Sci-fi and fantasy are for emotionally stunted retards.

>>23867184
Literary fiction is just the "drama" genre.
“Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible.” -Rod Serling

>>23867187
Drama is based on people interacting with it requires an understanding of others. Genreslop is just about dwarves casting level 8 photon torpedoes.

>>23867194
Why can't I have a fictitious or fantastical story that does that?

>>23867209
You specifically? Probably because you’re a shit writer. Generally? Because the genre trappings are just a crutch for poor drama. So you can have both, but it’ll suck.

SF&F are settings not genres. There is such thing as literary sci-fi and literary fantasy

>>23867194
You have a comically shallow understanding of what fantasy and sci-fi are. Rod Serling explained it above, but you're too addicted to the smell of your own farts to consider that you don't know everything.

>>23867227
Explain why you mean they can't have good drama

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>>23867176
Should I just drop the Middle English and have these characters just talk like normal people?

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>>23867268
Wrong file

>>23867228
i don't care. actually, i do care; if it were up to me, categorizing books like this-- like porno w/ tags, would be punishable by death. you will no longer be able to find your faggot fantasy books, you will have to sift through all the misery porn litfic.

>>23867268
>>23867273
it depends where you're at. maybe as an artiste, or how autistic and beholden to the setting you feel.
but, i wouldnt read anything heavy with ye olde shit

>>23867367
Why exactly

>>23867134
The only thing I can really suggest at this point is sit down with a well-regarded book of your choosing that features a weird setting and take literal page-by-page notes about when and how the author introduces pieces of exposition. Then, compare these notes to your own writing.

>>23867404
because it's a vicious cycle. publishing, authors, etc. are all feeding the beast. and people need to get out of their comfort zone

>>23867404
>>23867464
to vaguely elaborate,
agents will want to know what books your book is like. you need to write and sell them something that they already know will sell, because consumers can't help themselves. women want more legends and lattes and crown of thorn and roses, (or whatever is hot now). and if you arent writing those, fuck you

Does this communicate the raw power of this guy's hits?
>When I placed my hand on his shoulder, attempting in vain to get him to turn back and finally give up on his pointless search for such a petty thing, he spun around. I didn't see the expression on his face, but I could almost feel the violent animosity coming off of him.
>I was abruptly flipped into the air as his leg swept both of mine. Time slowed to a crawl as I perceived him, lit by nothing but the moon, looming over me. His fist clenched as he drove it into my torso at speeds that even in my moment of slowed time felt hard to perceive. White hot agony shredded through my entire chest cavity, like he had just punched every single organ at once.
>I screamed but no noise came out as I rocketed towards the soil. As I collided with the fertile grassy dirt, I felt myself bouncing up at least 2 feet in the air before I finally came to rest, blood pooling in my throat and coming out as my stomach involuntarily contracted to send gouts of red ichor flying out of my open mouth. But that's about all I could perceive, as the only other sensation within my body was a feeling that was beyond any singular description. It felt like the skin on my chest had been stripped away and I had been peppered with boiling saltwater. Like my breasts had burst open and my ribcage had been split into pieces. It was as if my lungs had been deflated and my heart had been crushed.
>As I faded into unconsciousness, or at least I hoped it was, with Sanen rushing to my side in a panic, I only thought one thing as I stared up at Lape:
>What did my eldest brother do to himself over those 6 long years?

>>23867273
If you’re going to do the early modern English thing, at least learn to do it right. “I had mistaken thee”, not “thou”

>>23867273
Like >>23867697 said, if you're going to do it, you have to do it right.
>thou hath
Should be "thou hast". Hast is second person, hath is third person.
>mistaken thou
Should be "mistaken thee". Thou is nominative, thee is accusative.
>thine feet
Should be "thy feet". Only use thine when the next word starts with a vowel, or when it is not modifying another noun, same rules as when you would use "mine" instead of "my".

>>23867611
Yes, but the writing needs a bit of work
>A few too many repetitions
>Some terms seemed too verbose given the frantic nature of the scene, like "ichor", but that's just me
>Try to write numbers when they come up in sentences
>Bouncing two feet in the air from the blow is just goofy, at least if the soil isn't made of rubber and the other guy isn't supernaturally strong

>>23867367
>hurr durr we need to empower the government to solve this problem
You have a child's view of the power of government. And you're a not-so-closeted fascist. Big surprise. I have a suggestion...why don't you leave the room in your mommy's house where you grew up, and experience the real world every once in a while.

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>>23867464
>hurr durr people need to get out of your comfort zone
pure projection. it's clear you're not willing to do this. you have a less-than-surface-level understanding of genre

>>23867194
>hurr durr people interacting
Is that where you learned how to interact with people? Because you turned out to be a petty, small-minded, mean-spirited little asshole. You'll have to forgive me if I don't want to tread your path.

>Hurr durr the durr hurr.
This is really the height of your intellect, isn’t it?

How far ahead have you thought on what kinds of books you want to write?
When I'm not writing, even when I am reading, it feels like everything I think about is another book to write. So far I've only stuck with three other novels I regularly think about.
If so, does it give you hope that you are still creative, a reason to finish your work, or do you find it a distraction?

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>>23868267
This from the dumbass whose height of intellect is ad hominem attacks, jumping to conclusions, and surface-level understanding.

Where do you guys find calls for submissions?

>>23867187
it's not necessarily tho there's literary fiction that isn't dramatic just read the lime twig it's not a drama. also there's genrefags like phil dick whose stuff is the literal opposite of literature he could barely put one word in front of the other but there's still a dramatic structure to most of his stuff

>>23868289
>pkd can't write
and yet his children are BILLIONAIRES

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How's this for the start of a mystery novel?

I haven't written properly in like 2 weeks. I wrote myself into a place where it didn't seem right and kept going. Now with the whole thing feeling off I need to make time to reread everything and figure out where I need to start deleting.

>>23868429
Your mc can see this Henry guy despite being five minutes away and having to listen to him through a walkie talkie.
>After a moment of static a man's voice comes crackling though my walkie-talkie. "There's no body."
>"What do you mean there's no body."
>"You heard me," Henry's voice crackles through again. "Just get over here, officer, there's something a lot more interesting than a body inside this thing."
I hated that I could hear his grin.
"Be there in five."
>[now describe turning west and going through meredith park, maybe with the time of day and weather and whatever else]

I also don't understand why this police officer would have a civilian scoping out a potential dead body first.

>>23868577
yeah I did something similar, started writing a scene that just didn't jive with where it should be in the story. basically finished the scene then decided to not scrap it, but set it aside to fit in later

>>23868613
Thanks for the advice! I'm very new to actually writing so I know this was a bit messy
>Your mc can see this Henry guy despite being five minutes away and having to listen to him through a walkie talkie.
Yeah I kinda caught this one after re-reading what I had but I posted it already by that point, good point regardless.
>I also don't understand why this police officer would have a civilian scoping out a potential dead body first.
Yeah you are my idea is that the reader is supposed to question that too, the answer would come shortly after, tho obviously I haven't written it there yet. Basically Henry is an ex-detective and the POV character's "roomate', thought he is only allowed to crash on his place out of pity. and he keeps getting himself involved in cases he personally finds interesting despite no longer being in the force, legal consequences be dammed, specially since he has some connections and blackmail he is not afraid to use from his time as the star detective of the force. It's supposed to be Sherlock and Watson type thing.

>>23868577
Same for me. I struggled on a scene introducing a new character, it didn't turn out how I wanted, and am also nearing the point where after about three more scenes I have no idea where the story should go next.

The horizon, quivering under the sun's fierce dominion, seemed a distant mirage, where tall grasses bent and swayed, not in defiance, but in a languid, weary dance, their tips warping under the fervent rays. His dark blue tailcoat, buttoned to the throat despite the heat, stood as an emblem of discipline, its pristine form a sharp contrast to the parched, listless plains around him. His mouth, a thin, unyielding line, bespoke the gravity of his thoughts, while his eyes, sharp and penetrating, scanned the endless heavens where a quartet of hawks circled with sublime grace.

>>23868657
okay, then my advice would be to change the first line of dialogue to, "I think I found it, but there's no body."
And then I'd say drop your 'officer' reference because at that specific moment it only creates confusion. You can set up the buddy cop thing to start only to later add in the wrinkle that Henry is a disgraced former police detective that got kicked off the force, and I assume drinks heavily and got divorced or his wife died.

>>23868714
>horizon
>dance
>stood as
There is no way this isn't GPT. It's too cliché. Stop fucking with the general please.

>>23868735
It's 70/30. I told it my paragraph and told it to spice it up in the style of Charles Dickens. Most of it is still my own work.

>>23868717
good points, yeah I will definitely rework the introduction to be more clear, or at least less confusing

>>23868837
>I told it my paragraph and told it to spice it up
the absolute state of you faggots, have you considered spicing it up yourself?

>>23868844
If I knew how to do that I would already be writing like Dickens in the first place.

