gay ships, and the fans that were screeching demands for it turned and began attacking them with equal viciousness for "baiting" or "doing it wrong" or other shit. So the writers thought they would get a pat on the back, but the pat was a knife. I'm using non-books as examples becuase they're universally known and got huge fallouts, but it absolutely affects the book sphere too.

And as a writer I'm looking at this nuclear shitmess waiting for me. You get it from the beginning with agents all being the same sort of chronically online gendies with the same demands for faggot rep and die-versity. If you aren't an autistic nfaggot you need not apply. Right at the top of every single agent's submissions page you get the big bold lettered "looking for diverse representation and ownvoices!" Browns gays and troons line up, please, all others to the back. And you see the results on the shelves.

>>23589197
Can't afford A/C? Don't have a nearby library with A/C where you can hang out?

>>23588957
>>23588832
Actually, I think you're right. There isn't much of a reason to devote time to this particular villain's motivations, as the MC wouldn't really give a damn, thus the reader probably won't care much either. All that really matters to the story here is that the MC is looking for revenge.

>>23589224
You couldn't pay me to go to the library and hang out with the piss-scented bums.

>>23588700

Because last thread was full, I post this again. I will check the how-to guide but I would like your opinion about this:

Is "Story Engineering" a good book about structuring your prose? I have a shitload of ideas and plots to tell but when I start writing is a fucking mess.

Also ESL.

>>23589223
>If you aren't an autistic faggot you need not apply.
Man, I need to finish this manuscript and send it out, I'm a fucking shoe in.
>no women in it
>about the abjection and othering of men
>only one of the fags is gay
>all wrapped up in what looks like a melodrama of a repressed and ambiguous queer relationship

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>>23588700
Does anyone have any advice on this bit of dialogue I'm trying to write? I want to make it sound clear and natural.

>>23589264
>the one gay is also the villain, as far as that exists in a literary novel
I need to work out and get that Mishima physique to be able to do the gymnastics to explain all this away. Someone is bound to catch on.

I think I screwed myself. My MC is a healer who grew up as a hunter. To redeem herself from killing wildlife, she turned to healing but still has knowledge of how to track game, set traps, etc she learned as a kid.

My other character is a tamer who ... can track, set traps, and knows wildlife. Fuck. I want him to be opposite to her but as an animal tamer those are all important skills he should have, too.

>>23589212
he said in >>23589025
>Those are not needs and wants, those must be consistent throughout the story.

>>23589291
If you treat each book as its own relatively self contained story I'm sure you can find he has a need and want suited to just that book. I don't know, I don't give a rat's ass about HP, but I'm sure there must be some conflict in him.

>>23589191
that's fair

>>23589261
what exactly mean by "is a fucking mess"? what exactly is the problem?

>>23589255
Maybe move to a decent place to live? Or would you just bring your muddle-headed pathologies with you, and bring your new hometown down to the level of your old one? In which case, stay where you are until you have an epiphany. And I guess this is your way of saying you can't afford A/C.

>>23589270
>the one in front made it past the last several feet of the hill in a jump that carried him forward a bit as he landed
is any of that relevant? who is in front of whom here? Colm or Marion?

>handed the third bottle backto him before gripping the cork of the fourth
i think you put too much emphasis on each individual bottle and where it ends up. was a confusing to me. or is that important somehow?

in what feels like 200 words you have what feels like 10 different names. are charlie and maycomb the same person? who is talking in the second to last dialogue line?

what in general is this dialogue for? how does it reveal e.g. character or conflict? not saying that nothing is revealed here, but is this the most efficient way to do that?

maybe don't let everyone talk everything out here. that might be how it works in a movie, but what do you want a reader to actually understand and focus on?

was that helpful?

>>23589314
I can have ten air-conditioners if I want. But the management won't let me install them.

>>23589290
they also both eat, breath and shit. so maybe make them opposites in other ways? what are their actual personalities like? does the tamer wanna fuck the healer but not the other way around? is the healer into yugioh and the tamer into magic the gathering?

>>23589297
idk. why does that need to be in him throughout a book? mostly in every book he wants to get through the school year and not get killed by voldemort. but some specific internal conflict for every book from beginning to end? dunno

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>>23589197
Feels good man, don't know what to tell you.

>>23589324
You can afford ten air-conditioners, but you can't afford to buy instead of rent?

>>23589351
Yikes. Have you considered cleaning the spooge off your screen before posting a photo of it?

>>23588975
he needs and wants to fuck that chinese girl

>>23589358
It cuts down on glare.

>>23589351
I like that spell grey with an e, but what is a stream-riven holler?

>>23589352
>ten air-conditions: $2,000
vs
>buying a house: $500,000

>>23589351
show us what is in "bad ideas"

>>23589370
A dell with a wash or burn running through it.

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>>23589377
not much.

>>23589351
What program is that?

>>23589381
Scrivener. Worth the $35 with the eternal discount code.

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>>23588700
If a centaur was 7 feet tall at the withers, their humanlike upper body would need to be proportionally larger to match it

So I'm wondering if there's any way a rider could do anything in front of the centaur if they were riding on their back, or if they should be relegated to attacking on a diagonal or the sides and let the centaur deal with the very front

>>23589378
I really need to cram geography words.

How do i decide the best way to write my story? Using 1st person, 3rd person or omniscient narrator, start from the beginning, the end, in media res, etc.?

>>23589456
Average height at the withers is like 5 feet

>>23589472
yes but there's big horses like that picrel and I wanted a big centaur upper body to match

>>23589459
you start from the beginning. later you edit it.

just use 3rd person, but all the ones you mentioned are fine.

>>23589459
First person deals with an individual perception and you have to manage reliability the whole time while having access to speculation on the part of the narrator and guesses about what others are thinking or what is going on outside of that. Third person (the normal shit anyway) limits you to what a character thinks, for the most part. The authorial voice can act as a character, but that's some Dan Handler shit and one of the pinnacles of narrative style. You'd have to explain your concerns to get a more accurate reply.

Start as late as possible and go back to add more once you're done with the draft. It's pretty clear where a story actually needs to start and how long to go on about it.

>>23589456
i would assume if the centaur attacks at the front that the upper body would move around. so someone on the back would need to be careful not hit them with their own attacks. probably best then to attack towards the sides.

how wide would the upper body have to be to be proportional? if you would stand behind a giant, could you attack past him?

>>23589459
Unless you're very experienced, don't start at the end. Knowing the end and having the remaining 95% be essentially a large flashback is boring most of the time since you know the MC is going to survive whatever happens.

A lot of Youtubers preach in media res, but I feel that works better for a movie or TV show. In a book I wouldn't care what happens to a character if we first see him in the middle of a fight. I want a little context first. Do it if you think it benefits your story, but if there's not a lot of action later in the book the intro being jam-packed with action will feel out of place and misleading.

>>23589270

i agree with the other anon. you've got all these numbered bottles that are just muddling up the picture. why does it matter if it's a third bottle or a fourth bottle? why not just "another bottle" if there are multiple bodies. nobody gives a shit if you're on number three or four here. in fact, i would have just had them sharing a single bottle. you are distracting the reader for no reason with your bottle talk.

as for what they actually say, it sounds natural enough. i mean, you clearly have some writing skills.

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>>23589492
Pretty wide, yeah I guess the rider would have to hit towards the sides

However that's still a pretty big area and range so it's not really a massive drawback I think, not enough of one at least

Especially since it's a warrior centaur with a mage rider that are a couple

>>23589459

beginning writers should follow the easy path. third person limited, start from the beginning

>>23589587
>those arms

>>23589351
>>23589380
what font is that?

>>23589562
>A lot of Youtubers preach in media res
That's how you know it's shit.

Written fiction benefits from an orientation process that in media res ain't great at in most cases. Strong short story writers can pull it off but it sucks to read the rest of the time. You want to frame and lead into the situation slowly over a sentence or two at the very least. I'm going to sound retarded but the drawn-out introductions to VNs exaggerate the process in a palpable manner. I think that they're shit, but they're designed to draw you into the mood of what is being presented and orient you to the story. Even a relatively cold start opens with narration and prepares the reader for the godawful fuckfest ahead by being as boring as it is mysterious. Establishing some point of relation, however lackluster, forms the contract with the reader for what is to come.

It's why entirely obtuse bullshit like your made up faggot ass worldbuilding or two shadowy figures talking about the keikaku* doesn't work. The reader has to have time to unconsciously assent to it before you whip it out. You have to let him know that you're of sound mind, even when the story isn't. A cogent introduction is exactly that.

*TN: keikaku means plan

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>>23589686
Are you actually advocating for exposition? I vastly prefer to open in the middle of the action. Far less chance to bore the reader.

>>23588739
you fix it in editing
In dialogue I have a having of using Yeah, or Oh, followed by the sentence. Or starting a sentence with So too many times. so you fix it in editing.

>>23588822
>So far, the entire story has been from the MC's perspective
>so I'm going to change it
don't do that

>Part of a writing forum
>Subscribed because I wanted a place to share my work and the forum had a decent catalog of professionnally published authors who started there and still post advices regularly (mostly YA / teen fiction but that's to be expected).
>Everytime I post a critique I try to be as respectful as possible but I'm worried my inner channer will come out and someone will take a comment the wrong way
>Someone posted their prologues, I basically told them, in the nicest way possible "nothing happens, you're not focusing on the right stuff, you're just describing thing rather than showing them" but I feel like I'm caustic compared to the other critiqued I've skimmee through
Am I just an old curmudgeon?

