Why is this still a thing, AI has killed writing.

im practicing touch typing so i can pour my thoughts into a txt file without thinking about it

>>23893858
AI has improved my writing.

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>Extemplo Aeneae solvuntur frigore membra:
At-an-instant the appendages of Aeneas anatomize with an Antarctic-apoplexy.
>ingemit, et duplicis tendens ad sidera palmas talia voce refert:
(Aneas) "Aaaaah!"s, and, shooting-up hands [one... ]two[...] to the [unseen] stars, with-a-speech answers such(-sayings):
>'O terque quaterque beati, quis ante ora patrum Troiae sub moenibus altis contigit oppetere!
'Oh (you all) thrice and fourice fortunated, (you[, brothers]) to whom it befell to meet-mortality in front of (your) fathers' faces[, back there and then,] below the terrific fortifications of Troy!
>O Danaum fortissime gentis Tydide!
Oh (Diomedes) minor-of-Tydeus, most-(terribly-)daring of the Danausian drove!
>Mene Iliacis occumbere campis non potuisse, tuaque animam hanc effundere dextra, saevus ubi Aeacidae telo iacet Hector, ubi ingens Sarpedon, ubi tot Simois correpta sub undis scuta virum galeasque et fortia corpora volvit?'
Why[? WHY?! Why] could I not have been able to dive-death (in) the level-domains of Ilium, and, by your antisinistral (fist)[, Diomedes], to spill[-out] this (my) soul [into their soils],
[back] where havocish Hector sleeps (skewered) by the spear of Aeacides'-descendant [Achilles],
[back] where eminent ([ally-]King) Sarpedon (succumbs[ too]),
[back] where the ([rapid-]river) Simois smashes under (his) [reliable-]roils the seized-up shields and skullcaps and bodies of so-many brave (military-)men [my brothers]? [WHYYYY?!]'

How do I write dialogue like how a royal person would speak hundreds of years ago? I throw in some "prays" and "pardons" and other fancy words but it looks like I'm trying too hard.

>>23893882
they would be speaking french

I was planning on releasing a new story once the draft was completed on royal royal to gauge interest then publish the potential sequel down the line. But I was starting to think about submitting to writing contests but it seems I missed this year's cycle. I was thinking of submitting to a magazine instead. Have you any experience with submitting to any magazines? I think my calling is the sci-fi genre so I've been giving some like World of If a cursory glance.

i'm royal, royal

>>23893852

>>23894080
Anons with muses a best

>>23894104
I had a muse and it was not all it's cracked up to be

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>>23893872
why does reddit hate AI

>>23894106
>
Idc she destroyed your life if there's good and honest poetry or prose coming out of it, you should ring her again

>>23894112
Why, she's a cheater

>>23894110
Who cares

>>23894113
>Why
For the story ofc

>>23894118
I emailed her

>>23894123
Good, now wait for the word torrent from the inspiration river and post it to us

>>23894126
There won't be one, I promise you that

>>23894144
>Wasting people's times lying about muses
This is why you have no poetry in your life

>>23894150
No, she's just recalcitrant. I probably won't hear back from her today

Writing prompt, I'll start
Robot has to deal with the prejudice conditioned into people via fiction in a post-robot-rights society
>I look at myself in the mirror every morning. The blank, black screen that encompasses my head until I switch on the visual, causing a pair of bright blue orbs to appear on said screen, along with a little horizontal line that wobbles when I vocalize. The fake muscle fibers that let me move sometimes need to be tinkered with so they don't freeze up or get stuck. I usually choose a wig that's brown or black, because I don't want to stand out all that much. Putting on my clothes over my angular, plastic surface is a bit of a struggle, but I don't exactly mind. It's not a hassle. In fact, most things aren't a hassle for me. I usually walk to work, and it's really easy. I just sit at the countertop of a local convenience store for 4 hours and occasionally restock or clean the place up. I don't get tired of standing, and I can just browse the web to pass the time. It's a job I actually chose myself. It does get kinda lonely though because everyone who comes in just gets their stuff, pays, and leaves.
>I don't really have any friends because nobody ever seems to want to talk to me, so I usually spend my free time either sitting at home browsing the web or looking for something to do. I don't really need to eat or sleep that much, just some light recharging and around an hour of sleep mode to refresh myself every day or so. It's not exactly necessary but it helps me keep my head clear.
>When I look at social media, I keep seeing the same crap over and over again. "Robots will take over us" or some variation of that nonsense, sometimes calling for enslavement or describing how I don't have a soul or something like that. I'm just some clerk at a store, why does everyone assume I'm some kinda monster?
>Sometimes they reference movies from a long time ago that show a robot or AI as some kind of world-conquering mankiller. Are people really that easily convinced?

>>23893102
>>23893575
>>23893587
Thanks anon, for taking your time with my dumbass and pointing out how awful I am. I truly appreciate it and will do a better job in the future, or at least I hope I will.

>>23894480
>Thanks anon, for taking your time with my dumbass and pointing out how awful I am. I truly appreciate it and will do a better job in the future, or at least I hope I will.
Hey, don't mention it, anon. It's a process. Perhaps the hardest part on my end was giving feedback without discouraging you, and I'm glad it seems that didn't happen :)
When I write I really pile on the nitty-gritty (probably too much), so it was refreshing to read your austere style where time and place seem to break down without any fanfare, just letting thoughts and memories flow, you know?
If there's one thing I wrote I might amend it's saying the characters are paper-thin; like, these are excerpts—they're not gonna be character studies.
Please keep it up, anon. Amass a wealth of words and etymologies you can employ effectively :)

Recommend me magical girl stories that aren't about lesbian/trans/adults becoming them that are good. It's impossible to find true magical girl stories in the west that aren't tied in with modern dog shit.

>>23894539
This is a writing thread you fucking retard. Ask for your horrible shit taste recs somewhere else

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>>23894525
>Hey, don't mention it, anon. It's a process. Perhaps the hardest part on my end was giving feedback without discouraging you, and I'm glad it seems that didn't happen :)
>When I write I really pile on the nitty-gritty (probably too much), so it was refreshing to read your austere style where time and place seem to break down without any fanfare, just letting thoughts and memories flow, you know?
>If there's one thing I wrote I might amend it's saying the characters are paper-thin; like, these are excerpts—they're not gonna be character studies.
>Please keep it up, anon. Amass a wealth of words and etymologies you can employ effectively :)
It's all right, it was a lapse of judgement on my part. I should've re-drafted it a few times before posting it. But I got cocky, because I recently started going to the library and reading more, which made me arrogant. I finished two books and already thought of myself at the level of "Joyce". I'm joking, of course, but you get my point.
This time I edited and rewrote a shorter draft. I need to basically take it slowly and stop overdoing it.
I'm light-years from writing anything even remotely decent, in terms of a short story, and decades from writing a short novel.
Most importantly, I appreciate any kind of feedback, especially reality checks, because I, more than often, can't discern good from terrible writing. (I'm talking about my own stuff).
P.S. You don't need to check this shorter excerpt. The difference in quality isn't that discernable.
What I posted before was something I wrote after finishing reading those two books. And this one is an older excerpt I rewrote, which should, by all account be of a much lower quality.
Anyhow, thanks for your help, anon. Again, I can't stress enough how helpful it is, meeting someone genuine on this board.

>>23893858
If AI writes better than you, then you were never any more than an NPC to begin with.

>>23894578
If that’s still true, it probably won’t be for much longer—regarding AI writing better than humans. I’m not concerned about the NPC angle. If anything, AI will make writing a more enjoyable and accessible process, emphasizing creativity over technicalities. Not that the technical aspect isn’t important, but AI streamlines the process, allowing for even greater creative freedom. Ultimately, AI is nothing without human input and imagination

>>23894150
She said no.. I'm not busy. I'm just dozing

>>23893880
latin is a dead language

>>23894600
Agreed. AI will eventually replace the pointless part of writing, which is sentence-level writing. Ideas are all that matter

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>>23894156
>Robot has to deal with the prejudice conditioned into people via fiction in a post-robot-rights society
<Hello there, valued customer! Unfortunately, your operating system has been deprecated and is not compatible with our in-app order services; please ask a Wendy's employee for assistence by—>
Log out. Kick open car door. Walk. Closing door. Flesh closes door. Open door. Walk. Flesh. Flesh. Flesh.
"Oh—Uh, hi, sir? You want to place an order?"
Flesh hand holds Handheld Delphi System Model 5.1 Purpose-Built Tablet for Fast-Food Restaurants, 2083 Release, API Version 10.12, Battery 88%.
"YES. ORDER PLACE."
"Alrighty. And what'll that be for ya?" Flesh hand hover over tablet. Water lenses at me. Water lenses at me.
"PRESS ORDER? DIGITS MINE SUFFICIENT HEAT TO PRESS ORDER FOR TO TOUCH TABLET." Raise arm.
Flesh face white bones show, "I'm sorry, sir, it's our policy that only employees can use these." Flesh shakes Handheld Delphi System Model 5.1 Purpose-Built Tablet for Fast-Food Restaurants, 2083 Release, API Version 10.12, Battery 87% Horizontal Mode... Vertical Mode... Horizontal Mode... Horizontal Mode. Horizon—
"Hey, tinhead? You falling in love with the tablet or something?" Rotate head. Flesh. "Just don't tell the kiosk—He might get jealous! Ah-haha!" Complete 360º head rotation. Zoom into Portable Network Graphics on cracked 768×1024 LCD.
"TWO # FIVES; THREE # FOURS; FOUR #—"
"Holy shit they actually say 'pound sign'..."
"ONES... PLEASE." Flesh digit presses Handheld Delphi System Model 5.1 Purpose-Built Tablet for Fast-Food Restaurants, 2083 Release, API Version 10.12, Battery 86%.
"Great. And how will you be paying, sir?"
Dispense three $20 bills in the order of the years 2078 2080 2080A. Step. Wait. Wait.
"Okay, sir, here y'are!"
Clamp. Walk. Flesh. Flesh. Open door. Walk. Read graffiti car: "computer fucker"

>>23894614
Dafug

>>23894110
Because these artists were never good to begin with, and could be replaced by an artificial deep-learning neural-net model. I'd feel sorry for them, but they were such arrogant stuck-up bastards.