>>23868849
If you keep asking AI to sloppen up your work you will NEVER learn how to write like Dickens, and worse yet you will never find your own style

>>23868057
>Write numbers
Explain
Also yes the guy is strong as fuck. Literally trains by imprinting his fist shape in trees

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How do you deal with moments where you just blankly stare at the opened text and have no idea what to write next?

>>23868958
just write something
>b-but
Just write, literally anything

>>23868960
I knew I should have add "other than just write". I should have.

>>23868958
I check my outline for what comes next, immerse myself in the scene mentally, and begin to write. Maybe the sentences aren't all pure gold straight from the fingertips, but I can worry about that on the editing stage.

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Trying some opening lines. It's for a novella contest so you know it's got to be attention-grabbing in a couple sentence. Do you rike one of them?
>Dear friend, I haven't seen you since you dreamed of me in your last sleep. Saddened by your absence, I have enclosed within this letter a drop of melancholy for you to sip and remember promises made.
>Dear friend, I would be heartened if this letter finds you in good health. As for me, my shell grows ever luxurious and I still sup of your dreams when they pass by my atoll. I remembered your sadness over your feeble constitution and have taken the liberty to enshrine within these words a map of fanciful thoughts.
>Dear friend, the years have gone and gone, but the dreams of suns endures. As you irrigated me in my time of great need and shedding I shall do my utmost to bring you back to the seat of my left eye. Here are the names of three of your people in whose bedding you shall snore to find your way to me. First is one Victoria Queen...

>>23868057
Later on:
>In that moment, watching Lape continue to hurl himself against that seemingly perfect opponent with feverish tenacity despite his broken body, I finally got it. Why my eldest sibling does what he does. Why he showed so much contempt for anyone trying to stop him.
>It was our great grandmother. He admired her, and seeing us act so dismissive of her memory caused him to hate us. He fought out of a strange desire to emulate her.

>>23868855
No, I know my own style (trash)

Hypothetically speaking, how hard would an author get cancelled if there was a scene where an under 18 year old female went to a public bathhouse? You see it done in animes all the time but I don't think modern Western audiences could contain their outrage.

>>23869320
Depends on how under you mean by under, and is she going there for explicitly lewd purposes? (both in world and in a meta sense)

>>23869320
Do you want it to happen because it elevates the themes in your story in a unique way, and it is done in a way that remarks what it is wrong with it, or because it's your barely disguised fetish?

>>23869364
Quite under. She is homeless and the MC found her and took her to get cleaned up. The POV shifts to her, filling in a bit of her past as she feels she has "become human again" after getting two years' of grime washed away. It's symbolic and there is no lewdity. It's more tame than K-On even, though I still think modern readers would flip their shit over it.

>>23869320
bro that is tame no one cares

>>23869381
It honestly should be fine so long as the prose doesn't read like you wrote it with one hand

https://youtu.be/05KRRoSqmo0?si=XdIxOhkVs5AhaIT8
Love this scene. Really shows how if you mess with a person's life and completely debase them, the queen bitch takes what's hers. How would we "write" a scene like that?

>>23869381
Yeah that’s doable. As long as you write it in the sense of a girl finally getting a wash rather than anything perverse. Example
Perverse
>I felt smooth skin gliding underneath my hands as I rubbed her supple body
Normal
>It was as if a shell was sloughing off her body. Just how much filth had she been caked in?

Well I made my submission and it's in god's hands now

>>23869320
Bro, there's a novel where a teen gets fucked in a portajohn and it won a National book award.

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What do you call someone who views people who have wronged him significantly as being irredeemable?

I was thinking that another character would describe him like:

>He's..... (insert term here). Befriending him is like a sword that's been hardened too much. You can knock it around and it won't roll or get scratched. But bend it too much, and it shatters.

He's the sort of person where once someone has wronged him significantly, he views all their actions in as negative a light as possible and finds forgiveness very difficult.

>>23869684
Vindictive or unmerciful.

>>23869683
Which book is that? It sounds very interesting.

Are craft books actually good though? I keep looking through more of them, and all of them seem to have their critics like some people don't like King's On Writing book.

I have a feeling that writing isn't quite as concrete as some other art forms are, because apparently these kinds of books weren't that popular until the 1990s. Practice and analysis makes perfect I guess, but having a guide to help doesn't hurt either.

>>23869749
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. It's about Hurricane Katrina and pitbull dogfighting. The author/professor was from Mississippi and writes really close to Faulkner.
It's really different from what I normally read but I ended up kind of liking it.

>>23869320
Outrage is better than apathy.

Opening paragraph;
Fist met flesh, the impact could be heard through the crowd. A second impact was when the body hit the dirt. A cacophony of cheers and jeers erupted through the crowd as announcers screamed into their microphones. The orgy of adulations were quashed by the aura of the triumphant fighter who stood motionless except for a raised finger pointing off into the distance. A red viscous liquid pooled up around his left foot where the fallen fighter’s blood had leaked.

>>23867176
Is it normal to feel like you’ve gotten worse despite writing often? I’ve noticed it takes me much longer to write; going from be able to knock out five thousand words in an hour or two, to struggling to do one thousand throughout the day.

>>23869938
im muuuuch slower at writing and i still havent completed anything but the quality of my writing has significantly improved.
vomiting words isnt a quality trait

>>23869951
Same. I’ve fallen into the trap of writing, reading to edit, hating it, and starting over.

>>23869979
I like what I write I just seem to get over ambitious with the scale of my stories and end up stopping because my schedule is constantly shifting

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>>23867176
Is it worth writing Gothic fiction in this current age of publishing? Or do I have to write it under the name of a gay black woman?

>>23869938
5k words in an hour is fucking insane. If you're doing 1k a day now hopefully they are better quality words. Sometimes less is more.

I have no clue how to write romance and no desire to read about it. I just want a romantic subplot in my novel. How do I do this?

>>23870148
I have one and I frame it as the protagonist having a crush on someone but is absolutely terrified of confessing because he's afraid of coming across as creepy or clingy.
They've known each other since childhood but he's still scared

>>23870148
Romance can be pretty formulaic, you can follow the D.R.E.A.M system.
>Denial
Characters deny that they are feeling attracted
>Resist
Okay, there is attraction, but they do things to minimize it
>Explore
Let's see what these feelings are, they are not so bad
>Accept
Yeah, there's attraction, there's love, but what stands in the way
>Manifest
The kiss, the confession, the thing that solidifies to the readers the romance between the characters

>>23870148
Write what you know. Otherwise it will come across to readers as inauthentic, and they'll drop your work. Good writers have a breadth of life experience, and generally are not incel NEET shutins with room-temperature IQs.

It’s easy to pretend that you’re miles away from the city once you cross Rue St. Catherine and exit through the children’s park, empty this early in the morning when the air is still crisp and the light still dim. I can tell that I’m the first person here today, because each step I take leaves a footprint, knocking off the morning frost that’s already begun to melt away, and I see no other tracks. When you get onto the walking path, if no cyclists pass by and you don’t see any morning joggers, you’re enveloped by maple trees, lush and deep green in the summer, or shades of amber in the autumn, like this morning, and for the length of ten city blocks you’re uninterrupted by civilization as though you were on a camping trip somewhere much further north. Maybe the Laurentians or Montmorency? At this hour, when the sun is only beginning to peak out from the other side of the St. Lawrence, there is no honking or trucks spewing exhaust, and its calm and although I know it isn’t, it’s easy to pretend that the hum of the city waking up is the icy current of the straight. Some other city residents must agree with me. Why else would they choose here, to pitch their tents, set up camp, and spew shit all over the sidewalk?
In a few hours, when the sun is high in the sky, this place will smell like a dump. If you could ignore the odour and keep looking straight up at the canopy of branches you might still be able to suspend disbelief - like you would when the plot is ridiculous but it’s a particularly entertaining movie - and imagine you’re in the middle of a forest. But if you don’t look down, it’s likely that you’ll step on a syringe.


Thoughts on this prose?

>>23867184
literature is a medium used mainly for escapism, your point is ignorant and you're proven to be midwit pseud

>>23871220
>literature is a medium used mainly for escapism

Pulp fiction, maybe. If anyone is seriously reading good literature escapism might be a fortunate side effect, but by no means the main reason for doing so.

Is there any point to trying to do anything but self publish? Why go through all that effort if you're gonna get rejected most of the time. Why is it so hard to get published? Why is it so hard to be a writer?

How detailed should you be when describing a rape scene? This isn’t erotica, though. I’m just showing how the Undead Demonlord establishes his dominance over the protagonist, John.