>>23589750
No. More Lawful Food. A story should start at the beginning and the most memorable one I read recently started about 3 sentences before the hitcher narrator was picked up by a trucker. It's an art. Second to that was this one. You want to lay out exactly what kind of story it's going to be, regardless of the narrator. Talking about the landscape is a nice third person equivalent.
>When I was growing up, Chisaw County only had one whore, a chubby, bottle-blond floozie with tired eyes and a quick, proud scowl. She was nothing special, but she'd screw for three dollars or suck for two.

>>23589805
are people reacting badly to your critiques? what are other critiques doing different? have you been objective in looking at other critiques or have you only looked at nice ones?

>>23589828
Forum critiques happen through PMs, not that anon knows that. The public ones are pretty face saving and the PM ones are probably about as "savage" as what he's posting. The surface of a forum is a carefully constructed lie.

>>23589828
>are people reacting badly to your critiques?
Nah, so I think it's all in my head
>what are other critiques doing different?
More comments on what they liked. I mostly don't say anything unless I feel like I can add some kind of insight (rather than just saying "I love it", I try instead to say "If the goal of this paragraph is to show _____, then you succeeded"). Also they post A LOT more heart emojis.
>have you been objective in looking at other critiques or have you only looked at nice ones?
I admit I've only skimmed them, I don't read other critiques before posting my own to avoid being influenced.

It's probably a nothingburger, I'll post my own work in a couple months when I feel like it's polished enough, if I harnessed any badwill I will probably be able to tell. I just had a bad experience with forum like 8 years ago (video game forum, played the same game as a mod. He praised it, I told him he was wrong, and since he was personal friend with the dev I called him a shill. They banned me for it. It was for the best, really)

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>>23589024
>>23589084
>>23589142
I ended up with a sort of cosmic horror type thing, but I'll have to flesh it out more. Very difficult to write about overwhelming nothingness. I now understand Lovecraft and his "the horror was beyond comprehension, just trust me bro" descriptions.
I think I'll end the story by somehow having him come out of this state, coming back to the surface where his servant will still be waiting for him because only an hour has passed in the real world or something. It won't be the most original story, but whatever.

>>23589860
you could see saying or finding positive or motivating things as a skill of its own and try to make an effort to learn it. being able to motivate someone can be the most important thing. i mean kinda like a coach mindset instead of just given out cold info. that might improve the impact and sound nicer.

but my critiques are the same and i think the worst that happens is that people ignore it or don't get what i mean. or other people who i did not directly talk to hate my advice and think it's wrong. but the critiqued person has never been mad at me.

>>23589805
>advices
I feel like an ass for pointing this out since the rest of your post was so well written, but as this is a writing thread, this one misstep outs you as ESL. It's a very common error, but just mentioning in case you were unaware. It should never be plural.

>>23589888
yeah the lovecraftian way works by saying how it affects the observer. usually they go crazy and cannot talk normal sentences anymore. so instead of explaining the darkness maybe talk more about how it destroys the knights mind over time and how his behavior gets more erratic, desperate and broken.

>>23589916
Thanks for pointing it out. I don't write in english, thankfully.

>>23589860
>>23589805
Did you read the critique guide in the OP?

>>23589320
Incredibly helpful, thank you so much for reading and putting so much effort into the suggestions anon. It's much appreciated.
>>23589582
Thanks anon, easy for me to miss how confusing stuff like that is so I really appreciate the feedback.
>you clearly have some writing skills
Thanks, anon, honored you think so.

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>>23589597
She's a big girl

I have a feeling that writing is easier than visual arts because its a skill that one builds throughout their entire life. With writing, the floor is often higher than the same for art. We've all been writing for pretty much since the beginning of our lives, and although creative writing is a different skill, some stuff translates over.

>>23590519
you'd think so.

Another take; I don't think its wrong to write a story as if it were an anime of some kind. With the dialogue, the tropes, etc. There's a certain style that published literature has, conventions, and ways of doing things. But some of this stuff isn't inherently necessary to the medium. The types of story that you can write inside a written medium can include stuff from comics and manga. Though some of that stuff, like flashy fights, won't transfer perfectly over to words. Still, that's why LitRPG and chinese webnovels are popular nowadays, it's not exactly the same, but its similar enough. You could use the framework of these stories to tell a thought provoking story in the end. And it has been done before.

>>23590519
Easier to get into, sure, but I respect great authors more than great artists. I think the ceiling is much higher. Writing is the portrayal of thoughts and ideas, ie, the essence of humanity.
Art might be more demanding from a technical/mechanical sense, but writing is the more difficult from an intelligence standpoint

>>23590537
You've enlightened me a lot. I'll remember this.

>>23590533
I write most of my stuff by imagining how it would look as an anime. And it comes full circle, because a lot of those anime were inspired by Tolkien so it's really like I'm just using LoTR the whole time, even though I never read it.

Coming up with fantasy names is so hard. What name generators do you guys use?

I have a scene but I think the only way to get the outcome I want is by making it a misunderstanding.
And I'm apprehensive about that. What do you guys think of misunderstandings? Is it fine so long as I can maintain the characters' agency?

>>23590614
chatgpt...?

>>23590519
>I have a feeling that writing is easier than visual arts
Because writing "face" takes four keystrokes, drawing a face takes an hour.

Do you guys try to write something meaningful, or just write whatever feels good? It feels like anything I want to write doesn't have any greater meaning or value to it.

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Do you think getting a typewriter might help with carpal tunnel? I'm fucked

>>23590672
idk, when i hear misunderstanding i think of these annoying sitcoms where the whole plot would fall apart if people would just properly communicate with one another. so sounds bad to me

>>23591023
how would that help? wouldn't the hand posture be even worse? and you also need to put more force into it. don't see how this can help at all

>>23591026
Someone suggested it because you don't rest your wrists like you do with a keyboard

>>23591021
meaningful should also feel good though. meaningfulness is a feeling itself i believe.

what do you write about that feels good but is not meaningful? what is the meaningful thing you want to write about instead?

>>23591021
I wish I could write simple feel-good stories again. All my writing ends up being about some larger than life themes these days.

>>23591029
what about ergonomic keyboard that tilt to the sides? like ergodox for example.

are you doing those stretching exercises to relief carpal tunnel?

>>23591032
I want to express something that stands out from the crowd. I can't seem to come up with anything that isn't some variation of a story I've already read. Do I just accept it and try to write my copycat story the best I can, relaying the ideas that shaped me, or keep trying to formulate something semi-original?

>>23591045
I'm doing everything the anons suggested and I'm worse! I even stopped writing for the first time in 2 years

>>23591047
just write what you can come up with. analyze and reflect on what originality means to you and what would make something feel original or meaningful. at some point you will have gained the experience to know what to write.

>>23591049
you have a wrist brace?

also are you just doing what anons say or also what your doctor says?

just dictate

do any of you RR kings NOT outline?

>>23591057
I'm seeing a physiotherapist on Monday

>>23591078
good. wish you good luck anon. don't stress out too much. have seen many proplayers and programmers recover from this.

after a day or so of planning, i started my first novel. my writing was much worse than i expected.

>>23591023
Did you get carpal tunnel from writing?

>>23590614
https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/

>>23591469
Yeah, I was doing about 4000 words a day, and now I'm fucked. Lifting heavy at work, too, I think it was just overused.

>>23591411
it always is. don't worry. compare your writing to that of an author you like and analyze why yours sounds bad compared to theirs.

also critique other people's writing. you really just need to get consciously aware of what you yourself enjoy while reading, sentence to sentence. as a reader you usually just let feelings wash over you instead of thinking why the sentence had the effect it had.

>>23591479
You can still use dictate software to write while your wrists heal. Use this time to do a large amount of rough drafting, perhaps?

>>23591047
You need to go out and live life, instead of having second-hand experiences through media. Then you may have something original to write about.

>>23588700
I am considering entering a short story competition. Any theme. However, the contest is only 2500 words. If I want to create a story with the most impact with this relatively little word limit, what considerations do I need to keep in mind as I'm writing a story? I've mostly written short stories around 5k so far.

>>23591743
>what considerations do I need to keep in mind as I'm writing a story?
keep it to 2500 words and write good. like, what do you want us to say?
more seriously, if you know the identity of the judges, tailor what you're writing to their tastes

>>23591754
Have you not written stories of different lengths before? The word limit generally dictates what sort of stuff can generally work in the story

>what do you want us to say?
Certain forms and constraints tend to demand certain types of writing, generally speaking of course,. For instance, in novels, I can have multiple subplots and can have diversions here and there, but that cannot be done easily in a 5k short story. Another instance, I can have way more ambiguity and unsolved/unexplained elements in a 5k short story, which would mostly likely not go well with a full-length novel.

Now I ask what conditions like this would need to at least be considered before tackling a 2500 short story

>>23591776
nta but I don't know what you're looking for either. You said it yourself, just focus on one tightly focused plot and wrap it up. You know how sitcoms have an A plot and a B plot to pad it out to 24 minutes? Just focus on your A plot and get it done in 12. A chapter is about 2,500 words so limit it to just 1 - 3 short scenes.

