"Mashup" editionPrevious: >>24054692/wg/ AUTHORS & FLASH FICTION: https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQRESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS: https://pastebin.com/nFxdiQvCPlease limit excerpts to one post.Give advice as much as you receive it to the best of your ability.Follow prompts made below and discuss written works for practice; contribute and you shall receive.If you have not performed a cursory proofread, do not expect to be treated kindly. Edit your work for spelling and grammar before posting.Violent shills, relentless shill-spammers, and grounds keeping prose, should be ignored and reported.(And maybe double-space your WIPs to allow edits if you want 'em.)Simple guides on writing:>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHdzv1NfZRM>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whPnobbck9s>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKcbvioxFkThread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJS9g3mPYfI
>>24067343I'm too afraid to publish my book
>>24067351you should expect nothing but apathy which is something you should be used to by now
>>24067352What if not a single person reads it?
>>24067354if no one else does, I will. I'll even not care enough for everyone who missed out
What would your dad say if you told him his burgers tasted like shit?
>>24067354Then your experience is average. Publish/post it anyway!
Asking again for new thread: reading Chapterhouse: Dune and I need new series to devour and ape fo my draft because I'm not reading his son's sequels and I feel I'm running out of steam after God Emperor(amazing don't get me wrong but Heretic was mixed bag after the dust settled).Anon suggested Aismov's Foundation which seems natural as Dune was always seen as the answer to that. Preferably single-pov because I'm considering rewriting my 1st draft into single pov on the 2nd or so but not too important. Any other series that could fit the bill? Maybe Sci-fi Opera if (You) can help it. Was thinking Thrawn's Trilogy, Revendouz with Rama, and Shogun. Any books that capture the similar feel like Legend of the Galactic Heroes? Also preferably not like 20 books in the series.
So if u write a bunch you get better at writing? I just drink and write a ton
What kinds of experts would the government send to study an Earthlike alternate dimension?I'm thinking:>A biologist>A chemist>An ambassador>A soldierDoes this sound good?
>>24067411A black female teacher for DEI points a dog drones and vials of small pox
>>24067424>>24067424>>24067424Impromptu writing contest.
>>24067411me and an anxious, insecure and codependent white woman of anglo heritage
for those who have written for the RR market, do they prefer barebone prose, and to what extent can you beautify your prose before it turns off the average reader?
>>24067382>burgers tasted like shit?well the meat is full of fat so i don't know how you're going to have a dry burger unless it's literal shit quality high school cafeteria "meat" you have to make a plausible resaon that his his burgers are going to be shit. right now i'm just not seeing it. i don't care how bad he cooks those burgers unless he burned them to a crisp somehow and if that hapened even he wouldn't think they're good enough to serve
>>24067442read some of the stories posted theredumb question
>>24067458this, from my surveys the prose seems simple but what stood out is the short 'paragraph' size
>>24067457Dry unseasoned and overly cooked
>>24067457When you cook burgers over an open flame grill with charcoal, it dries it out if you press them or the meat is too thin.
>>24067442i clicked on a popular one, this kind of paragraph size seems standard
Finished up my 125k word draft and had it printed double spaced in 12pt so I could hand it off to some friends for markup and feedback. It's kind of surreal to read through it, and see the efforts made over the last twelve months, to see on page sections I wrote. Let's hope the draft is salvageable and can be punched up into something serviceable as fiction.