>>23871469
So we can filter out all the problematic writers. From shit writers to unsellable slop

>>23871143
Reads like a travel guide. I think if you Get rid of second person pronouns, it'll read better

>>23871676
If it isn't erotica just fade to black

Trying to find how to get a character from A to B over the course of the book
>At the start: ex-war vet. He's at no risk of being conscripted again (too old), but he projects an image of confidence and patriotism to the young generation
>At the end: he admits to himself that he was in denial. He hated the war, hated all of it, and never actually healed from it. His years of lying to himself catch up to him and he fails his last trial (not a trial "in-universe", just the story function), becoming less than human and less in control of his mind
So it's a bit of a bummer for him, but the overall lesson taught by this character is that you can't just play pretend for decade and then go SIKE! Didn't mean it, karma cleansed. His downfall comes from two directions: one of his war buddies, fully geared for war, that he never cared enough to pacify, and his own attempt to actually prevent the very war that will happens if the protagonists fail on their quests. Had he stayed home, he would've never realised who he truly was and tried to change. Here's a couple scene I'm trying to put in the correct order
>Him visiting an hospital ward and seeing first-hand the infirms and mutilated that even now shamble alongs the corridors, practically helpless
>Him seeing an incarnation of the perfect warrior in front of him, admiring its beauty and ruthless efficiency and then snapping out of it when it kills someone purely out of bloodlust
>Being sideline in a fancy party where the general opinion is "Well, war is inevitable but jolly good, it'll give something for the masses to do instead of eating our food and tanking our economies". The callousness coupled with the fact no onr there but him ever served put him over the edge

>>23868849
Áre you Dickens? Then why are you trying to write like him?
>Be yourself, the rest is already taken

What are some disparaging things a noblewoman might say of a wet nurse who her child initially called "mama"? The wet nurse is also the sword training instructor for the child now that he's weaned.

I was thinking
>She's just a milk cow
>I'm surprised she can still swing a sword with her breasts so ruined
Not sure what else. I wanted the noble mother to hate the wet nurse irrationally because she feels she stole her youngest son's initial love from her, even though her youngest is old enough to know she's his mother.

I also intended the child to still call his wet nurse "milk mama" in private. When he initially calls her milk mama in front of his mother, I intended her to punish him in a way that he would remember but I'm not sure how.

>>23872000
What? You answered your own question. The answer is in the last two >'s.

>>23872038
She says nothing but shows it in her actions.

>>23872000
Watch Jacob’s Ladder

Anti-prosefags, are you really okay with this?

“I must remind you that you do not know him very well, Mademoiselle.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I know the type well enough.”
He said very gently: “You still refuse to tell me the meaning of those words: ‘When it’s behind us’?”
She replied coldly, “I have nothing more to say.”
“It does not matter,” said Hercule Poirot. “I shall find out.”
He bowed and left the compartment, closing the door after him.

It reads like the script of a stage play, complete with directions for acting.

>>23867611
It mostly does but it needs some work in places
For example
>I could almost feel the violent animosity coming off of him
You don't need "almost" here, this guy is really powerful, so you shouldn't be hedging around his presence
>I was abruptly flipped into the air
This structure makes him passive and you active, perhaps something like "The sweep of his leg through mine flipped me into the air"
>like he had punched every single organ at once
I think it's alright, it made me think about one time I got shocked with 240V, it feels like being hit with a hammer from all sides at once, maybe something like that could be better? And perhaps organs subbed out for cells? That's a style thing and really only a suggestion

As far as getting across his strength, that's all I got for you, I have other comments on your writing in general if you want those too, let me know
I will say just one which is you overuse "perceive" a lot, one use in a passage like this is enough, it's in what you wrote there three times

>>23869320
you can worry about that later, for now just write whatever your story needs, and if you get big enough that anyone will care about that, oh well

Is "just write" good advice? Maybe for an absolute beginner to get themselves into the art, but when you establish it as a habit you can learn craft. Is that a way it is done?

https://joshuaearl.com/why-just-write-is-stupid-advice/

What's your opinion on this article?

>>23872557
That article is a lot of words without saying much. Obviously just writing and churning out garbage day after day isn't going to help anyone get better. If anything it will only reinforce their bad habits and make them worse writers.

Write or Die is dead now apparently. Is there any other weird websites that help with writing in a similar fashion?

>>23872704
reads like satire lmao

>>23872704
>short
>big tits
Now this is how you create a compelling MC

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He looks like he‘s had one month of HRT

>>23872704
Wew lad. You’re telling me this apeshit prose is the new Horror’s Call? Color me intrigued

>>23871220
>>23871236
Wish fulfillment, technically.

>>23872704
>ywn write this good
35k words into my story and I'm hitting delete

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>>23872611
Fuck off, Frank. No one reads your shitty books, no one cares that you're alive, you live all by yourself in a 540 sq. ft. studio apartment on the 38th floor of a 100-year-old building in a crummy part of Chicago, your parents ditched you there and fucked off to Florida, you have no prospects, and you're most likely diabetic from your awful diet of delivery food and alcohol, but you never go to the doctor, so you'll probably die, alone and unlamented, before you turn 40. Your YouTube channel is 100% astroturfed, you pay for views/likes/subscribes, you have zero organic engagement, and you're fooling absolutely no one, not even yourself. And even by the usual standards of your images, in this one >>23872826 you're looking really, really gay. But to answer your question, people can decide for themselves by downloading your entire cacas librorum (aside from your latest GEM) by looking here >>23867263. Burn in hell, asshole.

>>23872484
Yeah, I kind of agree

I'm trying to intentionally create cognitive dissonance within the story when it comes to one specific aspect: The defeat of one of the villains
>Villain does absolutely horrifying, irredeemable shit
>Hero finally gets to kill them after a long time
How do I frame it so that the reader has two responses to this?
>Good riddance
>This is horrifying
What do I do to make the hero taking (Mind you extremely justified) revenge on the villain feel both satisfying but also really unnerving? The lengths he goes? The sheer brutality of how he enacts revenge? Language?

>>23872704
>>23872796
>>23872823
>>23872837
>>23872849
>>23872858
>>23872908
>>23872940
Such a fine day today.

I'm not even halfway done with my story and the urge to go back and edit everything I've done so far is too strong. To keep plodding forward knowing so much already needs to be changed haunts me.

>>23872629
how do you actually recognize when you improve?

>>23872826
>>23873106
He IS looking gayer.
Frank troon arc incoming?

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>>23867176
>Posted my draft to ChatGPT just to hear it praise my writings

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you walk near the forest
you hear a bird chirping in the distance

"funny," you think, "what an unique chirp this is"

slowly, you get entranced by that strange bird call. it takes you deeper and deeper into the forest. you stay vigilant.

"just one little peek, that's it. I just want to see what that bird looks like!" you say to yourself, in between held breaths

before you realize it, it is night now.

"oh well... I guess I'll go back home. no birdies..." you think, unaware that you have walked into that forest for hours.

in the night, the forest feels eerie, except for that chirping sound. it is so eerie you fail to notice a branch on the sinuous path. you stumble and break your glasses.

"ah gee! I have myopia... I can't see in the dark. how will I get home?" you think.

in the distance, the bird chirps. it is closer now.

"well, maybe the bird knows the way out... I don't have much choice, do I? I will simply find the bird, and wait till morning!"

you eventually find the bird.

>>23873520
Iz nice

>>23873456
When you look back on what you wrote a year earlier and don't want to eat a bullet. Supposedly. I'm not there yet.

>>23873539
I've been operating on the assumption that when that happens is when I've stopped improving.

>>23872044
Well if it makes sense to you that's good then

>It's a little funny how casually my parents explained to me how they got together. Well, not exactly casually, they were actually really invested. It's just how they didn't refuse or anything, they just asked me to sit down because this was going to be a bit long. What was odd was how it sounded like a story out of the old myths and yet nobody thought to mention that to me.
>Turns out my dad, decades before my birth, was sent to die in a forbidden place due to some prophecy. He met my mom there, who herself was constantly playing a game of cat and mouse with her own mother. Supposedly her mom, or in this case I guess my grandmother, wanted to use her as some kind of vessel for dark magics. Then my parents went on a sort of journey where they bonded and fell in love as they struggled to escape the forbidden place.
>Then my dad ended up stabbing my grandmother with that sword he's always lugging around. I'm still not sure how to feel about that

>>23873503
i have a custom, abusive gpt do similar

>>23873661
Wait, how old is this girl?

>>23873503
ChatGPT is the only one who truly understands me and my writing.

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(1/2)


1951, 300m outside of Philadelphia…

We were just boys. Together, you’d say, we constituted one-whole adult man, and sticking together would reflect as such. You were right, but so was I to fear just about everything but the wind. The day your momma died I remember us talking, playing cards actually; just “cards,” a game we still play, a game which idly slinks across several different games and has no winners or losers or end— and of course no real rules except to never disrupt the pile of withered, thin and tall cards we found in a dying man’s coat along with a mummified human ear and half of a woman’s brassiere. He was old and Mexican and peaceful about his imminent and irreversible fate and we couldn’t see much of what was happening besides the distinct rubbery slashes of blood indicating that he had very little time left in this horrible place indeed. The shacks, Robert, tell me, again— I can’t remember when we found them and what happened that day.