It's Sunday. Posted a new chapter. Can find them both at:

https://substack.com/@cityofflies

I cross-posted to RR and got 40 views with no follows. Is there a point trying if your first chapter dies there?

>>23589686
>>A lot of Youtubers preach in media res
>That's how you know it's shit.
I've heard "find the last moment where the story might not have happened", and I tend to like that. In media res can work, but unless it's a random action scene you are still establishing all the same stuff which would be there starting earlier.

>>23589750
>Are you actually advocating for exposition? I vastly prefer to open in the middle of the action.
A slower start doesn't have to mean exposition. You can have a scene where characters are making decisions and acting while you establish the other elements.

>>23591812
thanks chief, I think you pretty much answered my q with the sitcom analogy, cheers

>>23591834
>I cross-posted to RR and got 40 views with no follows.
RR is for longer form fiction. like 100k words plus. people aren't going to click on a story with a single chapter

>>23591845
People do search for new fictions and follow them. How else would these stories collect enough attention to hit rising stars?
Getting 0 followers after your first chapter is a good indicator your story 1.) doesn't fit the audience or 2.) is bad
So to answer previous anon, I would post a few more chapters at least, but yeah, it's probably not a fit for RR (could've told you that before you posted there, though. It's for litrpg and power fantasy.)

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>>23588700
Hello guys.

I like writing shitty fan fic and short stories, and the way I do it is by first writing a little outline of the story and then kinda filling in the details. So I will basically write snapshots of everything that happens in the story first and then slowly fill things in, visiting and revisiting sections, adding more and more detail. Kinda similar to blocking shapes in a painting, etc.

This has worked really well for me and it's fun, but it also seems like a really soulless way to write, and I've always been under the impression most people just kinda write most of their stories naturally (of course having a guide, but mostly just going with the flow), rather than going over the sections again and again.

I'm just curious how common this is. Is it actually a way to do things, or do I not have a soul? Thanks.

>>23591909
there are many ways to write a story and you measure of success should be how much your readers like it and maybe how many readers you get.

there is the notion of architects and gardeners as writer archetypes. you are an architects, so you plan everything out and then write according to your plan. this has many advantages and i do not see any disadvantage with that. i guess if you plan is not as good as something else you come up with while writing you can just change the plan.

as a gardener you can plant a lot of stuff during your writing for later. a bit like foreshadowing, which as a writer you usually actually do after the fact. so you write and later you go back to the beginning and add some foreshadowing for the stuff you came up with in the meantime. but you can also just add more and more details and worldbuilding as you go along that you later on actually reuse for your further writing. i have heard that grrm writes that way. probably the reason he has so many random characters and plotlines, so that does have some negative effects.

as a writing exercise you could try out gardening a bit more.

how do you do your editing though? if you think your writing is soulless then maybe because your editing is not very good? do you just add detail or do you also improve something you have written? like do you optimize your sentences for effect?

>>23591743
limit the amount of named characters from the start. two are enough i guess.

imply a lot. imply that some interesting stuff has already happened before, or that the villain has done this many times before, or that there has been something happening in the background all the time. or maybe the MC and their story is one small part of something much bigger. just something that gets the readers mind active and feeling like the story is a lot more "full" or big than it really is.

maybe you can leverage a certain kind of setting that gives a lot of context and invoke a bigger picture? like if you let it play out in the wild west or ancient rome or chinatown on an oil rig that give the reader a more interesting picture in their head much quicker than if you start with dialogue of nondescript characters in a nondescript location. or maybe the MC has an interesting job or just came back from war or whatever.

what do you think?

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>>23588700
>Mortal turned living god unites three tribes together
>Married a woman from each tribe
>Disappears along with his wives and says his sons will come in time
I wanted his sons to be born from the ordinary women of the tribe, but I also kind of feel there's a bit of cucking by having another woman birth the child (even if she isn't really the mother either).

I also wonder what's some good ways they'd identify the sons of the god. I was thinking the Avatar way with the toys of the living god when he was a kid but I didn't want to reuse that for all three.

>>23591909
I don't think there is a "most people do x" in writing. People do whatever they find works for them. I do like you do, but some people cruise by with zero outlines. I think read Asimov wrote one draft, did minor grammar tweaks, and shipped it off. Meanwhile, I need like 5 full re-writes to get it to an acceptable level. Just go with whatever is easiest and works for you.

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>>23591933
>i do not see any disadvantage with that.
The disadvantage I see is that it's messy to organize on paper (totally fine digitally though.) That's it.

>how do you do your editing though?
That's the thing, the whole writing process feels like editing, since I'm already constantly going back and refining. It really feels *just* like a painting / drawing, and it's very fun. I have tried writing in more "streamlined" ways but it just isn't as fun, I don't know.

I don't really have readers, it's all for my eyes only, so it's not good, but it's just a fun hobby to me, I was really just curious if this was typical, so I like your analogies.

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You simulate the plate tectonics to get accurate geography and maps for your world, right?

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>>23592054
After all, astrological simulations only give minimal climate and season data. You have to go deeper to figure out local weather patterns, terrain characteristics, etc.

>>23592054
Worldbuilding is cool but I could never imagine going so indepth.

>>23592054
yes i do procrastinate writing a lot. but simulating plate tectonics is not even that bad. you just use software to play around. i think there are some online simulators for world building purposes.

writing about world building is the worst form of procrastination known to man though.

I can't think of any worldbuilding other than "generic medieval European town".

>>23592112
then read to get some ideas.

how about royal families? intercontinental trade? wars? magic systems? plate tectonics?

>>23592129
>how about royal families?
What about them? There's a king and a queen, and probably a princess that will inevitably get abducted by a dragon.

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>>23592067
I can't imagine not going at least this far.
I have just enough knowledge of these topics to know when shit's wrong. Like if the wind in your setting typically blows from east-northeast to west-southwest and there's a tall mountain range on the east side of your region, the east side of those mountains must get a lot of rain and the west side must get little, and there should be a desert or prairie extending westward from that.

And if the mountains are smaller, you either have a young range being born or a very old range. If it's a young range, you have earthquakes and maybe volcanism in that area. If it's a very old range, it's been shaping the local weather for eons and you can probably find other parts of the range on other continents, from so far back in time that the landmasses used to be connected.

Anytime this stuff gets overlooked in a setting, it bugs me to no end. It'd bug me far more if it showed up in a setting I actually have full control over.

Plus, there's a saying in engineering and programming along the lines of, "If you find yourself doing something several times, you should probably automate it." So, in my mind, I'm weighing all of the time I'll have to spend making up geography and weather against the time it's taking me to learn to simulate it, and so long as the time to simulate it is lower than the time to make it all up, I'm making a good investment.

>>23592135
maybe more than one family and more than one kingdom?

>>23592145
Don't be greedy, anon.

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>>23592104
>writing about world building is the worst form of procrastination known to man though.
Sometimes you just gotta stop focusing and procrastinate so your neurons can form new connections, y'know?

>>23592153
then read :)

>>23592177
Nah. Studies show you gotta either sleep or let your mind wander. Zoning out and daydreaming is effective. Reading requires attention and thus is not. An audiobook might do the trick, if you zone out while doing laundry or something with one playing.

Sometimes the words just flow out and its fun. Sometimes its a chore to get them out.

>>23588973
Typing, tapping?

>>23592112
Non-generic town, space town, the town of ideals that's built within the citizens

>>23592144
I mean sure, you do what you want, but do you have an actual story to go in that?

>>23592054
>>23592059
>>23592144
can you teach me?

One of my last queries sent me a link to a "second try" thing. I'm not sure what to make of it, it wants more of the same stuff but the email itself offered no actual feedback. Guess I just send a query through it with what they want and hope for the best, I guess. Or, maybe it's a way of them stopping me from emailing them again. Mmm.

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>>23592301
Yep. Probably 120k words at this point. Problem is I have several distinct ethnic groups, each from distinct areas, but don't know how to place those areas in relation to each other or how to write about travel between those areas. I know what the environment for each major event looks like, but can't yet fill in details like, "This character traveled from City Y to Port Z in 40 days and had to cross Terrain A at this point and Terrain B at this point, so they packed this and that."

picrel
my page of notes on the major groups (with names redacted)

>>23592333
I'm still learning myself. I'm mostly using the documentation included with Universe Sandbox and GPlates so far. There are some tutorials on youtube I intend to check out after I exhaust the documentation.

>>23592112
i don't care about worldbuilding, but i come up with all sorts of things almost automatically. mostly because i have goals for the story and it serves some purpose.
mind sharing what you're trying to do?

>>23592346
as a reader, i just don't care. the more vague your world is, the better.
and plenty of writers know they don't need to put themselves in a position to make mistakes that some autist would notice.
JUST SAYING

>>23592338
can you just ask about it? or is that considered a bad move?

>>23592054
nope
imagine having a world with plate tectonics. lmao couldn't be me
and before you ask about volcanoes and earthquakes, those are the result of giant lava creatures battling underground. definitely more plausible than plate tectonics

Bit worried about my dialog scenes. I've went over the ones I have or plan to do, and there's about 8-9 in 15 scenes. I've noticed that most of these dialogs are only between two characters. Should I be concerned? I don't really think it's a big deal myself because these first chapters are mostly about setting up the overall tone of the story and introducing the main characters, and when I look back at books I like, most of the dialog scenes coming to mind are between two characters, and very rarely more than 4, especially early on.