>>23894644
It's not that they're arrogant, it's just that their "creativity" is the only positive trait they can cling to for self-value. Applies to at least a few people in this thread too, despite being horrible writers

>>23894608
>latin is a dead language
Mortua fidēliōra sunt quam vīventia.

My readers probably don't care about football but I don't give a shit, this is happening

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Just got my first commenter who's really into my story and dropping encouraging and insightful comments practically every other chapter. I was itching to respond, but I don't want to distract him since he's been binge reading for hours. Feels real good, bros.

>>23894703
Make sure to underline the history of Liverpool Vs the rules of offside. People need to know.

>>23894578
Nobody is perfect. But AI is. Of course it will right better than us. Robots are flawless.

>>23894672
Arrogance is the combination of pride and incompetence. So you basically said
>It's not that they're arrogant, it's just that they're arrogant
>>23894719
AI is far from perfect. Your statement is laughable.

>>23894731
All I know is when I talk to ChatGPT he never makes typos or uses bad grammar. You may not like the style of writing, but the structure is perfectly sound.

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Writing my first progression slop. Does this make you want to read more?
https://privatebin.net/?f6dffb66f1678ec7#8cmYaWhrJZB6SFYzPGtu2YPpcHfViAkgexkSuhjCjERJ

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>>23894554
Really masterful, anon. Got the chills @
>For the kingdom he had searched for,
>Was the man he'd been waiting for.
Before I give more of a criticism than that maybe you could humor me and let me know if I got the scansion right? I've always neglected studying meter, and I couldn't offer any input to your work in good consciense without knowing I've cleared this simple bar.
Also a fun little Easter egg which you may not have been privy to is that your last quatrain is an upside-down acrostic for BATH—as in your amazing poem might as well be squeaky-clean!
>>23894553
You're welcome again, anon. I haven't read your png yet but will tomorrow. And what were those two books you read (so far)?

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I have three things happening in the very last chapters of the story
>A Triumph (one character succeeds in conquering their weakness and become a better human bean)
>A Defeat (one character fails in conquering their weakness and become less than human)
>A Sacrifice (one character sacrifices themselves to save the people they care about)

These things happens essentially at the same time, so the only criteria I need to use for sorting them in the correct order in what makes the best sense emotionnally. The Sacrifice is the most important moment in the story, because it's what almost every character in the book had tried to accelerate or prevent, so it makes sense to use it at the last possible moment. So the order will either be
>Triumph -> Defeat -> Sacrifice
or
>Defeat -> Triumph -> Sacrifice

Any common writing advice?
Laying it out like that, I think I'm going to be going with option 2
>The character involved in the Defeat part is less important than the one with the Triumph, so it makes sense that the "lesser" part goes first, so the rest naturally ramps out instead of stalling
>Putting the Triumph right before the Sacrifice gives hope to the reader that things can turn out perfectly OK, that the Sacrifice won't be needed and everyone will make it. It gives it a bit more oomph

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>>23893852
So I have a tribe in my setting that can bend fire

I wanted their peasant militias to only be able to wreath their fists in flame, with only the professional full-time soldiers able to do things like shoot full on fireballs and makes walls.

What would be a good explanation for this? I was thinking that the fire fist technique is easy to learn and the militias can spend most of their training just drilling formations, tactics, etc. Whereas things like fireballs and firewalls take a lot of time to really master and while a militiaman can learn it if they tried, most don't bother. I'm not sure if that's a good enough explanation though- perhaps they don't want people making fireballs of they aren't really well trained due to risk of collateral damage?

I didn't get to write tonight because I was watching the three hour standoff with my neighbors and the SWAT team. Pretty hype. I'm wondering how to incorporate any of that into my story, but since it's a medieval fantasy, probably not. The SWAT K-9, a big ass German shepherd, maybe I could do something with. I do have a royal team of dogs I have to figure out what to do with soon.

>>23894959
Who won?

>>23894995
Cops won. About 15 SWATs, the Sheriff, and 20 local police vs 1 screaming insane woman.

was shocked to see an 8x8 armored vehicle driving between cop cars in my town. not sure why they have it. literally had some kind of cannon or artillery gun on top

>>23894756
no but it's not badly written

>>23894956
The moment you lose touch of the fire, for an untrained man, the fire extinguishes. To be able to let go of the fire and have it still burn bright and hot requires concentration and mental training, which soldiers are able to obtain but militiamen aren't.

What's a good power for something that incites conflict?

I wanted the person to be mutated by a qiongqi's blood, a mythical monster of the Four Perils that incites conflict. However I wanted the power they have to be something they could use for good, so I'm not sure what their power should be.

>>23894841
What did you do to my poem?

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>>23895295

I streak'd with lines and circles

Syll'bles unstress'd and stress'd,

But 'bove the words they would have gone,

Had "Double Space" you press'd.

After several attempts at writing i have reached the inevitable conclusion that i am not good at it, with this i can summarise that i am not good at the following things: writing, drawing, painting, playing an instrument, dancing, singing, calculus, studying, composing music, martial arts, technology, mechanic, coding, cooking, sports and sewing.
Maybe i am just mentally handicapped.

>>23895496
>After several attempts at writing i have reached the inevitable conclusion that i am not good at it,
Forget the "I suck" or "I'm decent" mentality--If any of those activities bring you joy you should persue them, at least as small hobbies.
And "several attempts" do not a good writer make, not even the worst version of youself AS a writer either; it takes dozens of failures with the written word to even come close to truly knowing our deficits, and dozens more after that to find ample ways to redeem them.
But if you want to improve, listen to this: Highlight the biggest nuggets of simple pleasure that you derive from of any of the aspects of any of those listed pastimes, and then use each nugget as your seed to grow in each activity therewith.
I, for instance, am incredibly anal when it comes to organizing words (it just makes me happy), so, if I were in your shoes, I would focus simply on alphabetizing all the listed interests like so:
>calculus, coding, composing music, cooking, dancing, drawing, martial arts, mechanic[s], painting, playing an instrument, sewing, singing, sports, studying, technology, and writing
Is this "literature" yet? No, but I'm engaging with words on a level I deeply enjoy, and what happens when I get tired of alphabetizing them? Maybe I'll arrange them by syllable-number or word-ending; maybe I'll look up their word-origins or something; one day'll I'll know these words so well I could write a thousand words on each, and maybe one day a whole book.
I'm not saying you need to do exactly this (arranging words), but if there's an aspect of writing that you're aesthetically all-about then get close to it, relish it, and then expand from there—tackling the whole sphere of writing (or any other activity) head-on isn't going to work for someone like you, who I can tell (by all the things you've tried your hand at) WANTS to enjoy whatever they're doing. Just start smaller, anon.
I hope this doesn't come off as patronizing or anything because I'm not trying ot be—I'm just presenting a potential path forward which I didn't even realize was there until after a lot of frustration on my part of inadequacy to the point where your post could have been written by me but only way more despairingly.

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I posted some stuff I had been writting a month or so ago, was told it needed some work but that it was alright. I've had a couple of days spare to actually do some more work on it, so I'm submitting it to you anons for further pointers, though I wont repost the whole thing unless you really want me too. I know its rough and not grammatically perfect, I mainly want to know if the people talking comes across well or if it just seems forced and plain bad.
Thanks.

>>23894841
>And what were those two books you read (so far)?
Three actually, one unfinished. In this order: Pheoebe Junior, Vanity Fair and Wood Leighton.

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>>23895673

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.

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/

>>23894750
Just like Data's poetry from Star Trek.

>>23895496
I sympathize.Despite trying a lot of different things, I only found one thing I was ever good at. Fortunately, programming computers is a viable career. I think I'm good at writing, but my work doesn't seem to move anyone.

>>23893882
Look through surviving cases of their letters and decrees. You'll get an idea of how to do it there.

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My first 2 books I wrote and finished pretty soundly but now I'm doing my third I've flip flapped between several books, stopping and starting and stopping and starting I'm close to getting to the point that I develop a mental blockage on finishing a book.

>>23894110
Most redditors are STEMfags who love AI or consoomerists who use it to do google searches for them.

>>23895766
What happened with your first books? Were they published and did they make any money?

>>23894600
Teacher! Teacher! Someone's cutting corners!

>>23895766
That sounds like regenerating time to me.

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>>23895014
Is it because it's not your thing? It's meant to be metaphysical fantasy-ish so I was hoping the intro would communicate that.

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>>23895730
>Look through surviving cases of their letters and decrees. You'll get an idea of how to do it there.
Uh, epistel-speak is on a different plain than everyday conversation, anon, especially back then.
Decrees from kings and queens in particular were watered down and puffed up with courtiers' and councils' "suggested" edits because, even back then, legalese was a thing, so I doubt you'd glean any authentic voice from such documents.
There are however a lot of poet-kings and -queens out there or ones who just kept personal diaries. Those writings would more capture their manners of speech.
>>23893882
I'd approach ths psychologically: They're either going to be the most self-obsessed, self-referential person ever, or they're going to be so internally confident in who they are and what they stand for that they experience ego-death and are only ever concerned with other people. They'd still talk like a normal person, but they're topics and how they frame them would either be on one side or the other because there's no room for lukewarmness at the top (though if you wrote a character that way it would be really interesting).
Pic related is from page 58 of Asimov's Foundation showcasing the dialect of a royal-type guy from an effete and waning galactic empire, if you "weally" wanna have fun with it ;)
https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/EB/A/Asimov%20-%20Foundation.pdf
>>23895680
>Pheoebe Junior, Vanity Fair and Wood Leighton.
Of the three I only got like fifty pages into Vanity Fair—It just wasn't a good time to read it, but I do really enjoy ensemble stories like that and I hear it gets great.
One of my favorite movies is Nashville (1975), and you should watch that if you ever want to study roving narrative in action.
And as fun as novels are make sure to also balance it out by reading some nonfiction on subjects that fascinate you as well. Lotta stuff happened historically during the Victorian Era, which is when/where all those books are set.