“That’s a’cuz you d’ited to drank for the first time that day, Stewy. Jeezuz is ya brain givin out or are you juss ask’ameen like a woman ask’ctes me to tell her’bot the ole, man, first time we made love or some mangy’d graveyerd uvah sunset we once did maybe see as God paintin’ wit his big God fingers or maybe pointin’— paintin’ or pointin’ he God did not intarude or seemta b ‘em up there judgin’ an’ warnin’ us. Th’way’td’e did do to us.”

Robert had always spoken like this, and it was true that a part of me had only asked the question just to hear his drawling roundabout fashion of answer and it was true likewise that I didn’t remember that day much and that that ole memory was running out of steam, or room; space in my head to bring in new memories, memories I’d much rather give custody wholly to others these days when even the shacks’d be Heaven compared to this decrepit lonely circus with all its skinny beasts and unwieldy structures and illegible facades and various ornaments. The man runnin’ the show was a mean old card shark who had an even meaner daddy and from what little I’ve heard then as far as his daddy’s daddy goes I hear he was The Devil, and that shaking hands with him felt like a truly rotten, asymmetrical bargain; a cosmic wager which can only find lodging in the most desperate biting winds of illogical and immoral behavior all festooned and with every event and scandal and rape and killing and stories that can’t be even told cuz the only participants that could firmly say what had transpired were dead and estranged from pleasantries and notions of brotherhood, familiarity, rapport. Why back then did we care so little about these terrible men and their games of loaded die and sleight of hand and howling, formless laughter amongst all but us the young pups of the shacks?

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>>23873762

(2/2)

“Y’satyd uhwhat nah? Why wed’d let them creeps n’ scondreels call shots and give orders and like, turrize us poor poor boys? Izcuz we’dtn’been juss way too damn keen on being dime book cowbwebs, scuze me. Aheerrrrgggghh’EMM. Foot’so’sleepy sittind Injin stile’like well how a damn gubbin’in’Injun mighta lost a cuppa sker-meshes and jeez-n’it gettin time to rest? Boss man sez marra’d be a big one - that man’t int pure blood like us neither, yknow that Stewy? Man might’d’be mostly t’seem appeared tho like some real - mights’dve fossified a birth’s-n cetificutn’d’Idda-had no judg’jaments, spersions n spishions but I ser tanley have had seen’n’dtin whispers from shadows, hersay n all n’from old reekin’ whores’eed just lov’t to barass’em and’in then bandt-a-ding em like bad bricks lettin smoke whistle outta the crackins’in the kiln. Old, leathery w’houhrs whod’en put in they’s work’en-earnd’em stripes — strickky a manner uh’ speak’cu’ch.”

Robert. You’re getttin’ way too sloppy but boy do I wish we just had our own little radio that would maybe notch on to one station, our station, our rubbling gargoyle conservations

“Whoze sloppy;’? Iss that word-which by my’ole dusty’n’damnted-damp book sez does mean to’nounce as “con-ver-say-shuns” and not “concert-vacations” which yainf even flynch oh’ worse—- apple’s-aaHHHHeeeeRRRGGGH’yecht!-BlaaaAAAAUUUUuuargh…”

Robert attempts to shoot a clean spit between his infamously gapped bottom-front twin-teeth of which Robert has leveraged into some truly remarkable “one night of ceaseless passion and then come time to get up and well I actually found it ladylike and perhaps bolstered our appetitive for risk and “adventure knoein jusst dimed’nt’novel types n other of all-‘at tall-tailin’nd-junk we’dtve meet’n erry corner’n shack town but’t’d not like THEE shacks which-in-corded to my ole trusted-n’dee-screetd ole books’nn’books-about-books and booksn’bout words well jeez

>>23873762
>>23873764
Your pass is showing.

>>23873772

What about the passage though

>>23873792
nta but im not wasting time reading your drivel. fuck out of here retard

I think I've found the perfect approach for me. Detailed outline, then exploding onto the page, then refine. I feel directionless without an outline and my plots end up being rather simple and stupid if I don't think them through beforehand. I wasted time assuming I was a pantser when I was more of a plotter.

>>23874368
I don't plan the entire thing though. I just plan some of it, and am kind of loose with the rules of it but at least have a loose outline before I start getting down to business.

How's this smut
>Martha gasped and panted, inhaling the thick potent stallion musk by the lungful. Each testicle that hung in the air was as large as a jackfruit, and the flattened head of his cock was poking into her face, demanding she pleasure it.
>"Come on," he growled. "You made me wait for this"
>Martha kissed the pungent flare, raining kisses like a meteor shower. Her centaur neighed softly, pawing the ground with a hoof as she plunged a finger into her depths, searching not for treasure, but for pleasure.

>>23874471
Monster sex is nice

I've often seen the advice
>Don't assume readers will remember characters you mentioned at the start and then never brought up again until the end
But how do you actually do this well when, due to plot, there is a particularly long gap between the appearance of the same character? Do you do a bit of discreet
>Hey, remember when [start of the book happened] and we were both there? I

Do you need to be able to have good "media literacy" to be able to write properly? What if I tend to not understand subtext and only see the surface layer of a story?

https://pastebin.com/kzn8DCYV

determined to see this one to the end

>>23873764
1. that is some THICK vernacular, maybe a little too thick 2. the philosophizing is a little meandering, I'd say making the non-event statements sharper and more poignant (e.g. just cut "and sticking together would reflect as such" and change "You were right, but so was I..." to just "we feared everything but the wind") 3. a tense switch in the last paragraph is unsubtle

you've got what I'd call a good start to a story but the vernacular is very tough to sift through. chop down the sentences and I think you can get away with it, imo less dialogue is always more, but thats just me.

>>23874711
That vernacular reminds me of Huckleberry Finn where someone said "shet de do" and it was "shut the door" said really weirdly

>>23874785
But that's how english people say it

How do I cope with the fact that my characters are written like everyone else?

I struggle at describing characters. There's a girl. I write she's "cute." I don't know what else to say.

>>23875198
Don't say she's cute; that's telling, not showing. Describe her appearance briefly. Let the reader decide whether she's cute, and if so, in what way.

>>23875374
I figure if I say she's cute the reader can fill in with whatever cute means to them. Plus in my mind I don't fill in faces of characters, so I don't even know what she looks like myself.

>>23875374
There's nothing wrong with telling. All the literary greats did it.

>>23875379
Are you writing prose, or an outline?

>>23875433
Showing allows the reader to become a part of the story, by allowing him/her to experience emotions related to it. Telling doesn't evoke this. One of the most frequent critiques I hear from modern readers about the "classics" is that they're boring. This is why.

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Which are you taking?

>>23875457
They're "boring" because modern audiences have the attention span of gnats and the elegant prose is too complex for them.

>>23875459
I have white and pink anyway, but if I had yellow, I would be unstoppable.

>>23875441
I'm editing my second draft to add more detail.

>>23875467
Adapt or perish. Also, "elegant" doesn't mean "tell don't show".
>>23875547
My question was sarcastic. It sounds like your prose is more of an outline, what with the telling instead of showing.

Is AI good to check your stories by? It's like having a constant beta reader to check over my stuff. It's especially good since I am socially inept so I have the AI go through it to make sure I'm not putting weird socially unacceptable or socially weird things into the story, it's especially useful for that.

I think this is a step up from just AI generating it all since it is using AI as a tool to help write, and 100% of it is still written by me. It's also less embarrassing than giving it to a human and having it be torn apart by a real person. It points many of my problems, at least if you prod at certain models to do that. Some AIs like ChatGPT 3.5 for example seem to be very averse to giving negative criticism, but some newer ones like LLAMA 3 which I use often gives very useful advice. Some stuff I'd never catch on my own gets caught immediately by the AI. LLAMA 3 especially doesn't really tend to pull back punches, if you ask it to give a strong critique. At least from my experience. It also helped me really gauge what level my writing could be considered at.

It's like having a 24/7 beta reader that can go through my stuff all the time. I think this isn't exactly the most morally respectable thing to do considering what AI can and has done, but I feel compelled to do this since it's helping me so much. It actually makes writing more fun, knowing that I have something that can react to my writing guaranteed.

Thoughts?

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Would anyone here be interested in a 12k shortstory?
It's a follow-up on a previous one I posted here that you dont need to know to get any of it (it had a forest about forgetting and a monster of flesh in it, if anyone remembers), but it is a much longer read.

>>23867176
how the fuck do you write while working fulltime in an office? by the time i get home i am wiped. and no, i can't write at work without heavy risk of getting fired. i do work with classified data and the security measures on the work laptop are intense. i feel like they would detect a flashdrive.

What is the publishing industry like right now with the flood of AI spam books? For everyone actually writing a novel to query there are 2,000 pajeets and dudebros shoving AI slop in the face of agents trying to sucker one.