>>23592384
what you've described doesn't sound like anything to worry about

>>23592384
Dialogue should serve to further the plot or develop your characters. If it's just fluff shooting the shit dialogue then you should revise it. If it serves a purpose then it's fine.

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>>23592359
Sounds like you're not my target audience.
I've been writing and rewriting and layering my writing for ages to ensure that not a single line is wasted.
I think my current record is one sentence containing 5 layers of information.
>first layer describes what a character is doing
>another reading of the sentence instead describes the character's homeland in a metaphorical sense
>third reading alludes to the character's most significant relationship
>fourth reading foreshadows the character during the climax of the story
>fifth reading applies not just to that character, but to every major character, tying them all together

I'm not writing YA or Isekai or whatever. I'm writing the book I'VE always wanted to read.

And, again, I'm actually saving myself effort by using this software. I don't have to think up new geography when I need it. I can look at my world map and see that there's some interesting geography here or there and use that as inspiration to dream up who lives there.

>>23592377
Fair. I do believe there's a place for more fanciful worlds. It's just not what I'm writing.

>>23592445
>I think my current record is one sentence containing 5 layers of information
Post the sentence, tough guy

>>23592445
>Sounds like you're not my target audience.
maybe, but for what it's worth, i really enjoy steven erikson. he's probably YOUR GUY. however, what he seemingly invested into worldbuilding vs. what i derived from it, was likely very disproportionate.

>>23592445
post sentence

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>>23592353
Not much, just a fantasy setting. I have decided it's on an island with volcanoes so it will probably use geothermal power as an energy source. I just picture cobblestone streets, stone buildings with flowers out front, and people dressing like it's the middle ages or whenever pic related is.

Dunno if this is the place to ask for here, but I need help on how to make inanimate objects sexual. Clothing, if I were to be specific. Any guides, or examples would be appreciated.

I really like the "woman asks half naked man about his scars in order to serve some exposition to the reader" trope

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>>23591023
Get one of these grip trainers, and alternate between going for high reps and going for hold time. It helps a lot.

>>23592531
I like the "half-naked woman asks fully clothed man about his scars" trope better.

“I thought we were heading for the Temple district.” Ron lowered his tone, as to not be heard by the two younglings. His grin dissipated and turned into a frown. “You’ve read the gazettes, Carl. The Black Bastard’s gone! Now’s the time to strike, spread chaos into the ranks of our enemy!”

“Don’t forget about the Silent Peace,” Carl was quick to remind him. “They tolerate us as long as we tolerate them. We can’t afford to escalate the situation when we can’t guarantee that the won can be won.

“Damn this Silent Peace of yours!” Ron raised his voice again. The two boys were lending their ears to the argument, all while making sure they weren’t being seen. “Those were their terms, not ours! I wasn't asked about making peace to the slayers of our brothers and children!!”

“That’s enough!” Carl grinded his teeth to avoid shouting and pointed his finger at Ron’s face. "Watch where you tread, Ron. I'm your higher-up, and you shall do as I say.

Ron’s complaints ceased, though Carl could tell that the insubordination that had crept up into his mind would not be easy to erase. Jovin and Marc followed the two men as they entered a narrow alley towards the nothern side of the Academy. The group blended into a group of merrymaking students and saw that Marc's scouting had been true; the Gallant Bridge towards Nicovanto was guarded by Redcloaks. Passage into the Isle of Sertan was now compromised. Carl searched for alternatives, but there was no other way through.

He had given up all hopes of meeting up with Fiddler when Jovin, some paces astray, whistled to them. He was standing by a pier, not too far from an exhibition by a pair of fire swordancers. Stealing a gondola was reason enough to catch the Watch's attention, but right at the summit of the Night of the Carnival? Carl didn't know whether that'd improve their chances or compromise them, but he went along with the plan anyway, for as the Maestro always said: "A messy plan is always better than no plan at all."

>>23592495
sorry, what i meant was: you can build your world based on the goals of your story. if you're writing RR slop, you want a world that can both challenge power beings while facilitating some status quo. i could give some examples if you want to share some of the story.

as far as creativity goes; you should take time be receptive to what's around you. repurpose things that interest you in the real world in a fantastical way.
volcanoes on their own are interesting enough, but you could do something wild with it. like what if it wasn't lava. what if instead it volcanos sucked in things around it. what about the effect on the area-- clouds, gasses, etc. whatever

as far as the cultural aseptic, i'm with you. i probably more or less use medieval as placeholder until i want to be more creative with it

>>23592454
>>23592466
The setting is a beaten forest path at dusk. 20-30 people are walking back to the road from an impromptu funeral in the woods. Two people trail behind the main group: The leader, and the scout that typically acts as a sweeper or rear guard.

>Raven wished to speak to him, but as she matched his pace she caught a glint of the fading light on his cheek and thought better of it.

1. Raven wants to speak to her mentor to process a major event, but notices that the normally well-composed man has shed some tears and chooses not to.

2. Raven's homeland is a backwater town where everyone aspires to move to the mentor's city to seek their fortune, but the city the mentor is from is in disarray and slowly collapsing, which is starting to make it back to the backwater town and deterring people from wanting to go to the city.

3. Raven's most significant relationship is with another scout. The other scout has suffered so much that Raven feels guilty mentioning her own troubles in his presence and so keeps them to herself. She pursues him for comfort then holds back so as not to burden him.

4. In the climax, Raven will be following someone desperate, but it will be because she made them desperate. She'll keep her distance not out of sympathy, but to draw the exchange out. She'll see the same glint of light on the cheek of the villain of her subplot as they collapse in defeat. She'll go to finish them off but think better of it when she sees this.

5. Every major character, in some sense or another, is walking with a group and following one person in particular.
Some are walking behind mentors.
Some are walking behind their imagined "true" self or future self.
Some are walking behind their romantic interests or the families they want in the future.
Some are walking behind the memories of a loved one that has passed.
Some are walking behind a nemesis, stalking them.
Some are simultaneously following someone and being followed by someone else.

I'm still playing with the language.
>Raven wished to speak to him, but as she matched his pace a glint of fading light from his cheek caught her eye and she thought better of it. (slight rewording)
>Raven wished to speak to him, but as she matched his pace she caught a glint of the fading light on his cheek and pursed her lips instead. (show don't tell?)

I'll probably wait until I've ironed out the scenes that share theming with this one and then figure out how to rewrite EVERY sentence meant to hit this note to be as similar as possible. I intend for the entire main cast and some side characters to have moments described similarly to create a pattern across multiple chapters that ties them together beyond how the story explicitly connects them. I want it to be clear that they are linked even when the text doesn't explicitly say so.

>>23592459
I've heard of him, but I've been avoiding every author more recent than Wolfe or Herbert to avoid inadvertently lifting things from more modern work.

>>23592599
Oh, and this scene is mirrored in the early parts of the story, as the mentor pursues a young, tearful Raven after she's orphaned. He can't follow her too closely without spooking her, so he watches from a safe distance until she's calmer.

This is mirrored again during an event a little later on when an adult Raven loses her composure and becomes a danger to others, but the person following her is the other scout, who has been wanting to confess to her but is now waiting for her to calm down.

I don't count those as additional layers but I don't know why. I just know it doesn't feel right to do so. They're different in some way.

Is there a word for making yourself intentionally appear more menacing? Like how old Germanic names are compounds of the words elf, wolf, and bear.

>>23592594
aesthetic*

>>23592642
you mean only in names? or signaling strength and readiness to fight in general like when an animal does aggressive posturing or puffs itself up?

>>23592914
Mostly the latter but the former might be useful for me. I assumed that there was a zoological term for it but I was hoping for something else.

How's the market for a satirical epic/künstlerroman comedy looking?

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how thinly disguised fetish is Sapkowski's "elf women ovulate immediately once a human man makes them cum"

although come to think of it since human women ovulate each month, wouldn't male elves prefer human women as well for breeding purposes?

>>23593195
lmao wtf

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>>23593199
yeah it's from Tower of Swallow

I wonder what he was thinking when he published that in his series and not his AO3 account s

>>23593195
I don't like how he wrote 10/20.

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>>23593211
the pic posted before I think is a google translated, this is another translation

A beta reader sent me an email of their opinions two days ago and I'm still too scared to open it.

>>23592642
>Like how old Germanic names are compounds of the words elf, wolf, and bear.
don't forget names that include war (Gunnar, meaning "battle," and Gunnhildr, meaning "battle battle." In fact that word "gun," as in firearm comes from these names)
and also names involving victory (anything with sig/ sieg in it. Sigurd, Siegfried, Sigismund, Sigmund, etc.)
Specifically if you're talking about names, this phenomenon could best be described as "nominative determinism," the idea that names control people's fates. A man named for a wolf or a bear will fight like a wolf or a bear. A man named for victory will experience victory in battle. I guess that doesn't really answer your question, though, because it isn't about making something intentionally more menacing.
Maybe you could say "bigging something up?"

>>23593264
>A man named for a wolf or a bear will fight like a wolf or a bear. A man named for victory will experience victory in battle.
Why didn't everyone in history just name their kids Bear God Victor then?

>>23593268
Most words I've looked up the etymology for trace back to being a list of positive attributes.

>>23593275
>words
whoops, I'm a retard, I meant names specifically.