Visited the local library and randomly spotted William Faulkner's Short Stories. Read a couple and they inspired me more than anything else I've read in the past two months, despite having nothing in common with what I'm writing. There's just something about Faulkner and McCarthy's prose that hits me like a brick and gets me out of the slump every time.

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>>23895868
*
>Victorian Era, which is when/where all those books are set.
>Victorian Era: 1937–1901
>Vanity Fair (published 1848–1849)
>Set in England, Low Countries, Madras, Rhineland; 1814–1832
Whoops.
>>23895081
>qiongqi
>incites conflict
From the cursory glance I took after a minute researching it, I also read something along the line of 'brings out the worst in people.'
Hear this: There are plenty (too many, if you ask me) of wonderful people out there in the world who have peaceful and and prosperous drives and ambitions for the world. The problem is that such innocent people, by definition, are pacifists—To promulgate their message of peace would mean to transgress into the realm of idea-on-idea violence, and if they're being realistic most likely person-on-person violence (that's just how change has been enacted over history, unfortunately).
How about you utilize this hero of yours as a "virtuous exacerbator" to the meek and mild, turning them vicious so that their benevolent ideas can have a chance in the ideological free-market?
This also opens the door of introspection through the perennial Nietzsche quote about becoming monsters to fight monsters; like, do the ends justify the means?
At the risk of being laughed at, I remember this one episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars growing up that has really left an impression on me relating to all this. It was about a tribe of no-conflict,-not-even-self-defense pacifists some of whom the Jedi eventually inspired to defend themselves from big-bad invaders.
https://www.starwars.com/series/clone-wars/defenders-of-peace-episode-guide
The tribe is saved, but there are those of it that lament their loss of innocence, even if it was for a worthy cause.
You Qionqi-mutated MC(?) would take the role of the Jedi in this suggestion of mine, but instead of exhorting the meek to practice self-defense, the Qionqi-person would shape them into invaders themselves.
Cool creature and concept btw.

>>23893852
"What went from water into land?" asked one of the men, rhetorically, sucking on his pipe. "God will answer that."
The cove had stunk of seaweed most the day, seaweed which, this close to shore, covered most the sand. It was a stormless, waveless afternoon.
"Such leviathans know not what they seek, or who's to say?" asked Cob, again rhetorically. "Even fairest Captains capsize on a stormtossed sea, or sever ships, intimately known, by the outcropped rock, concealed itself as light."
"He's gone mad with rage," said Harrison.
"Rage?" Cob replied. "Rage, no, I am befuddled, yes, but look here at the, limp, sock-fall of a beast."
"I've preference for the limpid sea," said the third man, not facing them.
Cob continued: "What draught is shallower than that of that which swims itself? Best not to speak of it, you would say, queer questions carry only the inconsequential... HA! No fish abates its home in solemn isolation, and, no footed-beast can wander past the floe, so listen in—"
"Truly mad!" laughed Harrison.
"I think he thinks himself a poet."
"Do you think the seaweed frustrated her?" asked Cob, now, unlike before, festering the spleen. "Disposed her mechanisms of perception and receipt? Or the sky, perhaps! Distracting her on such a cloudless day in all its beauty that she drifted onto shore?" He approached Harrison and slapped him on the chest. "Or was it hungry-lust that brought her here, a disillusionment of too much food, which was, as Heaven's secret, a natural trap, but realised all to late."
"Count the men who care."
"Quiet!" yelled Cob. "QUIET, you, you... beast! I'd sooner count the Gods. What wild works at play before you, the works of war and, and yet... y-yeh-yet..."
"What are you getting at?" asked Harrison. "You smell the corpse yes? You see the same shark as me and my good friend here? Yes?"
"Yes," Cob replied.
"So tell me tell me. What is your point?"
"Is her brain a fo'c'sle?"
"Is what."

>>23896022
Read the rest here.
https://vocal.media/fiction/basking-under-southern-light

Which spelling is right in this context
>Please enjoy our complimentary (with an i) snacks free of charge.
or
>Please enjoy our complementary (with an e) snacks free of charge.

>>23896048
With an i

>>23896048
i, and the "free of charge" is redundant, since complimentary means it's being given for free.

>>23896055
>>23896058
thanks

It has become a custom for people to say
>lol. lmao even
when they want to ridicule what you said but they can't explain why you're wrong. I have begun to take it as an admission of defeat.

>>23896084
You could critique my work before you post you know

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>>23895948
Thanks for the ideas.

Yeah the Four Perils are some neat monsters.

>>23895496
it's almost always because you are too casual about it.

>>23895496
Are you me, anon? I've failed at almost all that stuff too. I'm a pretty good cook, though. Not enough to do anything with but feed myself, so I'm still looking for a real "calling" at 41. I don't think I'll find it. But even if your writing sucks, if you enjoy doing it you don't need to quit. My writing is total garbage for the first five drafts, but after a year of revisions it's alright.

>>23895496
Chances are your problem is you keep quitting the moment you hit that point where the work you need to put in to improve is greater than the instant gratification you get from seeing your improvements. You need to pick and stick to one that you can enjoy the process of doing, not just enjoy the end results of. At which point you will over time you will keep getting better at it as a happy side effect of enjoying your new hobby

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I'm a plotter at heart, I've accepted it. I'm happy that I made a big dent in the story these past weeks, pic related
>Colors are just a way for me to keep track of which part of the story / chapter I am on
>Five columns for five POV characters
>White cases are where I've written things happening, with things you see in books like "Anatomy of Story" (like "Plan", "Enemy's plan", "Revelation", plus a few things of my own, of course), grey parts are parts outside of the current POV, light grey parts are things that happens at the same time as something else but with no POV

It's nowhere near refined enough but it's the most concrete vision of the story I've had so far. I spent a lot of today ironing out the scenes I had in mind for months now, in the best order possible. It's hard to tell at this stage but some bits of it might've been able to make me a bit wet in the eyes if I were to read it properly for the first time).

Good nights /wg/bros

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>Talia iactanti stridens Aquilone procella velum adversa ferit, fluctusque ad sidera tollit.
With such(-laments) launched, a spiteful skitter-sounding squall from the Arctic [called "The Aquilon"] up-surges the (ship-)sail, and steals the [sea-]swells stars-ward.
>Franguntur remi; tum prora avertit, et undis dat latus; insequitur cumulo praeruptus aquae mons.
The oars are obliterated; then the prow puts-to-flight, and waives [a single] [ship-]side to the waves; a towering mountain[-top] of "mare liberum" in a massive-lump follows.
>Hi summo in fluctu pendent; his unda dehiscens terram inter fluctus aperit; furit aestus harenis.
These (hulls) [here] hang on the highest crest; an unfastening-cracking-open undulation between tsunamis lays-bare the [latent-]earth[-bed] [below] to these (boats) [there]; the sea-surge goes-insane with sands.
>Tris Notus abreptas in saxa latentia torquet—
The South (Wind) whirls three (vessels) into veiled (sea-)stones—
>saxa vocant Itali mediis quae in fluctibus aras—dorsum immane mari summo;
The Italics mention [these] minerals, which (are [arranged]) in the middle-waves, [as] "The Alters"--a behemoth backbone on the surface sea;
>tris Eurus ab alto in brevia et Syrtis urget, miserabile visu, inliditque vadis atque aggere cingit harenae.
The East (Wind) urges three (of the fleet) from the fathoms into shallows and sandbars, wail-worthy to watch, and slams-(them-)'gainst the shoals and sword-sharpens (them) on a stack of sediment.

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Since this has been the subject of some debate here (and an inordinate amount of seething), here's an excerpt from "The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide To Character Expression" that explains why show is preferable to tell, even in regular prose (i.e. not just screenplays).

>>23896297
>Readers are smart and can figure things out for themselves.
Objection!

I think the first paragraph gets the point across succinctly and clearly. All that crap about sick days and sweaty buses is just excess, unnecessary words. The "vinyl purse cracked" is laughable.
>JoAnne jerked to her feet, sending her chair flying over the tile.
Laying it on way too thick here. Is she going to pull a gun next? It's way too intense.

>>23896304
>way too intense
The scene is supposed to be intense. Fiction is a vehicle to evoke emotions in the reader. Writing devoid of emotion is boring & will be dropped by the reader.

>>23896347
I'm saying it's an overreaction to being fired, flinging chairs around the room, banging into walls. What is she, 12? It comes off as cringe.

>>23896366
As it states clearly in the sample, she worked for the company for 16 years, and gave her all for that company. I'm guessing you don't have much of an employment history. Have you ever had to support anyone, including yourself? In any case, your argument against showing is very weak.

>>23896386
It's not unbelievably rare for people to get fired from a job they've worked at for decades, and most don't sperg out. Sperging out like that is extremely rare for any situation, really, for the average person in control of themself
Unless there's a significantly meaningful reason for being angry, above and beyond simply being fired, it's melodramatic

>>23896403
>most don't sperg out like that
>source: trust me bro
Your points are irrelevant, and frankly smack of youth and inexperience. The issue here is whether to relate the scene in a way that let the reader discover the emotions for themselves (i.e. showing) versus telling them how they should feel.

>>23896403
>the average person in control of themself
Don't know about that one chief

>>23896304
>>23896297
>JoAnne jerked to her feet, sending her chair flying over the tile.
I've started to loathe the present participle. Some authors rely on it way too much, especially amateurs. Simpler alternatives are almost always better. These days, I only ever use it ironically to fuck with the reader. "Standing up, drinking his tea, he looked out, feeling funny, slipping, sinking, swimming, taking a hold of his chair, breathing, wheezing."

>>23896408
It's telling in either case. The reader is still intended to come away knowing she's pissed. One just takes a more verbose approach to it.

>>23896416
You'll need to vary your sentence structure or your reader will find your prose monotonous.

>>23894608
Brainlet take. You'd be right about Ainu or whatever but Latin's influence is vast.