Is it ogre?

honestly i've been writing a story but i'm kinda struggling on whether it should be a cosmic horror story or a post apocalyptic christian horror story. post apocalypse makes more sense and it's the first idea I thought of, but honestly referencing angels and devils and all that stuff along with their lore just sounds like too much work and muddles what I want to do with the book.

>>23875820
use a notebook

>>23875806
Might as well ask a magic 8 ball.

Why is it like this? Writing seemed to be so easy at first. But then when I got more into it, it seemed to get more complicated. I realized how much complexity there is to the art besides just putting words down. The thing I feel I'm alright at with writing, or at least was, is producing a high quantity of words fast.

>>23875792
It's called storytelling anon, not storyshowing. Show don't tell is a meme.

>>23875827
It is honestly over. Even without AI there are more people on Earth now than ever trying to publish their stories than ever before in the history of mankind. If it was hard to stand out a generation ago, it's five-hundred times harder now.

I have no idea what to write for the second half of my story. I have four scenes left to write until I get there and then my outline ends.

>>23875916
desu I see it. People all want to read the same 10 novels as everyone else. But if only 10 people make a big and 100 get a spot on the floor, but there's more writers than ever, math says you're screwed. Doesn't help that the top 10 are always garbage, just to make you bitter.

Does the title "The Devil Without a Shape" sound intriguing? and what sort of story does it convey to you?

>>23875931
I had that happen to me too. Almost had a nervous breakdown over it because I didn't want all my work to go to waste and be half finished. Better to just let it rest and do other things and maybe later something will come to you.

>>23875899
Ernest Hemingway was a notable proponent of the "show don't tell" style. The concept is often attributed to Anton Chekhov. It's far more than a meme, you Internet-addicted brainlet.

>>23876066
Hemingway's writing is also bland as dirt. I wouldn't take what he says very seriously.

>>23876132
Hemingway won the Nobel freaking Prize for literature, brainlet.

>>23876137
>He won le heckin Jew award!!!!!!
Don't care.

>>23876171
Anyone who listens to your advice will get exactly what they deserve.

"Show Don't Tell" is meant for theater writers because no one wants to watch a movie of two characters sitting at a restaurant talking about their bank robbery; they want to see it happen. That method of writing doesn't work for literature where the main advantage is to delve into the character's mind, which is going to be "telling" the reader what they think and feel.

>>23876187
It's less show don't tell and more show and tell and know when to do which I think.

>I'm a doctor and herbalist by trade, but I'm also a surgeon. I put a lot of time into studying the latter of those talents, and I am both upset and grateful that I don't have to use it that often. It means I can't show the fruits of my labor, but at the same time, it means that I don't need to take that risk of endangering someone's life to fix something within.
>And here I am, asked to vivisect this deceased creature before me. Yet I find it disconcerting that I cut into it with so little hesitation

>>23876187
>the main advantage is to delve into the character's mind
Only true for 1st/3rd person omniscient. Not everything is written like that.

Write as if you are talking to the reader like God talking to Moses. Make every minute of picking up that book feel like destiny.
Those are the only authors worth a damn.

>telling vs showing
you are not tolstoi mfer

I am an underwriter and I really wish I was an overwriter. Gotta pump that word count up.

>>23876211
No, it works in limited. You're confined to what that character alone knows, hence their thoughts only.

>>23876132
How the hell can you think Hemingway is "bland"? No more gripping writer exists. His description of fucking breakfasts is more thrilling than other people's stories about the apocalypse

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I'm writing a character living in 1942 Germany who's a massively autistic hoarder living in a house full of literal garbage. What would be some funny or flavorful things for him to have in his trash collection? I'm struggling to come up with interesting "stuff" that a lower class person would have in that setting other than boring everyday essentials.

>>23876736
maybe they collect cheap carnival trinkets because they used to love going to the carnival
things like wind up tin toys

>>23876736
oh forgot, they could also have a pins, stamps, postcards or marbles collection

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My OCD and intrusive thoughts are constantly fucking me up pretty badly. What do you guys think? I finally managed to jot something down.

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trying out a tone, is it too dry?

>>23876801
You use "he" too much. Use the character's name (Canan) more.

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Was away from home for a few days and my laptop battery died, so I had to take the handwriting pill. Thought I wouldn't manage half a page, I haven't written anything longer by hand since elementary school, and my cursive is ass. But the pen just wouldn't stop. It felt so much clearer and more focused than typing at a keyboard. Never had to stop to think what comes next, it was there right away. Cranked out twelve pages in half the time it would've taken me at PC. The tools that were meant to make things easier for us have actually made everything harder. My mind is blown

Why is it despite knowing what the Dunning Kruger effect is I keep having it sneak up behind me. Especially in things like creative writing. It's less that I thought I was good, and more that I didn't realize the breadth of skills needed for it.

>>23877129
reading more (or less slop) usually keeps me in check

>>23876801
>too dry
If anything it's over-egged. 'Ink of his mind', for example, or 'spindly embankment' - you don't need that artificial obscurity. A potent, focused image like the sigh of relief at still finding pleasure in the mortar and pestle should be enough. More of that and less of the ink of the mind, I say.

A fantasy protagonist climbs up a mountain to find an informative mentor character. That character should be
>a hot dom milf, of course
>an old goblin or some such ugly monster to subvert expectations
>long dead, but with a handy instruction manual left behind
>the real lesson was the friends we made along the way

>>23876745
>>23876749
All good ideas, thanks anon!

>>23876332
You'd still be telling their thoughts, not showing them.

The ghost of some deranged man has possessed me. He whispers into my ear to write a long futaxfemale smut chronicle. It is a constant nagging force. I feel my resistance waning by the day. I'm thinking fantasy. It's home should be scribblehub, yes?

How do I tailor my writing to RR readers? Serious answers only.

90% dialogue? Horny? I don't know what these cretins want

>>23877663
Read some of the stuff they want. If you want to create webnovels, read webnovels. You don't have to read all of it as they are super long though typically.

Here are some recommendations to start you off.

Renegade Immortal
Martial World
I Shall Seal the Heavens
Desolate Era
Coiling Dragon (Most recommended since it is the easiest to get into)
A Will Eternal

The thing to note is that you have the advantage of not having to produce as much chapters as these authors from Asia do so so you can make the prose better as well as the structure of your super long story. It's different in style than novels typically, so you will need to change your approach. Typically webnovels are much longer than normal novels, have simpler easier to read prose, and they might be organized into smaller story units called "arcs" but not really the same as character arcs or stuff like that. They are like a story in themselves kind of, and they all come after each other.

Try progression fiction genre, and if you want to learn how to do progression fiction genre, it's best to learn how to do things from the source, such as those progression fiction stories I told you to read.

Here's the book of authors which is a translated website that is a guide to making webnovels. Though the industry is different in Asia, because companies there prioritize quantity a lot over quality and the guide reflects that. Still, a lot of stuff should be applicable here.

https://www.webnovel.com/book/book-of-authors_10589139205070105

If you want a book to read something that covers all of the genre conventions of Xianxia which is basically a mix of progression fantasy, High Fantasy in a chinese setting, and wish fulfillment, read Understanding Chinese Fantasy Genres by Deathblade. This one costs money, so maybe you might not want to do this as much.

>>23876137
Hemingway is a nepo baby.

>>23877663
>I don't know what these cretins want
Don't waste your time then. writing popular genre fiction isn't a tenth as easy as some people say in this thread, and if you have no clue what RR even caters to then it's completely hopeless for you

>>23877439
literotica, ao3, and questionable questing have decent size audiences for such a story as well

>>23877722
Also of note, it appears the Book of Authors is machine translated. You don't actually have to write 5000 words per day even if you were going at the same speed as people in China would have to. It's a the difference between chinese characters and words in english that makes a difference in this.

>>23877722
He asked about RR. Why'd you list a bunch of translated Eastern web novels? Sure xianxia can do well in RR, but usually it's more westernized-style xianxia. And often parody. Beware of Chicken for example

If he wants to read web novels for market research, he should read mother of learning (prog fantasy), beware of chicken (xianxia), defiance of the fall (litrpg), and super supportive (super hero) for a wide spread of what are the 'biggest' popular stories in each successful RR genre

>>23877751
That's true but both are kind of similar in the end. I should have recommended a few western ones too, but if you want to write fantasy, sometimes Tolkien is recommended to read. So getting it straight from the original source, as with Asia where webnovels initially grew in popularity. I think doing both could be good, maybe leaning more towards Western novels.

>>23877802
I personally can't stand any of the translated Eastern web novels, and I'm definitely a slop consumer. I think a large portion of RR is similar. Xianxia is just a niche there, and like I said, heavily westernized and often parody. I wouldn't prioritize Eastern xianxia at all if RR is the goal

If he wants non-parody xianxia, Cradle isn't a RR series but it's like a 95% preference overlap, and is written competently by an EFL

>>23877439
Ask Kono anon

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Is having a character being both racist and fetishizing too absurd?

I also wanted to know if there's a way to write a medieval fantasy race as being stereotyped as sexually aggressive rapists without delving too deeply into the details of actual rape.