>>23593256
i'll read their opinions

packing everyone full of flaws and forcing them into conflict IS NOT MY DEFAULT STATE. but i am getting over it

>>23592599
Neat. How many layers are you planning/ hoping to have for each line?

>>23593207
>I wonder what he was thinking
Money

>>23593604
why the fuck would the inclusion of his unusual kink, on the 3rd book in his published series, be a moneymaking decision?

>>23593616
>you gotta understand a race of women that gets pregnant when human men make them cum is necessary
I like how he doesn't consider how the elvish men could impregnate a human woman every year (or every 2 years if they wanted), so if anything, the elvish men would want to breed with human women too, instead of making only elf women sluts for human dick

>>23593562
My first goal is to make every line necessary, such that if you omit any one of them it alters the story. For example, if curtains are described in a room, someone will end up tripping on them or hiding behind them or something.

Another example might be a character being described with specific words I've reserved only for that character and their kin, and I intend for the only clue that they're all related to be that certain words are used to describe them all, but never used to describe anyone or anything else.

My second goal is to include at least one additional layer in a sentence per paragraph. The more important the paragraph, the more layers I'd like to have. Many chapters with inciting incidents have paragraphs in which every sentence has 2 or 3 layers. The climax has been the hardest to write because damn near every sentence has at least 2 layers, and some of the paragraphs with major events have 3 or 4 layers in each sentence.

I started to type out an example but got 8 lines into explaining one character in one scene of the climax and realized I wasn't halfway through just that one character's explanation.

>>23592000
any thoughts here?

I thought of one way that someone is revealed to be his son is by them forging a weapon or otherwise making something only the original living god made.

However I feel that would also imply the son is a reincarnation, which they are not.

I was thinking for one method they would take a holy piece of the living god he cast off (like a thread of his pants or something), tie it around a needle and float it in water with a cork to create a compass.

I wanted each tribe to come up with their own method however.

>>23593616
>editor: fans want more, quickly make more
>author: I don't have enough material for another novel yet
>e: just literally do whatever you want man
>a: you got it

>>23593773
>here's my fetish humanity fuck yeah porn writing
>wow such cool depth and reasonable explanation
>yeah I know it's gro- wait what?

>>23593728
well the story with him having three wives but then unrelated people have his actual sons a bit lame and confusing. and why would he just leave?

maybe he has sons but they get lost? kinda like the primarchs in 40k. some priest from the tribe might later go on an adventure to find one of those descendants by finding out who is the most similar to the first guy. or there could be a test like the sword stuck in the stone.

if the test is not exact you might have a scenario like in blade runner 2049 where who we think is the chosen one is not the chosen one.

you could also make it some highlander kinda thing or like in baldur's gate 2 the children of baahl, with the last one standing becoming a new god.

>>23593779
>Maybe THIS time they'll stop asking for more, I've had enough of this bullshit
>ANDREJ IT IS AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER rights sold to fifty countries, TV show in production, grats, when can you write the next one?

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Post-apocalyptic science low fantasy with horror elements. Focusing of the brutality of life, I've posted the intro but anons asked for something more substantial since it looked like a technical document. This is not completely finished, but let me know how it reads

>>23589888
>I think I'll end the story by somehow having him come out of this state, coming back to the surface where his servant will still be waiting for him because only an hour has passed in the real world or something.

Whilst this alone would be a pretty low ranking shyamalan tweest, I think you could have some fun with it if you explore around it. Maybe he had to leave a part of himself to get back, but he wasn’t the first and the abomination is harvesting parts of people’s sanity to grow? Maybe he came back okay but bought a little piece of the abyss back with him, that would alter the way he sees the real world? Either way, sounds like you’re making a fun story and you’re actually writing as opposed to half the online writers of the world so good on you.

>>23594181
i feel like you do not talk enough about what ash does in the fight? was she a mercenary? if not why did she not run earlier? was she hiding behind the mercenaries? did a mercenary die in the fight to specifically protect her maybe?

i was almost suprised to hear her name again at the end because she did not participate at all.

maybe this is just because there is context missing.

i feel like you do not make me feel scared enough, given what is happening. maybe a bit grossed out. like ash is put on a hook like a pig for slaughter, but i did not feel much about that. maybe because you just describe what happens but not that she screams or that it hurts or how her fear had built up during the fight. just my feeling though, idk how exactly to fix this or if this is just me. but for ash being the character we see this through suprisingly little happens in her head.

she thinks the dude is big. she thinks a basic military tactic is evil and cunning. she tries to run away after the battle is over but gets caught. she cries in the end.

you use the words "found purchase" to often. also that does not invoke a lot of horror in me. does not sound very violent as a word choice. especially if you would want to write from third person limited maybe use words that mirror ash's fear, agony and desperation.

>>23594181
Generic, description-heavy. If you want to talk about the brutality of life, you first need a character readers can care about, who experiences said brutality. Just going "whoaa ugly-ass dudes and gore and shiet" doesn't cut it. It's just boring.

>>23593785
>well the story with him having three wives but then unrelated people have his actual sons a bit lame and confusing. and why would he just leave?
Well my idea was that this would be an unexplained thing cause someone was saying here how sometimes mystery is better than explaining everything.

>>23594370
i mean, maybe that could work. but i could also see this being just annoying and arbitrary. don't you have other ways to create a sense of mystery?

but you could make it a plot point that people want to know why he left i guess. but just leaving out info and not explaining things by itself probably just feels like a plothole? or how are awesome mystery and lame plothole differentiated?

>>23594389
My original idea was the homeland was invaded by an otherworldly force that the living god was forced to defend, but in doing so he suffered grievous wounds that will not heal (like an edgy emo song)

He hid his injuries to maintain faith and sired his sons to defend the land and pass the torch to them. I'm not sure how I can explain them being born among the people though instead of his wives birthing them. Maybe his wives were wounded as well and could not carry children safely anymore?

>focus on intent/feeling for a work then write
>immediately enter flow state, the words i want to use come together so well the complete work only needs 1 or 2 edits to be polished well enough for my skill level
>try any other method of writing
>prose is dull, fingers write uninspiring words, freeze multiple times while writing like a gun jamming, have to edit heavily to make it workable

i’ve found out that my writing method is not only intuitive, but seems like artsy, esoteric nonsense those who dream of becoming writers but have never written before think writing’s like. how can i incorporate more prosaic techniques to my method? while focusing on a single intent or feeling or aesthetic or what have you may work wonders for a short story, i don’t think i can currently write an entire novel just based off of this. any techniques recommended would be greatly appreciated.

>>23594450
but why choose the wives then? idk maybe i am just more on the side of worldbuilding for the sake of the story instead of creating story problems for you with the world building.

and maybe i can only appreciate your ideas when i see them in written form.

i guess i just don't know how to argue or give tips without knowing what exactly it is for. like how does one or the other option make the story better?

i would try to create a compelling plot, characters, conflict and see how i can bend the story building to help me with that. that is why i was talking about what plot it would create that i have seen executed in other media. or what it would mean for the characters.

idk, i hope that does not come off as rude

>>23594463
If I understand what you're saying correctly, I don't necessarily think it wouldn't work for a novel. If it has something to do with an intense feeling, aesthetic, or narrative voice, keeping chapters short, self-contained and episodic would allow them to work both on their own and as part of a whole work. Like (I think it was) Palahniuk said, powerful and stylized language presented for drawn-out periods tends to exhaust a reader, but it's great in short bursts.

>>23594463
which other methods specifically have you used?

maybe it just is hard? a lot of writers write rough drafts and then edit a lot. seems to work.

>>23594514
i’ve tried outlining but for some reason it just doesn’t seem to work out half as well as i expect it to. whenever i write from an outline, my prose lacks soul, if that’s the word to use.

Western pulp anon here. The short story clocks in at around 12,000 words now that I'm done. There's a section of about 700 to 1,000 words that needs totally rewritten. I'm thinking of taking the day off because I'm not entirely sure how to rewrite it to get the point across. It's the scene where the main character's family is killed by the antagonist. I have another idea, one that I'm not sure how much I like, but it is an option. To leave that scene out entirely and just have the implication from the other characters reactions as they hear about it as to how horrific the whole thing was. Leave it to the imagination, as it would be.

>>23594503
He married the wives to unite the tribes

Originally they were four tribes, his tribe was mostly wiped out and assimilated into the others, but he was the last ruler of his tribe, he became a god by learning the other tribe's ways and doing heroic shit. But when he became a god he wanted to break down the concept of tribes and clans and tried to do so by marrying one of each.

I had a whole plot line in mind if you want to know more about the God's ascent.

>>23594553
maybe give us two short samples of yours. one with soul and one soulless with the outline.

>>23594579
it’s late here in japan, and i’m flying out to taiwan tomorrow. will work on something fresh.

>>23594223
>Maybe he had to leave a part of himself to get back, but he wasn’t the first and the abomination is harvesting parts of people’s sanity to grow? Maybe he came back okay but bought a little piece of the abyss back with him, that would alter the way he sees the real world?
These are good ideas actually. I'll have to workshop the story some more with something like that in mind.