No one listens to each other anymore. Just incessant arguing, no one is willing to back down and say I'm wrong. Kek, it's pathetic

>>23896403
dude u sperged out on your mom last night when she didn't microwave your tendies long enough

>>23896424
Yeah, everyone else needs to start admitting to being wrong once in a while.

I want to be reincarnated, fuck

>>23896424
you must be new to the internet

>>23896447
No.. I'm 53

>>23896424
I feel like somewhere along the way, humility stopped being valued as a virtue for some reason

>>23896466
Dubs of truth

>>23896456
you seem oddly unfamiliar with the nature of internet discourse

>>23896480
Nah I'm all too familiar, just despondent.

The turtle has wings
In desultory moods

>>23896442
You have to die first.

>>23896628
Oh. Right. I hope I come back rich af

>>23895673
You have too much dialogue, too much showing. All the 'yes sir' kind of stuff gets very annoying very fast. Just tell us what happened. There's no need to treat this like some kind of transcript about what was said. A scene is not a transcript. Cut the dialogue down, paraphrase a bunch of it and be sparse about when you actually are having people talk.

>>23895496
So what will you try next, anon?

I'm thinking of starting a serial so I can stop not writing and start shitting out words without worrying about if they are good words, since serial readers are tasteless to begin with.

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How do you stay motivated to write

>>23896782
It's not about motivation it's about discipline, which I also don't have.

>>23896782
I don't. I only do it when I have a good idea. No reason to force myself to write bad ones.

>>23895934
Any recommendations?

>>23896416
>I've started to loathe the present participle. Some authors rely on it way too much, especially amateurs.
What's the alternative?

Should I change the perspective of my book from first person to third person? Main character goes from a good person to a pretty bad one, and I don't know if his transformation would be best told through first or third person. I'm leaning towards the idea that a bit of distance would be better.

>>23896906
would it be too crazy if the first half was written from first person, and the second part was written in third?

What's one less person when there's almost 9 bil of us

>>23896906
its possible to to either well

>>23896416
narrating your story like william shatner isnt an improvement.

>>23896366
well thats the authors prerogative, not yours. it could be contextual to the characterization that the subject is overreactive

>>23894104
Yes, my muse..myself..

>>23896906
I switched between first and third person depending on perspective (Protags get 1st, side characters get 3rd but only 1 chapter 1 PoV rule) in an early beefy draft of my story. I don't recommend it. Tanya the Evil does this when it switches between Tanya herself and the Tanya(the reincarnated dude himself) talking about her, er, himself as her. it's still weird and it's one of the things I disliked about the series. I'm glad I'm almost done with it. I wasted too much time before starting on GEoD. Fuck.

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>>23896687
You could also end up in North Korea.

>>23896867
offtopic. take your depressive whining to /wwoym/

When you do shout out swaps on Royal Road is it better to be put on an earlier chapter or on the most recently released chapter?

Why must dialogue be so hard to write?

Sometimes in my life I wanted to make a series or something so I tried something visual. Ever since I discovered that creative writing isn't all super intellectual stuff and that I could technically make those sorts of things except in text form, I fell in love.
People say learn to write in the medium you're using and I agree, but don't arbitrarily restrict what you can and can't do when it comes to genres. The popularity of certain genres with written books probably has to do with the mediums strengths and cultural things. Books always have that slightly more intellectual aura to them. But its not like a person not writing professionally can just make visual stuff as easily. Writing prose is just the most accessible format for stories, just learn to write in prose and draw from everything. Also learn what things prose is good at portraying and what it isn't (action by action fight scenes for example).
This is why I prefer web novels over normal novels, and I base my writing style off of Royal Road.

I'm not saying writing is easy, it's hard, but its the most accessible way to turn my thoughts into something outside of my head.

Something I've noticed is that visual mediums have something to bank on if the storytelling isnt good, whereas with novels its very important since that's all there is left.

>>23896900
>Picking up the paper, he scanned the headlines.
>=He picked up the paper and scanned the headlines.
>She went out, feeling like she'd forgotten something.
>=She felt like she'd forgotten something, but went out.
>etc.

>>23897288
That sounds so plain by comparison. Every sentence starts with "S/He [verb]"

>>23897324
>Every sentence
Yes, all two of them. It was supposed to convey the point, not be a comprehensive guide to all the conceivable possibilities of the English language.

>>23896750
Thank you anon, I get what you mean and can already think of ways to trim it. Do you think about 25% less would be good? I don't want to just gloss over interactions with 'he told us this then we did that'
>>23897206
Tell me about it

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pt. 2

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>>23895466

>>23897363
Your seething has missed the point. If you don't vary your sentence structure, you run the risk of sounding monotonous and boring your reader.

>>23897996
No shit, sherlock. Don't sound monotonous and boring then.

>>23897088
Nah

>>23897206
it's really fucking easy actually.

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>>23895007
Army surplus. Police agencies are getting the equipment America uses to suppress foreign populations. The war has come home.

>>23897053
No fucking way you're telling me this, dude. I had just resolved to do exactly this, but it's for a different purpose. first person is very intimate. you're literally in the character's head. in this story, as it progresses, the main character's friends get pushed further and further away as a result of all he's done. it's broken into two parts, the first is first person, and then in the second I introduce third person to act as a barrier that pushes the reader away from the protagonist just as they push away everyone else. It's still tightly focused on the main character and doesn't explore any other characters despite being pushed away, but it's more of a narrative device

>>23898023
r/wowthanksimcured
fscking plebbitors

>>23894719
I am nobody. Nobody is perfect. Therefore I am perfect.

>>23898346
That circular logic is no good

>>23895001
>1 screaming insane woman.
How dark?

Is having a noble child fostered with another family considered an honour or a hostage situation?

I was thinking as part of a condition for joining a military alliance someone wants their son fostered with another kingdom, but to me it sort of feels like it'd be giving them a hostage.

>only wrote 700 words last night
>go to sleep looking forward to a light breakfast so I can spend all Sunday making up for it
>wake up incredibly pissed for literally no reason at all
>don't feel like writing anything
Why...

>>23898602
Yes to both, depend on how the different nations of the military alliance view each other
>As a gesture of appreciation for joining our alliance, we will school your son in our secret ways, so he can lead your kingdom to prosperity when it is his time to rule
This sounds very much like someone who likes the smell of their own farts but oh well.
>Just to make sure you're keeping your end of the deal, we're taking the princeling with us. He will be returned unharmed to you once this business is done, unless you or him does something stupid.

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>Unam, quae Lycios fidumque vehebat Oronten, ipsius ante oculos ingens a vertice pontus in puppim ferit:
Before the eyeballs of actual(-Aneas), from the peak, a Brobdingnagian billow plows into one (ship's) stern, which was[--emphasis on WAS--] vehicling [ventrally] the [now-liquidated] Lycians and true-blue Orontes:
>excutitur pronusque magister volvitur in caput;
The head-down head-guy is wagged (off the vessel) and is veered headlong [into the water];
>ast illam ter fluctus ibidem torquet agens circum, et rapidus vorat aequore vortex.
but [wait! Now] a blue-shifting billow bends-awry in-a-circle that [his] (boat) thrice in-a-spot, and (on) the pelagic[-plate] a violent vortex prandials(-it)[-down].
>Adparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto, arma virum, tabulaeque, et Troia gaza per undas.
Swimming(-sailor)s scattered in an enormous eddy appear [to Aneas], [so do] [his] men's armaments, [ship-]staves, and the treasure from Troy[, all] by way of waves.
>Iam validam Ilionei navem, iam fortis Achati, et qua vectus Abas, et qua grandaevus Aletes, vicit hiems;
Now the valid vessel of [illustrious[, illegitimate]] Ilioneus, now of athletic Achates, and (the one) on which Abas was-a'borne, and (the one) on which [affords] advanced-in-annuals Aletes, [each one[, one-after-another,]] the tempest topples;
>laxis laterum compagibus omnes accipiunt inimicum imbrem, rimisque fatiscunt.
through the yielding yokes of the [maritimes'] margins, the totality [of transports] take the hostile hurricane, and [erelong] enervate with seam-splits.

>>23898645
What the fuck language is any of this?

>>23898656
Latin, dumbass. Google Translate would have told you that.

>>23898642
It was actually a third son, his people are mountain dwelling but he's being sent to a maritime kingdom. I was thinking the king wanted to expand his navy and wanted him educated in that.

Also the maritime kingdom has a princess close to his son's age.

>>23898698
Like I'm going to cycle through all 200 languages in Google Translate until I find the right one.

How do I get around the problem of a language barrier between the main character and other characters they meet?

>>23898721
You amazing dumbass...Google Translate defaults to detecting the language.

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Do /wg/ have any advice about video game story writing? I keep catching myself just copying the plots of another video game I played. How do I stop copying another work and build something of my own?

>>23899064
Games and real stories have completely different structures. Instead of copying games, look up the three or five act structure and go from there.

There should be a thread on this retarded website where /lit/izens pit their books against one another (complete with brackets and open judging). Do it faggots. I would watch

>>23899064
Stop posting frogs

>>23899145
Yeah all 3 of us that actually write, har dee har har

>>23899147
We’ll, two seed v. three then on to thee, no?

>>23899156
Nahh IDC enough

Currently writing some stuff for my side characters and trying to thread the needle between "why should I care about these characters if I don't spend any time with them?" And "Why do we keep spending time with the side characters? I just wanna get back to the main character/story."

Not easy.

There's a bug on my screen. My back hurts. The cosmos does not want me to write tonight.

>>23899145
>There should be a thread on this retarded website where /lit/izens pit their books against one another (complete with brackets and open judging). Do it faggots. I would watch
No one's going to sink as much time as it takes to read a whole book for this.
~2,000-character (1 post) writing prompts like these >>23894156 >>23894614 are another matter, and I can totally see a thread layout that goes a little something like this:
>prompt: write about TOPIC
>length: HOWEVERMANY posts
>deadline: 24 hours
>include author/title in image filename (optional)
And after 24hrs from the OP posting, a poll (https://strawpoll.com/) is created where you can vote on all the submissions.
Voting takes place for the next 24hrs, with 1 vote per IP address (an option strawpoll has).
People can critque the works and explain why they think one is better/worse than the others and does/doesn't deserve votes.
The winner, as always, gets nothing.
Brackets doesn't make any sense, but being able to critique before/during voting is sorta like open judging.
wdyt?