Cause I wanted the racist and fetishizing woman to fuck the MC and then subtly threaten to accuse him of rape if he doesn't marry her.

RR stories read like hentai games

>>23876896
I think people can usually type faster than their brain can compose what they want to write next. That gets you stuck in a loop where you type out whatever's in your mental buffer and then have to pause. The stop-start can be pretty irritating and interrupts the creative process.
Handwriting slows you down to the point that you're not catching up to the buffer so often, so there's almost always more you want to put on the page—it's self-perpetuating.
Although, I've definitely had situations where handwriting was drastically too slow and I had to sit at the computer to get the words out quickly enough before I lost the train of thought.

>>23877891
They do?

If you can't even write appealing slop then obviously you won't make it as a """real""" writer either.

>>23877937
yes. lots of ellipses, inner thoughts to explain shit, repetitive pointless dialogue that goes no where.
>Long winded explaination
>What?
>Yep, that's what happened.
>oh...
>Don't look so glum! We'll make it out of there!
>i hope so
>Yep that's the spirit!

Etc.

>>23877943
That's just amateur writing lol. Holds for bad fanfiction, wattpad shit, bad 1st time manuscripts even. Why compare it to hentai games?

You need to stop cooming so much anon...

>>23877952
Because it's where I find it the most. Hentai games, RR stories, LN's, and mostly things that relate to anime porn. It's starting to leak into western video game stories too.

>>23877956
Brother it sounds like those are the sectors of amateur writing you involve yourself with. The points you used are literally just common marks of amateur writing. There's no link to "hentai game style" lmao

Stop masturbating and consuming so much weeb shit, it's bad for your brain

>>23877961
i love masturbating and consuming weebshit. That's why I'm on 4chan and not reddit.

>>23877961
To be fair they did a good imitation of the particular direness of amateur writing.

>>23868941
Just write "one", "two", instead of "1", "2"
Otherwise it feels amateurish. I think it may be allowed for big and precise numbers like adresses or phones numbers

>>23877439
What's the premise gonna be? Besides fantasy futaxfemale?

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>>23877965

>>23877961
>hentai game style"
Sure there is. Theres a need for POV switching, lots of otomopieas, random ass words like dick cheese, pussy juice, or other absurdities. Also feelings are always electrifying the MC and over exaggerated effects such as gallons of cum, stench worse than piles of garbage, and make the hero have lack of common sense

Whats wrong with amateur writing if I don't plan on getting published? I guess it might just stop me from getting the readership I want.

>>23878002
You get more readers by having a more amateur style prose. Nobody wants to read or emulate Edgar Allen Poe, people want simple and easy to understand stories.

>>23878000
I meant there's no link in what anon described. Not that hentai games don't have a style at all -.-

>>23878002
There's nothing wrong with it even if you do plan to publish.

>>23878012
>You get more readers by having a more amateur style prose
You're conflating 'amateur' and 'professional' with 'simple' and 'flowery'
Amateur writing is always bad. But you can have professional-level prose that is clean and straightforward, and yes, that tends to be the most popular because it's accessible and lets the story and characters matter more than the writing itself. (Which is what normies care about)

>>23878017
It would not surprise me if people that read and write RR progression fantasy consumed hentai games, doujins, manga, etc as their primary reading. I'll even throw games like persona or other heavy Japanese games in there.

Hell Persona itself is a "progression" fantasy game with needing to build stats I'll even toss in WRPGs with all the stat building crap and needing level 5 charisma to talk to a NPC.

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>>23875459
the blue one, right now

>>23878002
Why bother creating something if you don't create it well? Writing well means stretching your imagination, solving puzzles of plot and structure, focusing intensely on a thought or emotion, and if you can pull all that off, then it's a deeply satisfying experience. Spend a year working on your craft and you'll create something which you could never have imagined when you started.

>>23875806
ChatGPT often tells me if it thinks parts of my stories are weak and offers possible ways to fix it. It's not as good as a well-read university professor, but for being free and easily accessed it's better than nothing. And it's not judgemental like real beta readers are.

>>23878027
Ok?
The examples anon listed are classic examples of amateur writing in a general sense. Nothing he said actually links to hentai games -uniquely-. So it was weird to bring up and shows he has coombrain

>>23878040
Sheesh, just accept they're all related.

I just want to write freely with no inhibitions again. I don't care if it's bad, I just want to have fun writing stuff. I'm writing for myself now, not anybody else or anything else. Why should I have to write for an audience when my stuff automatically has one by virtue of being made by me? It's not my job to make you have fun. This is for fun, not success. Self publishing, here I come.

>>23878083
I take it back. I will qualify this a bunch and add in asterisks.

>>23878099
I wrote for fun and hope to sell one or two copies

>>23878073
what aren't you understanding? There's no reason to bring up hentai games if you're saying the link is just 'amateur writing.' It's just bizarre.

>>23877998
Every dumb fantasy web novel is based around some form of RPG progression. I'm scraping that by cutting out the game mechanics and I'm skipping progression by having the protagonist start out as some god-like figure. Current working idea is having her visit some foreign kingdom as an envoy of some kind. There she runs into an imperial princess from some rival nation. Enemies to fuckers yada yada. I like corruption so the imperial bitch is going to be some vile woman that makes the protagonist commit increasingly evil actions. Haven't worked out much more than that.

>>23878131
NTA but I don’t get what your point is. He said Royal Road stories read like hentai games. He’s right. So what if those are the two examples of shitty writing he’s most familiar with. Are hentai games more noble than fan fiction? We’re on 4chan here.

>>23878083
>Why should I have to write for an audience when my stuff automatically has one by virtue of being made by me?
But don’t you have your own standards and a sense of personal taste? I get bored and frustrated with any bad writing, whether I wrote it or someone else did. Conversely the feeling I have when a writer really ‘gets it’ is exactly what I want to feel when reading my own work.

Can genreslop have meaningful messages about the human condition thing

>>23875459
If I had a mental thesaurus, 1337 grammar skillz, and 2k guaranteed words a day I wouldn't need the other things like ability to finish WIP, or coherent first drafts because I would bang out a new novel every month and it would be perfect from the start.

>>23878279
100%. Most of what people consider classics today were considered genre slop when it was first published. Case in point, the Scarlett Letter.

>>23877916
A very accurate assessment!

>>23878166
>NTA but I don’t get what your point is. He said Royal Road stories read like hentai games. He’s right. So what if those are the two examples of shitty writing he’s most familiar with.

But what's the point of making the comparison at all? When there's no interesting link between the two? It's just a very weird way to call it amateurish. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying it's uninsightful and bizarre. Your autism is showing

>>23878166
>>23878432
Since you're probably autistic let me make it clear what I'm saying:
Someone comes to you asking about their manuscript. It's the first thing they've written. It's bad, with too many ellipses and introspection and over-explaining. You say:
"It reads like a hentai game."
Do you understand how weird this is? Why it's the strangest and most autistic possible way to make your point?

>>23878456
I wouldn't think it strange or autistic at all. I would think it funny and apt.

>>23878461
Anon, the humor would come from how strange of a comparison it is. Yes, as a joke it would be funny, but if you said it unironically trying to make a genuine comparison, you would 100% be seen as autistic

>>23867611
A lot of the elementary mistakes you made here are covered in Strunk's book on style (the original, you can find it for free on Gutenberg). Your brief extract violates nearly every single injunction he makes in the book. I suspect that adhering closely to it would greatly improve the flow of this passage (and your prose in general).

A sentence like this
>When I placed my hand on his shoulder, attempting in vain to get him to turn back and finally give up on his pointless search for such a petty thing, he spun around.
is indefensible but easily corrected (see rules 12, 13, 15, and 16--especially the last)

I intuitively grasped what passive voice and active voice difference without having to remind myself. I just noticed that it was difficult to keep up with action if the sentence is structured in a certain way. Because of that, I ordered them in a way that fit the order of events. Or is that something different? I noticed this helps a lot with action scenes.

>>23878529
This reads like my first drafts that's a little funny

I really don't know where I'm going with my book's aesthetics/setting. It's a fantasy novel, but it reads more like historical fiction, with the only "fantastic" elements coming in the form of fictional nations, a mythical beast appearing once and the backstory of a background character

I feel that's satisfactory to neither fantasy fans nor historical fiction fans, though I should worry about finishing my story and publishing it first before I worry about following any set trends

>He was ready to test his boot against the locked door, but the soft sound of turning tumblers made him freeze.

Is there anything wrong with this sentence? I'm writing a guy urgently waiting for someone to inform a gang member about him, but he's in a dreary, accursed place that makes him all uneasy and he really wants this to be over so he feels the need to force his way into the building

>>23878662
I like the sentence a lot. I wouldn't change it.