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>>23592054
The world buildoomer:
>never writes, only world builds
>"I'll start writing soon, I just need to ink the map."
>runs complex computer simulations to determine the feasibility of his geography and the resulting weather patterns
>"Wait, you don't simulate tectonic plates for your setting?"
>has written several pages of lore detailing the customs, religion, politics and economics of the peoples in his setting, will never actually use any of this information
>looks up map drawing tutorials on YouTube
>"FUCK THE CONTINENTAL DRIFT IS ALL WRONG, I LITERARY CANNOT USE THIS FOR MY BOOK!"
>"Writing is just a hobby, world building is my passion."
>considers all of it an investment into the accuracy of his setting, will never actually get any of his time back

>>23593195
>thinly disguised fetish
I'm sorry, there was a disguise?
>>23593616
You wouldn't get it.

>>23593195
This guy definitely makes BBC threads on /trash/

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>>23594672
>>"FUCK THE CONTINENTAL DRIFT IS ALL WRONG, I LITERARY CANNOT USE THIS FOR MY BOOK!"
Wait, I'm that anon and this actually happened. I had mountains in the wrong place because of a plate collision and had to move some stuff around to make sure the plates slid past one another instead of colliding head-on.

Other than that, you mostly missed.

>>23594181
I'm just going to straight up say that you have not proofread any of what you wrote so I'm not going to point out which sentences don't make any sense because that is, for the most part, your job.
Besides that you're head hopping on the second paragraph and all over the ninth where there's a fight scene between the big cannibal and the leader of the mercenaries. "This" denotes proximity so it shouldn't be used in a description while "his" is literally referring to two different people whenever you feel like your imaginary camera, that is only known to you, is shifting between them. This isn't a movie set and you're not the director, just stick to one perspective throughout regardless if it's a personal or a more neutral one.
Fight scenes aren't interesting because a fight is happening. Your story has absolutely no stakes in it. It's just two groups of people trading blows with each other until one turns the other into a rekt thread on /gif/. I actually expected there to be rape once we found out that Ash was a woman but you managed to dash my expectations, frankly it wouldn't have been a good thing if there was but at least I would have had a tiny bit of morbid curiosity about what was going to happen to her rather than whatever the fuck was going on around her with all the needless violence being pointed out by the narrator as "unnecessary violence". What I said about fight scenes also applies to displays of brutality, I could not possibly give a shit about any of this inconsequential snuff fest.
If you want to write something, and I don't mean just write this one cool scene that you had in your head where the cannibals win against the mercenaries as an introduction to your setting, then you have to learn how to make the readers invested in your characters in order for any of what happens to them to have any sort of meaning and consequence.

>>23594672
goddamn how many compasses does she need?

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>>23594817
They're probably made of chocolate anyway.

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Yo yo

email: unrealpressandpodcast@proton.me
Looking for: Fiction 2-5k words, Poems, Book Reviews 1-3k words of recent releases and classics in the genres of SFF, Weird, and Horror.

If you've submitted to us before, thanks a ton. If not, Tales of the Unreal is a pulp mag that prints stories in the genres of SFF, Weird, and Horror. We've recently released the third volume, and therefore are putting out a call for submissions for the 4th volume.

We've found some talented writers in this thread, off the top of my head I believe Alex Beyman came across us via this thread. Been a while since we posted a call though since this issue took so long

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>>23594748
This kind of stuff unironically bothers me, mostly in games where I see just masses of mountains ringing a continent because it would never work like that.

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>>23594836
Yessss.
I can overlook it in settings where a deity probably created the world by just chalking it up to a deity doing weird things. But in games like Civilization it bugs the hell out of me.

Going a step further, I remember someone was writing a mod for Dwarf Fortress that started with magma currents and mantle density gradients to generate the plates themselves instead of generating or building their own plates and then applying continental drift and collision to them.

That's the dream for me. Start with a molten ball of supernova remnants and fast forward as it cools down and watch the crust form and slide around until interesting land masses exist to populate.

>>23592599
1 -> OK
2 -> I don't see it
3 -> it's the same as 1, you just used more words
4 -> Kino
5 -> You're overreaching so much you can give yourself a back rub without bending your elbow

>historical fantasy
>the dialogue doesn't have that clearly historical flavour
bad idea? I find it's too easy to make it stilted and just want to write conversations more naturally (without going fully modern either)

>>23595145
2. Anthropomorphize the two settlements. The backwater is young, messy, untested, aspirational, etc. The established city is large, sturdy, impressive, etc, but has seen better days and is beginning to show weakness. This also applies to Raven and her mentor. And just as Raven doesn't want to burden him when he's feeling down, the people of the backwater town don't want to burden the city if it's struggling to get by.

3. There are some key differences that were left out. Raven is in the mentor role with the other Scout and rather than his suffering being a sudden sign that he's not the stoic legend he appears to be, Raven is very familiar with it. There's more subtext in that the mentor obviously wants to be there for Raven but is struggling with his own weakness, and the same is true of Raven as she walks ahead of the other scout and struggles to grasp if she should help him or let him develop more independence without her because her vision is clouded by her own pain, which the other scout notices.

5. Fair point. It's the most general layer because it applies to the most people so it's also the weakest. I can't be too specific without undermining the uniqueness of the various characters. In my mind, I see a scene for each character in which they're trailing someone, and if you took a still from each of these scenes and overlaid them you'd see significant overlap even though the contexts are radically different.

There's Raven following her mentor.
There's a lawman following a gang leader.
There's a man following the woman that doesn't know he's her father.
There's a mercenary following a chemist in hiding.
There's a smith following the chemist after they're captured.
There's a cultist following a demon no one else can see.
There's a naive kid following the open road and the horizon.
There's a treasonous noble following the monarch.
etc etc etc

They all have themes and scenes similar to the one described in the sentence, and most bend and twist those themes to suit each context.

I dunno if that makes it better or worse, but I like the effect. It's a wide, shallow layer, but it adds up over a dozen chapters.

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>>23594867
Isn't that just taking the easy road? You're trusting equations and numbers to do the legwork of coming up with just the right shape to excite your creativity. Putting aside the fact that most readers won't even notice, you're putting the cart before the horses.

Yes, culture is shaped by the land, but as a storyteller you need to think about how to make the land serves the story, not the other way around. I'm also fairly certain that freak geneological events can ultimately explain almost every kind of mountain pattern so what you're doing is even more moot. If you have ideas for people you'd find a way to make them work even by just using the ol' spilled rice worldbuilder mastertip.

>>23595200
i much rather want to read normal sounding dialogue than thy ole majesty's anglo-saxon. maybe put in a couple old timey words so i don't forget we are in the past, but that is enough.

>>23595222
>well, you see, I am a huge navelgazing faggot
best of luck on your book. concentrate on getting the words out so you can edit them into something both readable and aurally pleasing

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>>23595241
>You're trusting equations and numbers to do the legwork of coming up with just the right shape to excite your creativity.
I do happen to be an engineer by both nature and education. If my environment is unfit for my goals I just contrive of ways to alter my environment to make it suit me better. In this case, I'm using simulation software to produce geologically accurate map inspiration because I have little will and little ability to make that sort of thing up from scratch.

>>23595246
The thing is I prioritize the big picture. Again, due to the engineering background, I'm prone to thinking in terms of systems. The story is one big machine with thousands of moving parts. My understanding of "navelgazing" is that it's myopic and narrow in view. Overly focused on one element of a thing.

Maybe it'd be more accurate to say that I'm gaudy? Overly-applying detail to every tiny feature of the thing, at the risk of being too convoluted to enjoyably read or understand?

>>23595280
>I'm gaudy
>Raven wished to speak to him, but as she matched his pace she caught a glint of the fading light on his cheek and thought better of it.
is not gaudy. is not intricately crafted. does not utilize alliteration or assonance. does not utilize repetition to drive home a point. does not evoke feelings in the reader. does not sound especially good. you reading a hundred different things into this absolute basic bitch of a sentence is peak navelgazing
so, in order to try and direct your energy, I think you'd be better served putting more words on the page so that you can produce something at the end of the day.

How would you improve this passage? (prose/description)

The two passageways converged into to an open area beneath an enclosed bridge which connected two apartment buildings of limestone and stucco. From the alley to their right emerged Cadian and Marco, looking focused as ever. “No one is trailing us,” the two men communicated with each other in the Bravo sign language and then resumed their march.

After a series of turns and twirls into more alleys with barricaded windows and locked doors, they came to a halt when they reached a tunnel that reeked of humid stone and old sweat. The tunnel opened up to a balcony with clear view of the Grand Canal, which carved Morain into its various districts like a hot blade. Charles lifted his cloak to prevent the muck-littered ground from staining it. Rat shit, he noted. The entrance has to be close.

Here's with a little more flair, and making it a little more obvious he's crying.
>Raven wished to speak with him, but as she wove her way closer, she witnessed a streak, a glint in the fading light, sliding down his cheek and thought better of it.

>>23595280
I agree with the other anon
but would add one other thing:
it feels like you've written the essay analysing the symbolism of your work before you've actually really written the work. I get everyone has their own creative process but this seems very counterproductive to creating art that's honest

>Have written 5 chapters so far
>Word count: 29285
>shortest chapter is 5050 words

Do I just trim the length of the chapters after I'm done writing the first draft, or do I divide each chapter to 2 or 3 smaller ones? Problem is that they aren't even bloated with long thoughts or monologues that usually inflate the word count of novels, but at the same time I've covered very little of the plot to the point where we're not even at Act 2 yet.

>>23595321
You're definitely still overthinking things, there's nothing special about this sentence

>>23595346
probably both? if something can be trimmed to make it better then do that of course. if the chapters are still too long, maybe the plot of the chapter is a bit weird and it should be changed to split it up. but maybe long chapters are not all that bad anyway?