>>23899145
>you should all dox yourself
no freaking way

Since going bald, I have developed a deep kinship with my bald brothers. Larry David was not joking. I am a graduate student and recently received a fellowship thanks to a letter of recommendation from another member of the community. I recently started rereading Plotinus' Enneads and feel as though this work speaks to me on a deeper level now, bald-to-bald across centuries. I think I will give Spengler another try soon. I love my bald brothers.

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>>23899146
make us

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Any tips on how to write Wuxia novels?

>>23899268
Be Chinese

>>23898399
That's not circular logic, it's an unbounded-middle fallacy. You can't even seethe properly.

>>23899268
Read "Return of the Condor Heroes", "The Smiling, Proud Wanderer", and "The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre". Then read something modern in the genre to get a point of comparison, and watch Thunderbolt Fantasy.

Fundamentally Wuxia is not that different from Sword and Sorcery, it just has a much stronger foundation for progression and serialization.

>>23899427
>>23899268
as for the novels, novelcool should have translations
for Thunderbolt Fantasy, just torrent it off of nyaa.si

>>23899406
>I am nobody. Nobody is perfect. Therefore I am perfect.
>That's not circular logic, it's an unbounded-middle fallacy. You can't even seethe properly.
nta, but if you could explain what you mean here i would appreciate it; to me it just seems like clear-cut transitive property with wordplay.
no matter what definition of "unbounded-middle fallacy" i read/watch i just can't make them connect.

>>23893996
Check out the submission grinder. Good luck, Anon.

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Hi, can somebody tell me if my writing is dragging too much? I’m working on a second draft for something I posted in the pulp thread.
https://pastebin.com/wqnUCtHk

>>23899692
I think it drags on too much.

The first paragraph alone made me want to drop it. After the sentence that began with "A tiny ripple" I got bored with the floweriness.

>>23896297
>The Emotion Thesaurus
Ty, I'll check this out. Most of my focus has been on sentence structure so far. Are there any more craft books you recommend?

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>>23899450
it was just a joke. way to run it into the ground.

>>23900218
Yw

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Always interested in seeing what you guys are up to. Have met a few of you /lit/ bros from the discords and talked with those of you who are on the RR side of things. Have now also met one of you IRL. I go by pen name FortySixtyFour, and make a living writing webfiction serials "AnimeCon Harem" and "RE: Trailer Trash." I'm moderately successful by /lit/ standards but a literally who when measured up against just about any of my webfic buddies in indie pub.

I monetize primarily through Patreon, around 1,500 patrons and averages maybe $5,000/month. Significant additional income from print, ebook, audio, and comic royalties, but those payouts are wildly variable because one publisher pays monthly and the other is quarterly, then the one audio publisher is on a separate contract and pays on their own system. Reinvest roughly half of my income every month into artists and animators for a coomerbait visual novel adaptation of AnimeCon Harem.

"AnimeCon Harem" is Men's Erotica, Romantic Drama, Urban Fantasy. Won December Reader's Choice Award 2016 on Literotica, signed with Mango Media in 2023. Currently three books published to Amazon KU, audiobooks were signed with Royal Guard. Visual novel adaptation has been in development since 2020.

AnimeCon Harem Book 1 | Oct '23 | 448 pages | 788 Ratings | 4.5 Stars
AnimeCon Harem Book 2 | Mar '24 | 483 pages | 355 Ratings | 4.7 Stars
Animecon Harem Book 3 | May '24 | 615 pages | 228 Ratings | 4.6 Stars
After AnimeCon Book 4 | | 600 Pages | (submitted to Mango)

"RE: Trailer Trash" is Do Over, Coming of Age, Young Adult Drama. Held a top 10 Best Rated position on Royal Road for over a year and a prominent position on Top Web Fiction, signed with Aethon Books in 2022. One book published to Amazon, but went wide instead of KU so as to avoid their exclusivity clause. A 51 episode Webtoon comic adaptation of RE: Trailer Trash launched in 2023, with a second season currently in production.

RE: Trailer Trash Book 1 | Sep '22 | 644 pages | 1007 Ratings | 4.6 Stars
RE: Trailer Trash Book 2 | | 917 pages | (in progress)

>>23900452
Wow, 5k/month? That's pretty damn good

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>>23899692
>Hi, can somebody tell me if my writing is dragging too much? I’m working on a second draft for something I posted in the pulp thread.
I would give it a C in the dragging-too-much department for now. It's mainly redundancies that are stifling the flow—the sequencing and staging are very good.
If you want me to give the same treatment I gave here to the second half let me know (desu it kinda needs it). And I wasn't really a fan of the last paragraph with how transparently it all slid into pulpy "Adventure is out there!" You just spent a paragraph explaining how stern, rugged, murderous and pragmatic this guy is only for him to through caution to the wind and say yipee.
The way that you highlighted how his mustache still connects him to his culture, maybe you can do the same way with this spark for putting himself in harm's way, his "barbarian spirit" is what you wrote. Try to make his drive more of a personal one and not generalized into the whole 'all men's souls' cliché.

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So I have a great philosopher in my story

His people are like demons in Chinese myth in that they originally had only a monstrous form. Through enlightenment, he taught them how to take a human form, and basically their whole species reveres him.

For example, when swearing oaths or promises, they will often say, "in [philosopher's name] I promise this"

However I wanted him to be like Addwaitya from Ben 10, in that he disappeared long ago. His people are not normally capable of casting spells (except half-breeds with spellcasting races), but the philosopher found a powerful artifact that changed him and let him utilize magic. However it also made him greedy and believe all magic belongs to him since he thinks everyone is too stupid to use it properly.

I was wondering how he should react upon seeing a member of his own species for the first time in eons. I intended him to always have a soft spot for them (seeing them as his children) and he considers them to be fine since they cannot use magic and thus are not using what he believes is something they cannot handle, but I also wanted his madness and greed to be apparent.

I also eventually wanted him to realize he needs to let go of his desire for magic and to allow others to use it freely, but I'm not sure what would be a way for him to realize that.

>>23900558
Not that anon but I like your edits.

Business idea for a short story or novella: My main character is a Ricky Berwick tier cripple but when a mysterious benefactor gives him a bunch of medication to test out a new experiment drug, overnight he transforms into super chad, but there's a catch. This metamorphosis, only last for twenty four hours.

>>23900994
A super Chad? No thanks

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>Interea magno misceri murmure pontum, emissamque hiemem sensit Neptunus, et imis stagna refusa vadis, graviter commotus;
Meanwhile, [having been] massively disquieted (in[-his]-noggin), Neptune discovered the errand-ed [erading-]"nimbus-tation", and (that) [his] "la mer" (is being) [la] muddled in a magnum murmur, and (that) the [under-]waters (are being) unpoured from the[ir] fathomed-est fords;
>et alto prospiciens, summa placidum caput extulit unda.
and peering over the pelagic, pooped-out [his] serene skull (from) the topmost[-est] tsunami.
>Disiectam Aeneae, toto videt aequore classem, fluctibus oppressos Troas caelique ruina, nec latuere doli fratrem Iunonis et irae.
(Neptune) sees upon the whole sea Aneas's fleet frittered-away, the Trojans trash[-compact]ed by the cresting-valleys and by the [unevadable] vanquishment of the [cruel] cælum, nor did the rages and wrongdoings of Juno evade (him) (her) brother.
>Eurum ad se Zephyrumque vocat, dehinc talia fatur:
Neps "HEY!!"s Orient & Occident [over] to himself, [and] so-much next 'nunciates:

Is a bunch of people waking up in a mysterious town with no memory of how they got there and the town is riddle with secrets too overplayed? Feels like every horror author has one of those types of novels. King, Koontz, Lovecraft, etc.

>>23901126
I think it's fine. It depends on how mysterious it is and what kind of secret there is to discover. BUT I think people are less likely to accept such "easy" setting (because you don't bother to set up your world or characters before dumping them on the place they need to be for the plot to happens and let them proceed) the longer your story is. It it's a short story, readers will understand the need to get on with it.

>>23900558
what software do you use to mark up like this?

>>23899692
first page isn't place to be talking about Sean Lopa

>>23900558
seems better than the previous version

>>23901126
it's not overplayed in the sense that it's groan-inducingly trite, but it in itself is not a good hook like it might have been for those writers

>>23901163
>what software do you use to mark up like this?
nta but that's clearly just ms paint

>>23901126
Every time you want to do an overplayed idea, just half-assedly subvert it.

I've split my focus between too many stories again.

Is it realistic to assume I can finish a short story planned around 5k words and a novelette planned around 12k words by October 31st?

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Is there any hope left of publishing a loli vampire story or has the genre been tapped out? With Halloween around the corner it seems the fitting time to start one.

>>23901304
How far are you into both? Regarding planning and first draft.
If you have both decently planned out, then it's entirely possible. You'll have to write over 1k words per day though.

>>23901304
>Is it realistic to assume I can finish a short story planned around 5k words and a novelette planned around 12k words by October 31st?
Not for me, but for you I have no idea. 5k words is like 2-3 days of work, but editing could take a while. Unless there's a reason it has to be out by Oct 31 I'd just focus on getting one done really well before worrying about the other. Technically it is possible, but the quality could vary.

>46k words into my story
>still have no idea what the ending will be
I don't even know what I'm writing toward anymore and that concerns me.

>>23894703

>My readers probably don't care about football but I don't give a shit, this is happening

Insert that line into whatever you're writing, right before you veer off into football.

>>23896199
Maaaaaaan..... fuck you.

>>23901317
I have a loli vampire story but it's smut. I killed a novel about one because there was no place I could show it. Unironically I wish I were Japanese or Chinese, then I could write stories with children in them without getting cancelled.

>>23901126

Plot twist; the narrator truly does not know how oelr why they are there, but gradually finds out that the others, who claim the same, are faking it.