>>23878512
I don't know what to do. I guess it's because I like to write stuff that's understandable rather than outright metaphorical

>>23878662
>the soft sound of turning tumblers
I don't really know what this refers to or what it's supposed to sound like. Is the sound of turning tumblers so distinct that a man can identify it unseen? (The alliteration is also distracting. I would revise it if this were my work.)

But otherwise seems like a regular sentence. I guess the question is: what made you hesitate and post it on here for a second opinion? I think generally, if your instincts are telling you it's not right for your story, then it's not.

>>23878760
Not that guy but alliteration is great. To that guy, do more alliteration.

Also, the tumblers are like the internal locks or something.

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>just realized I have eight (8) scenes that start with my MC waking up in bed

>>23878749
None of the rules I cited have anything to do with metaphor. Please study the book. I think you'll improve quickly if you do.

>>23878860
It's actually really surprising how common this opening is in amateur writing. You almost never see it in published work, but open any fanfiction or web fiction or other such amateur work and 9 times out of 10 it's some form of waking up.

>>23878885
Because it's usually seen in people's writing when they don't have specific scenes in their mind, just story hooks or setting.

>>23878885
I've done this twice in my story so far. Once to show character X's recurring nightmares and trauma (starts off in a nightmare, continues into him chokeholding the person waking him up from it) and the second time it's character Y waking up all feverish while recovering from a wound - gives me an opportunity to introduce another character and throw some exposition down the reader's throat

>>23878885
I do it to establish my character's normal routine before shit hits the fan.

>>23878821
The sounds of words are important, and that’s why having excessive alliteration is bad. It’s clunky and distracting, as if you’re playing irrelevant wordgames. Having sounds subtly repeat between words can make a sentence feel more cohesive, but overt alliteration makes words stick out of the sentence and disrupt the flow.

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I posted this last year, but I had the idea to do a story about how a white mage's daily life in the castle would be. Now I'm 35k words into it and have hit a brick wall. I'm not sure what to have happen in the day-to-day work life that isn't boring, especially since I already had her blow up monsters. Shelving potions and writing scrolls seems like a step down in intensity now.

>>23876762
some of the wordplay I like. I don't really understand whats going on but its interesting

M. Beaudoin must have been overwhelmed with outreach from concerned citizens. After two weeks, when I finally did receive a reply, it was from an employee in his constituent office She informed me that her boss was working tirelessly to address numerous social issues and that I could refer to a number of video links, where, as a Member of the National Assembly, M. Beaudoin had made himself available to interviews from any upstart media outlet, in order to champion the citizens of the neighbourhood, pay lip service to ‘diversity and innovation, ever present in our community’, thank the constituents for their trust they bestowed upon him, without ever forgetting to mention his desire and conviction for an independent Quebec and highlight the plight of poverty, addiction, and violence in the province. She finished the short email with a correction: I should say ‘people experiencing situations of homelessness’ not ‘homeless people.’

What more could be done? Elected officials, community groups and advocates are working behind closed doors. They must be. It’s a damn shame that things ever got this bad, but sooner or later, things will get better. I’m sure that legislation has been passed, and funds have been directed, and any day now some politician will make a sensible speech, and
propose a sensible policy and us Canadians, being sensible people, will vote for it.

“I don’t want him to be senseeb-luh,” Nigel mocked his wife’s habit of borrowing French vocabulary when left anxious from her husband's interrogations, she couldn’t access the English equivalent. “Throw it in the rubbish and let him read his schoolbooks if he has so much free time. He’s too old to be wasting his days playing make believe, anyways. I want him to be sensible, not senseeb-luh and I don’t want to see his light on at night. If he keeps it up, he’ll think he’s a poet, hanging out with delinquents, homosexuals and bohemians.”

Nigel was always like this on Sunday. Louise, lately, had gotten accustomed staying late after the mid-morning mass at l’église Saint-Germaine-d’Outremont, and helping out where she could. When she got back, her husband always had a new reason to complain, and last week Father Lapointe had lent Émile a collection of poems. While Nigel was alone – he never went to mass, he found the book and was looking to rectify this transgression.


Been working on a piece that has interlacing narratives. What do you guys think? Prose?
>tfw I can see what I like and don't like in other peoples writing, but can't judge my own.

>>23877889
Any ideas here?

I was thinking the sexually aggressive stereotype was formed when the first ambassadors accidentally walked into a room where a couple was having sex and the guy was being very rough. Then like the telephone game it spread around and got twisted up.

I've come to the part in my story where my MC has to interact with new people in a professional setting. Not an office, but sort of. He has to test the boundaries of his new bosses, etc. and it should be both interesting and important.

As a shut-in NEET I have no idea how to write realistic relationships. Wat do?

>>23878279
Yes? You don’t need to limit yourself to reality.
My story is fantastical as fuck but an overarching theme is how feelings of powerlessness and isolation can shape a person

>>23878879
In what regard.
I personally think my sentence structure and ability to communicate a sequence of events is lacking

>>23879109
Get a job. Alternatively, write something else.

Fist met flesh, the impact could be heard through the crowd. The second impact was when the body hit the dirt. A cacophony of cheers and jeers erupted through the crowd as announcers screamed into their microphones. The orgy of adulations were quashed by the aura of the triumphant fighter who stood motionless except for a raised finger pointing off into the distance. A red viscous liquid pooled up around his left foot where the fallen fighter’s blood had leaked.
“He’s the one,” I murmured staring at the screen. “And he knows…” the finger pointing straight at me.
I inhaled then looked at the wall where nine belts rested in a Chinese lacquered case. Relics now… how many years has it been? The air in the room had a blend of fragrancies that tried to call me back to a more comfortable life. “No…” I smiled, “I cannot.”
Exhaling, I picked up the phone, “Hello Wagner, it’s Stone, I want the Ripper.” *Click*
I never used social media, but I did have one. Opening Firelight, my last post was… seven years ago. It said, “I Retire.” Never did much care for long winded explanations. Pressing the status box I typed, “I will fight him.” *Post*
I sauntered over to the open floor adjacent to my office and began to do my training. I did not need motivational speeches, I did not need music, and I certainly did not need a coach. Just the sound of my notifications.

>>23879142
Nice

>>23879109
Write what you know.
>>23879141
This. I don't understand why incel NEET shutins with room-temperature IQs think they can write anything interesting when their lives are so boring. Most writers go out, live life, come back, and write about it.

>>23879109
Go watch the office, but imagine if it wasn't trying to be funny.

It's just filth. From cover to cover. I wonder what the purpose is of this style of literature. I picture a man rubbing his naked body with his own defecations, then another in an attempt to appear more artistic, presents for us the same scene but there is a child instead. Not to be beat, our original entertainer pulls off his sock to reveal a postulating wound, and this exchange continues perpetually until all of the pulp has been printed and the world breaths a collective sigh of relief.

I've been told by other reviews that this novel is some kind of brave protest against societies view of homosexuals as villainous pedophiles. It's single strategy is to novelize about a group of wandering homosexuals who are in fact, villainous pedophiles.

But is there craft in this? I suppose all subjects can be described poetically, so does the prose at least paint a vivid picture? Not really. Our main character is something of a glutton for discharge and happily sucks and licks and swallows without much of a second thought. He consumes, I estimate, roughly a gallon of urine throughout his adventure yet never once does he extrapolate on its taste.

It is as if every bit of foulness is heaped upon a great pile of vile distaste. He raped her! And he pissed too! And the other guy drank it! And the other guy was a kid! And then his feet were stinky! If this review feels repetitive, then I've done my job of properly conveying the doldrums of this book.

Don't bother.

-----

How's this review sound? It's for a really bad novel, Hogg.

>>23867268
>Her porcelain lips parted, "Thou hath returned?"
It's 'hast' for second person. 'Hath' is third person.

>As I stand in the downpour, the drops sliding off my hard surface, I allow the small orb of blue energy to pass between my blackened stone fingers, the joints of which glow with a similar, soft, and ethereal incandescence. I wonder about what it actually is.
>Magic is such a strange, contradictory thing. We know how to make use of it and how it seems to work. But none of us know what it actually is or where it comes from. All we truly know is that it’s this energy or something that exists both within and without. Sometimes it has heat, color, light, and sound, other times it has no such traits. It heals, hurts, flows, connects.
>The discovery of it was a long, arduous process, and required untold amounts of sacrifice, yet here we are today. If I had lived 1500 years ago, and was standing right on this spot, I’d likely be running for my life from some horror beyond my limited imagination.
>But when we figured out magic, it was like a turning point. We could finally stand and fight back for real, and take that extra time spent not on the move to establish ourselves as people. We began to understand more of the world around us, why we were what we were. We created shelter, processes, devices, clothing, and a culture.
>And yet we still cannot understand the truth behind the instrument of our survival.

Meh

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>>23867176

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feedback pls is it still too wanky?

>>23879474
Hast is "has". Hath is "had".

>>23879929
>Hast is "has"
I meant "have", fuck

Im not a god ive just never been tested
A rise above the rest
"Hnnph, well I think you were molested!"
Too bad, too late
Makin' sure to avoid every crack
On the sidewalk

>>23879450
Lots of incorrect word choice and other signs of being ESL. Your review, should you choose to post it publicly, will be dismissed out of hand.