>>23595346
Ideal chapter length is like 3,500 to 5,500. If yours are a bit longer I wouldn't worry too much. Maybe split them up if they're exceeding 8k.

>>23595346
my problem when writing is that descriptions and the "transistions" between scenes take too long. And when I mean transistions, I am mostly literal. Like, character traversing from A place to B place.

For example, chapter V of my story is as follows

>Character "B" is at the bedside of a famous courtesan that serves as his organization's spy
>they chat for a while, revealing some backstory and info about a secondary antagonist
>he leaves the mansion and takes a boat to place X, where he meets up with 3 other characters
>they have a few lines of dialogue but then they team up to go to the sewers, in order to hunt a beast that's been terrorizing the city
>B chats with Character C in the midst of this transition, revealing some of his plans/motivation
>the 4 characters arrive to the sewers
>they have an encounter with some sewer critters but are interrupted by the arrival of the beast.
>they don't actually see the beast (just its shadow/hear it), because it seemingly runs away when two enemy guards arrive to the scene

Here the chapter would run longer, where one of the 4 characters kinda freaks out and jumps on the two goons, causing a fight and their two deaths, causing the protagonists' organization to cause a meeting and go into panic mode. It's the largest part of two chapters that's meant to be setup, but yet it's 7k words long.

The story so far is 29k words long which amounts to roughly 58 pages with a small font, yet so little is actually achieved in the story = readers are bored because my prose is that of an amateur's, so they can't be distracted by beautiful writing, unlike many other novels with slow beginnings.

>>23595391
>he leaves the mansion and takes a boat to place X, where he meets up with 3 other characters
Do a double line break and cut to him immediately meeting with the others. No need to show him leaving and traveling. If you are stuck with transitions being the way to deliver backstory maybe work that lore into another scene entirely.

>>23595391
maybe write some short stories for practice? might help you getting to the point

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>>23595301
You seem to fundamentally misunderstand me. I suspect you're thinking in terms of prose vs poetry rather than the systems I mentioned. I'm a stupid STEM-brained writer. 99% of what I've written in my life has been technical reports, work instructions, presentations for MBAs, etc. I'm not confident in my ability to write "artistically" or to craft a "pretty" sentence, so I lean into "brute forcing" something vaguely resembling art using blunt patterns.

I feel like it's sort of like knurling. It looks pretty but it's not art. It was produced by geometric calculations for a practical purpose, not sculpted for emotional impact. Likewise, I feel like all I can do is write in a calculated, geometric fashion that, at its very best, merely resembles something created in freehand for sentimental purposes.

>>23595324
See above.
Also, I don't see a finished story in my head. I see a few significant scenes and from there I set out to describe the rules that would generate those scenes as well as tell me how to fill in the gaps between them. Plus, I do have like 120k words written. Much of the symbolism and whatnot was discovered as I wrote them, jumping out of the rules and patterns I established beforehand.

I had an exercise on rhythm to do, what do you think of it?

>7. Write about one of the following and suggest the rhythm of the subject in your prose: a machine, a piece of music, sex, a spaceship in orbit, a car in rush-hour traffic, [an avalanche].

>The avalanche began with a pebble or branch, the wind had compelled them out of their homes. On its tumbling path, they stirred the ground high up in the mountain, and that same wind gifted them with speed for their involuntary descent. These would-be agitators slid and fell from a ravine, dragging with them small currents of snow, which in turn picked up more branches and pebbles along the way. These unlikely friends were trailblazers, the channels they had carved on the snow made way for unthinkable volumes of snow to drag behind them. The speedy, surfing material knocked ever bigger rocks out of place and the now terrifying wave began to absorb it all on its path – trees, boulders, animals and men alike were buried by the crashing mass of frozen water and dirt. A whole mountain was melting down and it unleashed its anger on whatever happened to be at the bottom - it and everything that once rested on it, these uprooted migrants of nature, claimed the valley as their new home, crushing those who either thought they could contest it or were unable to make way to avoid its wrath.

>>23594831
So is volume #3 out? https://unrealpress.substack.com/p/tales-of-the-unreal-all-volumes doesn't show it.

I finished the first draft of my novel but I'm putting it aside for a while, outlining the next one, so I can go back for edits with a clean mind and fresh eyes. It's very stressful. I'm thinking of printing it so I just have a print copy to mark up with a red pen before going into the rewrite; has anyone tried those book printing sites? Is there one where I can just buy a single copy?

>>23594310
>>23594344
>>23594807
Thanks for the points anons, picked up quite a few things I'll improve

>>23595927
If you don't have a printer at home, you can always go to a printing place like the UPS Store, or Fedex Office. They charge quite a bit, though.

>>23596146
>>23595927
I believe most libraries let you print simple stuff without very high fees, if any. But buying a basic $50 printer might be the best option if you plan to do more editing in the future.

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Put more words to the page for my third novel today bros. The process is coming along.

A sci-fi thriller where the entire first half of the story is a slice of life comedy

>>23596415
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WkOZKGzH3A
made me think of this

is portal/litrpg slop still VIABLE on royal road? im doing it either way, i just want to know if even the sloppers look down on it

>>23589290
Some thoughts on the problem:
1. Make him fine with using his skills to track and kill game, thus creating tension with your MC. This goes well with being a tamer, because either his animal companion/s eat meat (in which case killing things is necessary), or they don't and you have a character contradiction which you can exploit for drama.
2. Make their skills complementary. Sure, they can both track and trap, but they don't have to hunt the same things. She might have the edge when finding an argent thunderbeak in the Frostbreak Mountains, but not recognize the acid burns of a chameleon spitfang from the Suppurating Delta. This will also affect other skills, like trap-making, because type, location, bait, etc. will all depend on the target. You could even have the two of them bond over learning each other's skills, e.g. after a close encounter one asks the other how they knew what was coming, and they have a discussion about identifying different animal tracks.

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I've made no progress popularity wise for the past what must four months but my passion and creativity have only gone up.
It's hard not to worry about your analytics even though people like to say "I just don't care lol." we all know it really is important to you even if you don't obsesses over it.
I can't say I'm happy with how much people seem to be not interested in my writing but I'm writing the story I want to and I think at the end of the day that's what matters most.

>>23595681
idk. what did you try to use to create a sense of rythm? just sentence length?

i think description might slow down time while action speeds it up. so you want to first describe nothing happening yet. then a little happens with more description in between and then you show how the avalanche destroys things. maybe hard to make a difference between description for slow time and description of destruction for fast timw. idk

>>23596415
maybe works with a lot of good foreshadowing?

>>23596710
idk. a writer would probably say that being read is what matters most. or making enough money with it to support yourself. both seem more important than a hobby that basically only happens in your own head if nobody else reads it.

but i don't want to discourage you. maybe it just takes a couple more tries and maybe you are still getting a lot of experience from this?

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Should I start writing even though I haven't finished the worldbuilding quite yet?

>>23596820
World building is a stupid meme. I can name twenty elements in story telling that are more important than world building.

>>23596710
Hey, are you the frog that had to undergo a hit n run, the one that I buried and is with Jesus now? Cool! Greet him for me. Have fun over there!

>>23596820
yes obviously you should just start writing and nobody cares if your world building is done or not. the worldbuilding should help your story. so come up with something that inspires you to write the story and come up with more details as you write if you see it could help make a better story.

how can your world building even be finished if it is about a whole world?

please just start writing your story anon. PLEASE!

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>>23596839
>>23596929
Fair enough, I should get the world down a bit more just because I want it quite in depth. I've sort of blasted out a page 1 to get the ball rolling. It's not great but let me know if you'd read on.

>>23596972
Good beginning so far. All the more reason to write.

>>23596972
>I should get the world down a bit more just because ...
it is an addiction anon. seek help. i believe there is a world builder anonymous thread here somewhere.

anyway

it is probably not good to start with dialogue especially when it is that long without any dialogue attribution.
maybe say in a sentence that the regent was droning on for a while about something then add the dialogue. also as a reader i would like to have a picture of where we are a bit earlier. say where those people who talk are, how many people we are talking to. the way it is now your dialogue feels a bit like movie dialogue, where we can see in the background what is happening while things are being said. remember that the reader does not know the pictures in your head. you have to tell them. they will just be a bit confused when they don't know what the person who just starts talking is going on about.

for example i thought we were on that vessel right now, because that is the only hint i have. but maybe we are in front of it because the king is surrounded by formations of soldiers, which might not have space on a ship. or maybe it is a really big ship. then tell us what the ship looks like. i could have also guessed that we are in a throne room, when you said "regent" but then you say palanquin, so probably outside.

the regent being scheming and possibly a danger to the king-in-waiting is a bit to casually dropped here i think. why say this when other people might be able to listen? would you not want to talk about such a thing in a closed room at night?

most the stuff here feels like exposition. you name drop a lot of worldbuilding names but we know nothing about these things. i do not care about those heroes. maybe those are just typical propaganda heroes who never really existed. or they are all murderers of the last king-in-waiting. but i know nothing of them.

i also don't know what a durand is.

or what indixxus means.

and is thea their country, continent or entire world? and is the great dictator above the king? is he purely a religious person?

then the house, the tribe, the island. imagine each of those would just be a person. of course people would tell you you introduce too many characters. am i supposed to remember all that?

so for a first page this is too much exposition and world building. hook me in with the promise of some action or magic or adventure. i guess the intrigue part is interesting, maybe start with that instead to hook readers in. because it seems like we will not be on the ship, so that might not be the best hook then. and maybe tell me more about the ship and expedition. why is that important. seems not important to the king. is this just a vanity project?