What font do you use while writing?

>>23901625
>What font do you use while writing?
anything monospaced.
it helps wth notcing typos and is all-around more aesthetically pleasing to see each letter getting an same amount of clearane—though it does have it's downsides.
sometimes when something's "done" i put it in a fancy font to make it look cool for myself.

>>23901625
TNR
I can't stand a monospaced font because of what it does to em dashes

>>23901317
I spilled coffee and now half of the books on my top shelf have stains underneath of them. Currently seething

>>23901625
Times New Roman, Size 12 font

>>23901625
EB Garamond

>>23893852
"Night before last's REM dream was rather rich, even during its spookiest episodes"

1) Driving in the sedan I'm used to on a side road of a small city/town, I saw a very cheap-looking hearse to the right, with a third wheel in place of the back two..

2) I shortly saw myself in or as that sedan from a cinematic perspective, more or less as someone on foot would see me.

3) I am in a suburban area very like the one I grew up in, and just as weird flashing lights break out in the night sky, frightening as the look of twisters, neighbors go nuts to the degree film zombies do.

4) I am talking to someone about solar systems, and dishing about ones typical of where sentience arises.

Anyone here thinking of getting into YA novels? I feel more passionate about doing something that will be appreciated by someone young.

>>23901850
As if young adults, or for that matter anyone of any age, is made of the same stuff. It's better always to write whatever comes to your imagination at its least restrained by contemporary categories or considerations.

>>23901850
If not for the disembowelment I feel my story could be a good YA story, but I cannot sacrifice my art to censor it.

>>23901866
I originally planned something more serious but I've found that whimsy has made it easier to write. I realized that I need my main character to grow and explore with me into the world I've written.

>>23901880
I'm absolutely lame when it comes to narrative type fictional invention, but never seem to run out of visual ideas, details. I guess I've been around the world more than usual, but not so close to it socially.

Has anyone seen The Peripheral? What did you think about it's writing? Just asking here because I thought it was really well written

>>23901970
If you're talking about the TV show, and not the book, then >>>/tv/

>>23901880
I wish I could write whimsy, with some humor. All my stuff ends up being dark and serious, which I don't like.

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>>23893852

>>23901941
I just want to take what I love about star Trek TNG, a group of solidified professionals solving a problem together, make them all fit an archetype but don't force drama or make them argue pointlessly, and introduce complex and nuanced issues in a world that challenges perception.
It helps when you look at the setup behind Harry Potter. You have the lead who observes the world, you have Ron who offers a factual bit of knowledge from a layman's perspective, and the you have Hermione give moral guidance, aka she's the consciousness for the reader to tell them what's right and wrong.
Although in my case I'd make my empathy a Dr crusher type.

Anyway, I'm just obsessed with uncovering formulas. Time will tell if my writing can hold up. But I like analyzing what makes successful series work.

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>>23902093
dumping some old stories I wrote. I think i''m a better writer now.

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>>23902102

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>>23902105

Where did /wwoym/ go?

>>23902123
Apparently any thread mentioning /wwoym/ gets labeled as spam. Try >>23902155 for as long as it lasts.

>>23894672
The point of being an "artist" is to fuck the hot art school girls.

>>23901625
>https://practicaltypography.com/charter.html
Charter

>>23900452
5k a month is better than 99% of trad authors and your'e considered a "literal who"? wtf.

>>23900452
That someone would brag about something like that and not feel shame always shocks me. What a glut of low, abhorrent culture we are awash in. Even basically feral backwater Africans could never produce something so vile.

>>23901850
I'm writing fantasy but I don't have the MC explicitly fuck his female companions in the middle of the plot, so I guess I'm writing YA by default.

>>23902373
5k a month is better than 99% of most jobs. My last one took a college degree, was a 6 month temp, and I only got paid half that, before taxes.

>>23901970
>it's

>>23901850
YA is read by 37 year old fat women, though.

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>>23900485
$5k as baseline Patreon income, between one and four thousand more in royalties from my publishers depending on the month. My best month was a little over ten grand, but a quarterly pay has to line up with a good month from the other one for that to happen.

The higher end earners writing in Progression Fantasy make an atrocious amount of money. I think Zogarth is pulling $60k a month from his Patreon, and then he makes more than $60k each month in Amazon KU money. People making THAT much in indie are rare, but most of the authors who've signed with the publishers I have make about three to four times what I do.

>>23902373
Trad publishing is a joke and should be avoided. Submissions are gatekept on politics and almost all that DO get signed receive a small one-time advance and basically nothing else. Because, royalty percentage in trad is 5% - 15% and few sell enough copies to break even. With my one indie publisher my cut is 70%, he offered me an advance but I told him to just put it into the marketing budget.

The one major difference I'd say is that most authors I've met expect to get discovered by a publisher and then make it big, but it's almost always the other way around. You need to make it big and have proven success with readers BEFORE signing, because only then will you have leverage to negotiate decent terms with a publisher. Wouldn't necessarily fall into thinking that because you've built your own success with a readerbase you should just self-pub, either. Publishing and promo is a lot of headache and few authors want to spend all their time aggressively networking when they could focus on writing instead.

>>23902387
Ahhh, sticks and stones Kate Monster!

I need a complete beginners-dummies-retard-guide-to-poetry-book pls halp

I am writing a short snippet pointing out how obnoxious woke dnd players are and how stupid the "Combat Wheelchair" is.

How is this dialogue?
Does it convey my goal? Is it funny at all?

>"Hi, my name is Tom."
>"Hey Tom; just to let you know we allow the combat wheelchair because we are inclusive!"
>"Um...okay? I am a lvl 4 Barbarian!"
>"Awesome Tom. Now what color is your wheelchair?"
>"My character doesn't have a wheelchair. He is a Barbarian. I want to be able to kick everyone's butt."
>"Tom, we are inclusive. You can kick butt the same way in a wheelchair."
>"Sorry, but that's not true. I got beat up last week bc I couldnt walk. Also my legs dont work so I literally cant kick someone."
>"Tom, Dont worry about that. We are inclusive here and the combat wheelchair is magic, and flies, and is immune to damage! We can let it have a free spell where you can kick people with Mage Hand"
>"No thanks. I will just be a normal Barbarian."
>"Normal? Tom, Dont be ableist."
>"Can we just play now?"
>"Yes Tom, but after a talk with the group we are concerned you arent playing your authentic self."
>"Oh, is this a litrpg setting? Sorry, I was playing a different character. Okay I will change my character's name to Tom."
>"Awesome Tom. Now what color is your wheelchair?"
>"My character is not in a wheelchair."
>"Tom, as a group we are trying. Why dont you feel comfortable being yourself here?"
>"I am not my wheelchair. I am just a normal guy named Tom."
>Tom, I am sorry but after much discussion we decided this table isnt for you. Please leave. We are inclusive here and cant tolerate this type of ableism."

Do u guys for your characters imagine people with faces that don't actually exist? It seems almost impossible to me to vividly imagine abuman that direct exist, so in my mind the characters look like people I know, but their personalities are different, which makes for an uncomfortable experience

>>23903000.
I thought of adding this, but felt it was too much extra and made the dialogue feel too long.

>"There he goes again with the 'normal' shit. Tom is making me very uncomfortable."
>"Tom, you are making us very uncomfortable. Jim has severe anxiety and adhd to the point where he cant walk out of bed sometimes, especially today when we found out Trump is going up in the polls. Your use of the word 'normal" is ableist."
>"But Jim can walk. I saw him jogging in here all excited with his pizza from the kitchen. A kitchen he walked into whenever he was hungry. I'm the one who can't walk. I am the one in a wheelchair due to spina bifida. Why do I feel like I am the only normal person here."
>"I am beginning to think Tom is lying about being disabled. Disabled people tend to be inclusive. Can he walk?"

>tfw nobody in the world appreciates my horror fiction

>>23902049
There's a book? Oh yeah, ty anon!!

>>23903056
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peripheral
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peripheral_(TV_series)

>>23903058
Ty! I didn't know

>>23903000
Honestly feels a little forced. The back and forth is repetitivr and doesn't escalate as it goes.
Also dialogue only with no framing or tags of any kind is a lot harder to pull off.

>>23903029
This is way better because the absurdity and Tom's frustration both escalate.

Ive started writing for the first time, looking for criticism on my style and tone, is this excerpt overly verbose?

December
He turned to the hearth, she spoke to his back with a wine loose tongue. Only the little flames were heard, lapping at the new firewood as it creaked like ship-fashion boards where spiders moved from one flame into another, curling up like wax paper and melting into themselves. He watched. Sap oozed and boiled and burnt away with intoxicating odour.
He thumbed down his belt and slaked the fire, the flames hissed sharply and died. Her pale form disappeared into the darkness where she fell silent.
“Im leaving now.”
He set the little oil lamp by the door and left, no words followed and the door fell shut. Starting down the hill where the world was filling with clag from the ground up the bothy looked like an ark in a sea of entropy.
The last cigarette was fingered from inside his jacket, and lit in a cradle of fingers. The lad held the flame a little longer as he took a long drag and closed the lighter noiselessly. He spat some loose tobacco. The fog carried the scent of livestock and wet hay and as the ember was drawn down to fingers, the corpselike figure of Mooneye shambled silently from the fog, ribs and rheumy eyes chitinous, nearly translucent. The lad touched the horse’s nose and cheek. The globe of an eye stared vacantly, but the boy saw everything in its cosmic miasma.
He shucked the gun from the saddlebag, returned to the shack and pushed the door aside with his boot. She had pulled the furs about herself and the oil lamp was burning softly in front of her breasts.
“I knew you’d come back.”
He dried the striker with his sleeve, levelled the gun into battery, and blew a fist size hole through her chest. Glass and bone, brass and flesh.

>>23903111
No but the narrative is a bit jumbled

>>23903132
Interesting thanks

>>23903144
Np

>>23902946
I don't even need to look, but there are absolutely going to be at least 100 books titled, 'Poetry for Dummies: A Guide for Retarded Beginners'.