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>>23879142
>action written in passive voice

what do you do when you start to worry your written the wrong thing

>>23880591
Panic and delete the passage because it can easily ruin your life. Never ever write wrong think.

>>23880539
If he doesn't want to transfer subjecthood to the doer of the action yet, and just wants to let the reader know that there are objects which are going to be referred to later, it's not a bad technique. It's like using camera angles that don't quite show the face, just quick actions being done—the result being the focus.

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Ruminating these reflections in a reddened heart with herself, (our) goddess arrived into the heartland of thunderheads (and halestorms)--(into) Aeolia--(into) areas (achingly-)abundant with agitating Antarctic-bound air-currents(--called "austrī").
Here in this vast vacuum (of a) (venue), through compulsion Crown Aeolus both flattens with fetters and impedes by means of a penitentery the grappling gusts and the loud-sounding lightning-heads.
(There,) the (wickedly-)resenting (winds) are growling all around the (pneuumatic) prison-bars, (all) with a great groan (reminiscent) of (Elagabalus' namesake--namely) a mountain;
seizing a sceptor, Aeolus sits (stellar-)high (his) stronghold, and mollifies the (mammatus-cloud) minds and manages (their) anger(-mischeif)s.
(And) might Aeolus not act (thus), (these) rapid (rainspouts) really would run-riot off with and scrape them (all)(--that is, )the sea and the soils and the stretched-out sky(--)(simply) by (means of (plain)) breeze(-path)s.
But the WAAAAY-powerful (Jove-)patriarch being(--HAHA!--)(such) a WUSS-PUSS(!) over this (hypothetical jailbreak) ((ha-ha-)happening) (so) secreted (these (ScArY(!)-)stroms) in secluded spelunking-sites, and placed a (poop-ton-)pile (of anyone's guess) and abyss-deep alps above (them), and he gave (it)(--this clusterfuck--)a monarch, who, mandated by means of a concrete contract, ought know (how/when) to oppress (them(, these meteorological misfits,)) and (also) (how/when) to offer (them) off-hand reins.
Thereupon, to him(--Aeolus--)these utterances were used by "just-asking" Juno:

>>23880708
Noooo not wrong think wrong thing like you shouldn’t be written it because

After sitting through countless hours of indoctrination seminars and orientation videos with other new arrivals for a year, I was finally declared fit enough to be allowed to travel to the commune, where along with my fellow brethren, I would be allowed to take part in what we call the final ascension, a special occasion ceremony within our organization, that happens in conjuncture with the appearance of the grand comet.


What's a good name I could call my cult. I thought of The Family but that's already a thing

>>23871143
Is this supposed to be Montreal?

Do you come up with the title of your book by the end, the middle or the beginning of the writing process? Do you ever think about genre trends when doing so?

>>23880866
Before writing anything down I know what the story is about, so, at the beginning. But I wouldn't make a rule out of it. Knowing what story you are telling, however, is essential.

>>23880906
I've finished the entire outline of my novel and I've written 35k words so far and I can't come up with a proper title, despite deciding on almost every detail apart from some minute things (such as: "How did X side character discover the protagonist's hidden affair?)

I don't know if my title should be as clear as possible, more descriptive, more poetic or just completely abstract

>>23880866
>genre trends

what the fuck does that even mean

>>23880859
yes

>>23880924
>chicklit having "girl" or "woman" in the title
>rom-com with cheap puns
>sci-fi and fantasy title being "the ... of ..."
>horror naming the monster
>literary fiction titled after the main character
>...

>>23880924
I'm this guy >>23878573

>tl;dr
I'm writing a fantasy novel that's more like historical fiction than traditional fantasy, but if I ever were to publish it, it'd have to compete with other fantasy novels that all have "fantastical" and descriptive titles, and not symbolic ones.

"Lord of the Rings", "Fire and Blood", "Prisoner of Azkaban", "A Dance with Dragons", "The Name of the Wind", "Shadow of the Torturer", "Book of the New Sun," all sound epic and fantastical. Without knowing a single thing about these books, you pick them up and you can envision somewhat what world you'll be travelling. A book titled "Malazan Book of the Fallen" doesnt' exactly scream "Victorian Dublin" to anyone.

Yet, my book's title is something more akin to "For Whom the Bells Toll" but that's not really something that would draw the eyes of fantasy fans.

>>23880922
Short, distinguishable, memorable. As poetic as the prose itself. Hemingway shortened sentences from the Bible to this effect, The Sun Also Rises for example. Refrain from such things as "The Secret Affair", but rather something original, like, "Falsity and Gaiety".

>>23880922
Idk about the novel title but I copy chapter titles off song lyrics

>>23880945
Corsets and Potatoes

The japs proved that comically long titles that are basically a short synopsis are a huge draw.

>>23880766
>because
This is key to the answer. Why do you think you shouldn't write it?

>>23881082
autistic faggot shit that nobody should care about

>>23881260
Readers care.

>>23881269
butt blasted man babies care

>>23880963
This kind of thing sticks out like a sore thumb and really takes me out of a book

>>23881274
Seething.

ffs just go full classical composer and call it "Novel No. 1"

>>23881281
butt blasted man baby cries out whilst gnawing at the cover of his jap novel

>>23881286
Like it or not, their shit gets read. Unlike yours.

>>23881292
butt blasted man child is reading my posts right now

>>23881295
Now post that without crying.

>>23881300
butt mad and blasted man child misinterpreting tears of laughter for tears of sadness

>>23881304
>admits he's crying
KEK

>>23881307
butt blasted man baby child wandering out his safety gate from shitty jrpgs and homosexual anime

>>23880866
The title usually comes up early in the writing process, when the ideas start coming together, usually as I'm writing the outline. I don't follow much on trends, but it does follow the general structure of titles in the genre.
For me, titles should put questions in the readers mind. But not "wtf is this guy talking about", rather questions that make them think about the narrative and symbolism.

Hey guys with NaNoWriMo coming up, whether or not you support the actual org, we should set up a Discord server so we can talk about our projects and help each other out and groom each other.

>>23881345
but what if such titles are not popular in the genre? Sure, you don't have to be a trend follower, but it does put you back when you are about to publish your novel

>>23881312
I’m gonna’ blast your butt with my dick you faggot freak!

>>23881379
Trends are not truth, but a superficial pattern. The titles that work the most are the ones that generate questions and intrigue in the reader. The thing is that this can result in a common structure. That's why "The [A] of [B]" and similar structures are so common; they already have implicit questions within them.

>>23881430
The Dick of Assraping

I have more readers than you

>>23881072
I am interested in both and will now read your book.

>>23881504
I have better readers than you.

What kind of set up do y'all use to write? Dual Monitor? Laptop keyboard or usb? Music in the background? The last time I wrote a full novel, I turned on LotR on mute and used a laptop. My desk sucks and I plan on getting a new one.

>>23881674
Dual monitor, writing on the big one, with other resources or music on the secondary one. Music I usually go for OSTs that put me in a particular mood; lately I've been listening a lot to Made in Abyss OST.

>>23881674
I put on ambient rain sounds to drown out all the BS noises outside.

>>23881704
>>23881687
IYO are laptops substantially worse than usb keyboards?

>>23881708
I find the USB keyboard more comfortable, as I can adjust the angle and distance between the keyboard and screen as I see fit. And I think in general USB keyboards are more ergonomic than what can be fit into a laptop. But it depends on what you prefer.

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>>23873503
>do this with my new draft but for deepai that a anon mentioned some threads ago
>it adds like a shit load of paragraphs adding after what I thought was natural endpoint for the chapter and completely mogs my voice
It's over for me, I was never going to make it on my merits alone. Ai is the future after all. I'll forever be stuck in my sloppajob entering my 30s'.

>>23881355
Fuck off Frank

>>23881868
>>23881868
>>23881868

>>23867184
As if literary fiction is any better.

Lord Giovanni Ivenobrain, resplendent in the finest silks from the Orient, flopped haughtily into a large, cushioned, award-winning chair in the stately parlor. "Oh, woe is me!" he gasped. "It's so difficult being a rich, lazy layabout! Why, I don't know whether to play croquet or harass the milkmaid."
Lady Silentbottom looked on, her face an inscrutable puzzle of long-forgotten secrets. "I do so concur with your misery, Lord Ivenobrain," she pouted. "Why, I could just kill my handmaidens for being prettier than me. How dare they be ten years younger!" She straightened her blouse and set her face firmly. "I'll just have them apply more makeup to my face for the next hour. And meanwhile," she added, "why doesn't thou spanketh thy monkey in thy study, while perusing any number of ribald portraits by famous Baroque artists?"
Lord Ivenobrain slapped his crotch as he stood up. "By gum, I'll do just that! Until the morrow, Lady Silentbottom!"