Thoughts on longer bits of exposition? I'm the pulp western anon,. currently rewriting a section where the MC's family is killed and he is relating the events to a group of listeners. It's about 500-700 words of him doing nothing but talking, and I'm not sure if it's the best route to take.

>>23596717
I tried using word choices of increasing impact and longest sentences as things moved forward, but if you didn’t pick up on it then it didn’t work.
I’ll take notes from your post and try again later.

>>23597130
yeah i head a feeling about sentence length because the last sentence was quite long. but you did not really have short sentences in the beginning.

but are long sentences really fast rythmically? not sure.

also an avalanche stops at some point as well. so it actually would come to a complete stand still in the end again. right?

>>23597099
what do you mean you are not sure? what would be the worst route to take instead?

>>23597228
I'm not sure, the two options I see right now are either the long-winded exposition, we're glossing over the story and just showing everyone's reactions to it. Both have their pros and cons, which is why I'm looking for feedback on the one that I'm currently trying, the exposition.

>>23597251
I meant "or glossing over"

Damn my lazy ass and voice to text.

>There is a character in this story inspired by the general idea of Johan Liebert from the anime Monster. This character is not supposed to be representative of any real life figures. I never put in real life figures into my stories and try to keep them as fictional as possible, and it may seem otherwise, but please trust me on this. This had a completely different source of inspiration than real life. It was inspired by media I was consuming one day and decided to put it into my own stories.

I modified my note at the beginning of my story.

>need to have world building
>I make up shit as I go
>Now I have magic, robots, ironman suits vs mechas, magical girls, skeletons, machines, drugs, trains, dragons etc
Fuck you it's fantasy anyways

>>23597308
>Sorry any readers that may have been confused. As an author, I try to keep a strict firm line between reality and fiction, and try to never let them bleed over. My thoughts when making this story was essentially coming up with things while I was going, same as my usual process, and I was thinking mostly of Johan Liebert when I was writing that character, not any public figures or any individuals in general. I wanted a character to be manipulative to the protagonist and to manipulate them into suicidal ideation similar to the way that Johan Liebert acts and it is not meant to be read in any other way. I never base any characters off of real life people, and a few times the name generators I used spouted out the names of people I knew, but if they weren't generic enough I just used another. I'll repeat it firmly; I never mix reality and fiction. I'd never do something like that, because it simply isn't how I operate. Thank you.

Hi, newfag here. Here's my first real attempt at writing a scene.

>She watched the open window from the her covers. Manifold sheets kept her from the chill of the night. A series of soft, velvety barricades against the mercurial shadow shapes at all corners of the room. He had always crawled in from the window. If he was coming tonight, it would be from the same spot.

>So, she watched and waited, expecting to see gloved fingers slide over the windowsill any minute now.

>His grunts and groans preceded his arrival. His heaved breaths were hard to differentiate from the sounds of the night wind. His disheveled form rose against the backdrop of midnight blue like a whale breaching the waters.

>His joints popped as he forced himself through the window. It reminded young Alice of toothpaste coming out of the tube.

>He slid to the ground with a moan.

>“Damn kid, I had to climb seven stories to get up here. What gives?” He spoke with a most unusual accent. Slurred. Gravelly and warbling, with a voice like a bag of agitated alley cats.

>Similarly, he looked like he had been plucked from a back alley, too. His clown suit was tattered and torn. Faded red stripes ran down vertically across his tightly fitted form, making Alice think of circus tents full of hot air. The ends of his legs were soaked in something repulsive and sticky, leaving a black trail of unidentifiable sludge with every step he took.

>Despite his rough appearance, Alice didn’t seem to mind. “You’re back. I knew you would be.” She said, peeking from over her blankets.

>“Darn right, I’m back. And have I got news for you…” The clown said, producing a cigarette from out of thin air.

>>23597338
Good. Creepy enough and I want to know more.

>>23597338
Very good hook, nice work

>>23596972
I disagree with the other guy insofar as your dialogue is just fine standing on it's own
he's correct about worldbuilding, however. readers care about your characters, their likes, desires and goals, not necessarily the set dressing

>>23596972
It's like a video game log of dialogue and actions, not a story.

>>23597329
erm, wait a minute, you put a bunch of fun things in your fun fantasy story, and didn't even take the time to itemize the metal content of the coinage of every kingdom in your setting? Sounds like someone doesn't have their priorities straight.

>>23597222
All are good points, I’ll just say there is still a lot of margin to improve for me.
I’ll try again tonight and try to:
- Keep a consistent tense across the story
- Illustrate the rhythm of the piece by manipulation the sentence length a lot more in the beginning and end
- Make slightly better use of the verbs of different impact as I go along
Thank you for reading, have a good day anon

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53 KB JPG

Tried speech-to-text for the first time today. It effectively doubled my output to 4k words in the same time frame, but wasn't really half as handy as I thought. Having to focus so much on pronunciation and the rhythm of delivery so it wouldn't fuck up the automatic punctuation and everything got exhausting, and I still had to do a lot of fixing by hand too. Many times I forgot what I meant to say halfway along, or blabbered something unintended. Guess it takes some practice...

>>23597338
My main criticism is that there's no real reason for why this looks like a light novel. You have a bunch of loose sentences forming their own paragraphs when they could have easily been grouped up by their subject matters.
Keeping with that line of thought, many of the loose sentences in your pocket start with pronouns like "His" or "He" which is less than ideal as far the variety of your sentence structure goes.
Otherwise it's probably fine and good but please don't greentext these or redditspace them.

>>23596485
I don't believe the sloppers are capable of looking down on anything. As to whether it's viable or not just check the rising stars and see if it's their first book or not.

At 12,696 words, my short story is done. Now onto planning the others that'll accompany it in the book.

>>23597251
well first of all, does it need that many words? can he tell it a bit more efficiently?

also does all that exposition need to happen at the same time? or can you give some exposition throughout as it becomes relevant?

>>23597308
why say outright form which anime this is? people will just attack you over that.

why not just give the normal blurb? do you have social anxiety so bad you are scared of people reading and misinterpreting your story?

>>23597566
As far as length, it could be done a bit shorter I suppose. But happening all at once kind of makes more sense here, as he's relaying the story to the town sheriff, who's wants to hear everything then and there.

>>23597338
>He had always crawled in from the window.
start with this sentence. sounds more interesting.

>Manifold sheets kept her from the chill of the night. A series of soft, velvety barricades against the mercurial shadow shapes at all corners of the room.
a bit to purple for my tastes

>It reminded young Alice of toothpaste coming out of the tube.
i did not really buy that. later you say it is a clown, which would make this more believable. but here we do not know that so it sounds weird. i don't think i would think of a normal person getting through a window looking like toothpaste. with a clown that makes sense though.

>Similarly, he looked like he had been plucked from a back alley, too.
idk if back alleys is really what i am thinking of from your description. like a disheveled man looks like that, but not a creepy clown with the legs soaked in something repulsive and sticky.

i generally liked it though.

>>23597529
but is the story good though? care to show us your first page?

>>23597308
yeah, why are you groveling and apologizing preemptively? shit's repulsive

>>23597592
I will at some point. Currently on lunch break. Actually, I think I already did at one point, but can repost.

>>23597574
well has he never had an opportunity to say part of the story before? then you can skip that part of the retelling.

and you do not have do give us the whole dialogue. you can just skip over some parts telling us a shorter version of what was said.

>>23597338
>Gravelly and warbling, with a voice like a bag of agitated alley cats.
yowling cats may be warbling, but they definitely don't sound gravelly

>>23597600
It literally just happened and no one knew about it before he stumbled into town

>>23597412
Noooo, now I have to scrap the entire thing and start over

>>23597614
OK, my guy. you do realize that the person who made this untellable story is the author, i.e. you?

i hate it when i give advice and then i am being told "well but it did not happen like that". i mean sure, but who is at fault for that? maybe write a story that does not need multiple pages of exposition?

how about he meets somebody else before the sheriff? how about he starts telling the sheriff some stuff and then they get interrupted and the sheriff says tell me the rest tomorrow?

i am telling you that having multiple pages of exposition is a bad idea. so maybe you just have a bad story idk. maybe the reader will be fine with that.

or just give us a summary of what was said. "and then i had the most boring two hour conversation with the sheriff about how my family just got killed". and later somebody else asks about it again and we here some more info.

also if it literally just happened then why is that not part of the story instead of that boring ass exposition info dump?

i am sorry, this format just makes me angry sometimes i guess. it feels like people never give enough info about their problem and so i just have to do a bunch of useless explaining.

was that helpful for you anon?

>>23597634
>was that helpful for you anon
Literally all I asked was "is it better to have exposition, or to leave it up to the reader's imagination"

>>23597491
My bad. I'll keep my sentences better formatted and better varied in the future.
>>23597587
Thanks for the criticism. I'll keep all this in mind as I rewrite it
>>23597602
Yeah, I see what you mean. I'll fix it.
Thanks for the feedback everybody

Is it possible to have Christianity presented as factual in a cosmic horror setting?