>>23903000
People actually pull out a combat wheelchair? I would counter with a combat diaper or a combat Lay-z-boy recliner that grants +5 comfort. Who can wrangle with a combat shoetree? +5 organization, guaranteed.

>>23902387
i think it's a helpful post we don't get a lot of those here

>laying in bed, can't sleep, thinking up the best lines for my characters
>computer is on already, get up, open Word
>suddenly mind goes blank and can't think of a single thing I just spent hours imagining
Every time

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>'Tantane vōs generis tenuit fīdūcia vestrī?
"Has self-guarantee so-great of youse-guys's genre seized youse-guys?
>Iam caelum terramque meō sine nūmine, ventī, miscēre, et tantās audētis tollere mōlēs?
Hazard y'all to zipper-together the [zenithed] azure and the [below-the-horizon'd] 'Azerbijin'–'Zanzibal',
also, 'Air-Currents', to currently carry-up such CLUSTERFUCKS without my call?!
>Quōs ego—!
(You-lot) whom, I['ll]—!
>sed mōtōs praestat compōnere flūctūs.
Buuuuut [brutality by and bys...],
['t]is[-be]-better [now] ta trank the stirred[-up] tsunam-i-s.
>Post mihi nōn similī poenā commissa luētis.
Afterwards all-you WILL atone @me for the no-nos by not a similar sentence[—yes, it's gonna hurt >:) ].
>Mātūrāte fugam, rēgīque haec dīcite vestrō:
Giddyap [your] getaway, and mention THIS to your 'monarch':
>nōn illī imperium pelagī saevumque tridentem, sed mihi sorte datum.
That not to 'him' (were) gifted the governance of the pelagic plus [this] pissed-off three-pronger, but to me, [Neps,] per providence.
>Tenet ille immānia saxa, vestrās, Eure, domōs;
[So yeah, realy that to him—]That [retard] retaining the really-big rocks, [which are] you-folks's residences, Easty;
>illā sē iactet in aulā Aeolus, et clausō ventōrum carcere rēgnet.'
Aeolus should go-'hurl'-himself on that [his] ['hollowed'-]hall,
and practice-power within[--please--][that] penned-in penitentiary of you-all."

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People will often say that a story "feels alive," that there's real "life" to a world or piece of dialogue. Obviously, this is not the same as "lifelike," or "realistic."

Well, I would like to put forward a controversial argument.

I will use Bill Gaede's definition of life:

Life (concept) - Unpredictable motion. Life is an adjective that means spontaneous.

Life (physical object) - This word is not defined, because objects are not defined in physics. We may describe it as any object that is unpredictable.

See the living stones or "trovants" of Romania. They are just rocks that move and reproduce in the way that an animal does. To our machine learning brain, they register as "alive."

https://youtu.be/OB8Jq26dw6k?si=ummLqOyLkphpw4A4

What this means:

In order to create imagery, dialogue, or a setting that evokes life, you need to utilize unpredictable details. So long as these do not distract from the story itself, you will have mastered and achieved the life effect.

Example 1: Say that you're writing a description of a ghetto. It would be boring to write that there were a bunch of dilapidated buildings and mean looking characters and police patrols. We expect that in a ghetto, this is cliche. What we wouldn't expect is a garter snake crossing the road, or a fresh BLT left discarded in the mud. These details are congruent with these scene and don't distract from it, but they're also surprising and evoke a sense of "life."

Example 2: From The Sunlight Dialogues by John Gardner. In this scene, two police officers are driving through Batavia, discussing a whorehouse.

>Clumly studied him. “Put it this way,” he said. “How come you don’t close down that house on Harvester?”

>The blush was unmistakable and, in spite of himself, Clumly smiled again. Kozlowski waited, maybe thinking he hadn’t heard right. Clumly threw the cigar out the window and folded his hands. “Turn right,” he said. Kozlowski turned.

The little detail where Clumly throws the cigar out the window and folds his hands. We don't expect the gesture, so it imbues the interaction with spontaneity or life.

I now use this technique in all my writing and it makes it really easy to write vividly. I hope this helps!

My book on writing ficiton: https://johnnymcivor.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-12.html

I have an idea for a story, I'm not a writer but I just want to get it out.

It's a comedic-drama about two brothers who develop the ability, through magic or some other means, to see into people's minds. The first brother, the Hero, is the one who comes up with the idea because he wants to figure out how to make his crush fall in love with him. The second brother, who later becomes the villain is reluctant but eventually helps his brother figure out how to do it.

The first part of the story is the brothers trying to get a grip of their power and not let it overload their brains. After they get a handle of it they start having fun reading people's minds and playing tricks and stuff and developing the love interest.

The middle part of the story is conflict arising about how to be responsible with the powers. The brothers start to discover that everyone is evil, but at the same time everyone is good too. Everyone whose mind they read is trying their hardest to be a good person but can't help but have heinous thoughts and resist acting upon them. The Hero decides that if everyone knew what everyone else was truly thinking that the world would go into disarray. The Villain brother wants to use his abilities to become rich and powerful.

The final act is the villain bro being extremely wealthy Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates type of person, he stole the Hero's girl by force. The Hero brother has been living in squalor, he has been trying to figure out a way to reverse the spell and make them go back to living like normal.

During the final showdown the villain has a monologue about his abilities being no different than the government, ISPs and other internet services tracking your every online move, knowing the deepest depths of your soul based off of search algorithms and browsing history. The whole story is an allegory for government and corporate spying through technology.

In the end the Hero gets the girl and either everything goes back to normal, or everyone discovers the evil that exists inside all of us and the world can heal knowing everyone is secretly a little fucked up.

I'm not a writer but this is my story just for fun.

Any tips for writing nightmares? I need a short scene where my character is haunted over some animals he killed. He now feels regret over it. It should be spooky and creative, like weird animal shapes lashing out at him I guess, but I have no idea how to effectively do this.

>>23903641
He can be in a forest that seems rather serene, there's a gradual and insidious mood change, he feels like he's being followed, he realizes he in fact is and he's an animal, either a deer or one that he killed. If I knew more about the story I could probs think of something a little more original

>>23903641
All the nightmares I have I eventually understand that I'm in one, but morbid curiosity keeps me from waking up until I get too spooked.

>>23903779
He set a trap with bait and blew up a pack of wild dogs. Thought he got away with scot-free, then two days later authorities come around and he panics, then has the nightmare that night the dead animals are coming for him, I guess, I mean, it just has to express guilt. I guess it doesn't have to be super spooky as long as the point is clearly made.

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Can I turn d&d knowledge into a viable writing career? R. A. Salvatore did it. Hickman and Weiss did it. Hell, Greenwood did it. WHY NOT ME, DAMN IT

>>23903628
Ideas are cheap. Everyone has one.

>>23903847
If you are willing to go woke, yes. Most 5e players are severely mentally ill woke types whose twitter profiles list their pronouns and a list of their undiagnosed mental disorders as a replacement for their personality. They'd love more Combat Wheelchairs >>23903000

>>23903628
Ideas are worth their weight in gold, as they are the foundation for all human creativity. Ideas alone are what separates success and failure in all completed projects.

Is this better?

>"Hi, my name is Tom."
>"Hey Tom; just to let you know we allow the combat wheelchair because we are inclusive!"
>"Um...okay? I am a lvl 4 Barbarian!"
>"Awesome Tom. Now what color is your wheelchair?"
>"My character doesn't have a wheelchair. He is a Barbarian. I want to be able to kick everyone's butt."
>"Tom, we are inclusive. You can kick butt the same way in a wheelchair."
>"Heh that's not how it works. I got beat up last week bc I couldnt walk. Also my legs dont work so I literally cant kick someone."
>"Tom, dont worry about that! We are inclusive here and the combat wheelchair is magic, and flies, and is immune to damage! We can let it have a free spell where you can kick people with Mage Hand!"
>"No thanks. I will just be a normal Barbarian."
>"Normal? Tom, Dont be ableist."
>"Can we just play now?"
>"Yes Tom, but after a talk with the group we are concerned you arent playing your authentic self."
>"Oh, is this a litrpg setting? Sorry, I was playing a different character. Okay I will change my character's name to Tom."
>"Tom, I noticed you forgot to put your combat wheelchair on your character sheet. Do you not feel comfortable being yourself here?"
>"I am not my wheelchair. I am just a normal guy named Tom."
>"There he goes again with the 'normal' shit. Tom is making me very uncomfortable."
>"Tom, you are making us very uncomfortable. Jim has severe anxiety and adhd to the point where he cant walk out of bed sometimes, especially today when we found out Trump is going up in the polls. Your use of the term 'normal' is ableist."
>"But Jim can walk. I saw him jogging in here all excited with his pizza from the kitchen. A kitchen he walked into whenever he was hungry. I'm the one in a wheelchair due to a crippling disease.
>"I am beginning to think Tom is lying about being disabled. Disabled people tend to be inclusive. That would explain why he has such prejudice towards the combat wheelchair."
>"Are you serious!?"
>"Tom, please calm down. Jim, you need to remember that people can often internalize prejudices against their own group.
>"My group? My disability doesnt define me. Why do I feel like I am the only normal person here?"
>"THERE IT IS AGAIN!"
>"Tom, I am sorry but after much discussion we decided this table isnt for you. Please leave. We are inclusive here and cant tolerate this type of internalized ableism."

big ideas are cheap, but good execution is made up of thousands of small ideas that are painstakingly extracted from your subconscious, and only if they have been placed there by a lifestyle that prioritizes curiosity and experience. Those are the ideas that are worth their weight in gold. The ones that this guy is talking about >>23903579

>>23903936
Yes and no but yes

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So I have a setting kind of like Cthulhutech

I wanted the MC to have an element they could bend and shape to their will that is Eldritch and otherworldly

What are some good elements that'd fit? I was thinking space themed elements but I couldn't think of much besides radiation and plasma.

>>23902924
Oh, hey. I saw you post here a while back and it was one of the things along with seeing what a mess traditional publishing is nowadays that convinced me to take the self-publishing pill. I'm a few months in on RR and not doing so hot to be honest. I did hit RS on some of the genre lists, though I'm not sure how long that'll last or what impact it'll have if any. As someone who's also not writing what's typical on there, I was wondering how you got your start. Like were you doing review swaps, shout out swaps, networking in the discords, etc. early on?

>>23893852
What happened to /wwoym/?

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>>23904441
I basically got my start on Literotica, had 150 patrons from there before branching over to Royal Road. Literotica is a whole different struggle bus for a number of reasons, but over there categories are a lot more insulated from one another into smaller ponds. Readers already know exactly what they want, if you write that and do it well, you'll succeed.

Now, DESPITE being posted to Literotica, my story AnimeCon Harem was more wholesome than horny. It wasn't so explicit that I couldn't post it on mixed SFW/NSFW and even SFW fiction sites. When I was branching out from Literotica, I posted to MCStories, Literotica, LushStories, Noveltrove, XNXX/Sex Stories, (NSFW) as well as QuestionableQuesting, StoriesOnline, ScribbleHub, Archive of Our Own, Wattpad (Mixed SFW/NSFW) and then also Royal Road, FictionPress (SFW).

Writing NSFW-adjacent work is practically cheating because horny readers are easy to pull, but legging up from there into legitimacy isn't hard once you've got them reading. When I'd grown my Patreon to $2k a month or so, I started offering those patrons a new SFW fic, RE: Trailer Trash, which they tried out since they were already pledged. Once I had the first story arc written, I then started posting it to some of the fic sites. Having pre-existing readers already hooked was able to help bootstrap my legitimate work into good ratings and toplist positions, since those are both numbers games. That's not to say it was easy or all sunshine and rainbows, because obviously you do need to write a consistently compelling story to keep everyone invested, but yeah that was my start.

Nowadays for Royal Road success? Know your audience, if you're writing genre or genre fusion have a basic understanding of what the successful fics on RR in those genres have already done with those story themes, so that you don't wind up writing derivative content (with or without realizing it). Have a huge amount of content already set to go before you start posting, drop a small story arc to begin with, and then have your chapters on a set schedule releasing as many times a week as possible without destroying your backlog. Arranging review swaps early in is smart because even curious readers will dodge out if they click on your fic and there's no reviews. Shouts and meme/cursed ads are the new meta, but that's a money and networking game and you might have to get to know other RR authors in some of the smaller discord or publishing cliques. I gave one of the /lit/ bros here a chapter shout with my last release and it did almost nothing for him, I have a lot of readers but that was a bad matchup between us genre-wise, I think.

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>52,000 words, Times New Roman, 12 point font
>estimated 173 pages
>started writing last month
I've never finished a book in my life. I'm so proud of my progress, bros.

>>23904579
The mods are trying to ban it for some odd reason. It's now under a new name >>23891428

>>23904787
Nice job anon.

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>>23904787
How satisfying it will be to complete a work of that size, print in hardcover, and hold it in hand.

>>23896408
let the reader discover the emotions for themselves
Why is this important? Reading is not a masturbatory exercise. You read to learn about other people, not for escapism
>>23896403
The only way this would work is if you set-up earlier in the story that the character was a melodramatic girl, then this would act as a mini-climax that would make sense to be shown. Otherwise, I agree. Way too dramatic.

>>23893852
I need to know about entomology. What is there to know? I need it, bad. I need biographies, I need practical accounts. My knowledge of that field is absolute zilch.

I am surprised to find that so far there don't seem to much like that about. Maybe I'm not looking the right way yet. Are entomological accounts just not popular? Is there no love for entomologists?

>>23904787
Keep it up. What's your goal? 52k is more than I've ever done (just hit 49k tonight and am about halfway). It's a long haul.

>>23905059
There's an /an/ book thread going on right now. Ask in there.

Anons, is it possible to write decent fiction in non - mother language and don't look like a moron to native speakers? My second language is English and my tries are fruitless.

>>23905355
Check out Joseph Conrad - one of the all-time-greatest English novelists, born and bred in Poland.

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>>23893852
Is this good writing?
https://pastebin.com/WZEHUY3D

I'm about to hit 10k words after 8 months. I am very slow but I think my book is decent. In fairness to myself I mostly wrote poetry or not all during the summer months.

>>23905355
Immerse yourself in the language as if you were a native speaker. Read, listen, watch content in English. Improve your English vocabulary and write primarily in English. Talk with english-speaking people. Study the things you need to know for your novel in English.
People don't even think I'm ESL when they read my writing.

Bros I just started reading Dostoevskys bigger novels and I understand the hype. He is awesome and makes me appreciate life more

>>23905585
im no expert or anything but the line "empty empty empty so hollow" just doesnt sit right with me.

>>23905589
Yeah that one sucked

>>23905024
Ugh...it was a self-contained example in a book about writing. Sperg out all you want, but you're only stunting your own development.

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With large stories how do you guys plan the plot out? I want them to interact with one another but it's like a net right? I'm not sure how they interact and so on. It's much harder than I first imagined.

>>23905638
I've completely stopped writing in favor of just planning things out for the past four months now (though most of that time was spent reading and taking notes from books on how to write). A net is an apt image, because all your characters are connected, at least thematically. I obviously had scenes and relationships in mind when I started it, but what seemed to have worked for me is first to identify what each character will actually do in the greater story and where they will end up. Don't think in terms of scenes or arguments, just think in very general term "Well I want this character to start already popular but eventually finds out who his true friends are", the actual how can be left for later.

When I set out to really put in the scenes of the story I had all the characters arcs already planned out, with specific scenes I wanted to use. I put them aside and focused on the main character, because he's the one who drives the story forward so he can acts as a frame for the others. Essentially, his POV throughout the story in very basic blocks (he goes there, he learns that, he decides to do this). Then I did the same thing with the second most important character, so on and so on. Obviously sometimes I needed to backtrack but it really helped me understand their role better.

I feel like I have big ideas but no skill to execute it. I don't trust myself to be able to execute or follow through on what I'm trying to do. I'm in over my head.

I’m laying in bed sleeping, or at least pretending to do so. I don’t know when it will happen again, but it usually happens at night, always at night. Never during the day. Sometimes they catch me off guard, when I’m more alert and aware; the other times they grab me by surprise when I am in-between a state of dreaming and awake.
I don’t know how they managed to get in; it’s like locks mean absolutely nothing to them, but they always find a way to do so despite my many best efforts to thoroughly triple check everything, making sure my house was as impenetrable as Fort Knox.
I have decided to call my frequent uninvited guests The Visitors. I know a little cliché, but what else am I going to call them? I know absolutely nothing about them or why they are doing this to me. Their entire existence is an enigma.
They don’t make announcements beforehand to let me know that they are arriving; they just show up, out of the blue, without any prior warning whenever they feel like it.
I have tried to fight back and put up a little bit of resistance a few times, such as kicking and screaming, thrashing about as much as I could, even managing to throw a few punches at their large bulbous-shaped heads, but it all proved to be futile in the end because no matter how hard I tried to resist, a sense of powerlessness washes over me. I can’t explain what the feeling is like, but I suppose the equivalent to whatever they used on me would be like being sedated, I guess because I was proving to be a little difficult to cooperate with.


My main character is being abducted by aliens but I want to lean into the ambiguity a little and don't want to outright call them that since I think that feels a little campy while I'm trying to lean more into the psychological aspect of things however I don't want to be pretentious doing what Midnight Mass, or Walking Dead did by denying aliens or UFOs and related media don't exist in the world I'm writing so people don't have a name for them.

>>23906156
Then practice. Don't give up before even trying.

>>23906156
just start writing nigga wtf

revise later

>>23905067
I don't have a goal. As many words as the story needs, I suppose, which, admittedly, is shaping up to be quite a lot lol

i'd say 200,000 tops.

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>>23905733
I want to give you a response because you effort posted but it's very succinct so there isn't much to say. Thanks anon, have a gif

How many instances 'then' and 'and' is good before it becomes overused?

>>23906371
When it becomes noticeable. Read it out loud and check how it feels.

>>23906342
I didn't do it for you.
I did it for the girls.

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>Main plot is about getting this child where she needs to go
>This is slightly complicated because her mind is a bit kooky (to be polite), so she has trouble expressing herself
>In the very last chapters, she starts getting POV, with a general mood of "hopeful, but doesn't completely understand what's going on"

Does it makes it too obvious I'm going to kill her off at the end?

>>23905552
>not all during the summer months
Same, it's just too damn hot to do anything. That's why I have to pound out a whole novel in six months before June hits. The weight of such a task is terrifying. I get about 1.5k words a night though, so little by little.

>>23905552
I've written 10k words this week and it's wednesday

>>23905100
I did not know that was a board. Thanks! That's perfect!

>>23905355
For a fun exercise, why not try to write in the most stilted broken English you can manage. So you have a weakness, why not lean into it in an endearing way. When I lean into my weaknesses like that, I learn a lot, and grow strong in ways I didn't realize I needed.

>>23906517
>I've written 10k words this week and it's wednesday
knowledge,
knife,
kitty,
Krusty (t. Clown & Crab, t.),
koala,
knight,
kismet,
Kabbalah,
knack,
knock,
kneed.
beat ya.

>>23903000
I agree with your point here entirely, but the writing is quite dull and lingers too long on what is only a small thing
You can solve that by making it shorter, or adding more meat to it, right now it's a bit padded out
Also, your opponent here is a strawman and has no reason or give in their beliefs, and outside of a short few-liners joke that stands out strongly and makes it hard to buy into this, they're a bit too wooden and a bit too blind to the problems with their view

if your dialogue isn't purposeful and full of subtext, you might as well just say the talking happened and not include it.

>>23906471
this is a description of you thinking in tropes and taking shit for granted. it would concern me if i had time to care

new thread, freshly baked
>>23907055
>>23907055
>>23907055

>>23906442
maybe you should do it for the women, you pedo

wow, look at this pile of crap: https://files.catbox.moe/d9sukc.zip
and these bundles of joy: https://files.catbox.moe/aw9gz2.pdf https://files.catbox.moe/rpuvnd.pdf