I've just finished editing my book. Send opinions and tips for my queryDear Agent,I am writing to you with the hope that you might consider representing my novel---FFF-Class 'Unlucky Antagonist.'(200.000 words) It offers a unique blend of classic fantasy worldbuilding (see the map attached in the first chapter), detailed combat systems inspired by LitRPG (where magic is managed like in an RPG), and the intricate secrets and conspiracies of a detective novel (trust nothing I’ve written).In a world where magic is a privilege reserved for an elite group of warriors—the Essentias—our protagonist, Jacques Dreux, defies the law to enroll in the prestigious school where future Essentias learn to master their magical abilities—the Miraval Academy.On his first day at the academy, Jacques encounters Chad Rolandsson, the prince of the Holy Rolandish Empire, who proposes to him a special deal: to play the role of the antagonist in the prince's story—a story written with his own blood.What so special about it:• My characters are real humans, not mere physical representations of one or more tags. Their flaws, idiosyncrasies, and ideals blend together into a fluid that adapts itself according to the speaker, the circumstances, and the social environment. As a result, no interaction between two characters will ever be predictable for the reader.•Although my worldbuilding blueprint might seem like a classical fantasy world to an untrained eye, it is, in fact, my personal attempt to modernize the concept by incorporating politics, economics, and, most importantly, mathematics. For example, in my scenario, the nobility—who in our world became obsolete with the invention of gunpowder—remain the ruling class. This is because maintaining a small, specialized elite focused on warfare significantly reduces the percentage of GDP spent on defense, thereby justifying their privileges.•By observing current media trends, it seems that main characters often lack distinct personalities, serving instead as vessels designed to help the reader interact with the world. Consequently, all other characters exist solely to glorify the reader and make them feel good about themselves. So, how can this be changed, given that most readers buy books with these expectations? By redefining the concept of the protagonist. Every character shall be treated as the protagonist of their own story while granting the main character a "passpartout" to connect with them all.Comparable Books:A Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, and Dune: strong worldbuilding as the backbone of my story.•Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint and various web novels: combat system structured like an RPG.• Ten Little Indians (Agatha Christie), The Bishop’s Murder Case (Knox), and The Avenging Case (Roger Sheringham): my story is shrouded in a veil of mysteries, challenging the reader to uncover the truth using sheer logic.Sincerely,Kino-Man.
>>24067565you are a funny postersend this to some agents and post your first non-automated reply
howdy yall! any tips to help get my hecking world building magik system crafted for my wizarding goblin lair?
>>24067565>Ten Little Indians (Agatha Christie)Use the original title in your query and go ahead and send it
howdy yall! any tips to help get my hecking world building magik system crafted for my wizarding goblin lair web series?
>>24067583these posts made more sense before the worldbuilding thread was startedif you wish to seethe then you don't need to make up characters to do so. simply go visit them
>>24067575Cope!
I can't finish my story. I don't feel confident about the direction I took it but I'm in too deep to go back
>>24067634I finished a 200k-word book.How?I love my story and characters.You probably forced yourself to write what you hate, and now you're facing the consequences of your actions.
>>24067411You could always use the TV show with this exact plot for inspiration.
>>24067578seethe elsewhere, litfic anonalso, >>>/lit/wbg/ is that way
>>24067876Absolutely correct. I got >>24067551 done because I genuinely loved the characters and story. I didn't care that I was writing campy, trashy garbage, I was truly having a blast writing it. Certain parts were like pulling teeth, sure, but as a whole it was a pure joy. If you want it done, it's got to be fun. If it's not, pivot and start over, it's okay.
10,000 words too long for a chapter?
>>24068579Not if 8k of them are dialogues.
>>24068579Chapters just need to be similar lengths. A one-off 10k chapter in a book of 2k chapters sucks.
>>>24066864>just take someone you knowI have several friends who are very avid readers and "love to help" and whom I asked several times to just go over something for me that's like 2k words (not kidding) and they promise they do it and THEY NEVER EVER FUCKING DO and I bloody hate my family and "friends" for it. Because theyre all so friendly and positive and supportive when you talk about it but when you want them to help you, they wont lift a finger.Then i hire someone to do it and she takes 300 bucks for a few questions answered in the text.
I spent 1.5k bongs (392 quarter pounders for Ameribros) on an editor, and she did absolutely fuck all. She hardly understood what I was writing; most words, she just put a question mark on or annotated "?" God it was a waste of money. You're basically paying to say "This has been edited" and that's it. They hardly work. They do nothing, they add nothing of value.
>>24068825>he fell for the editor meme
Me, thinking about repeating my New Year's Resolution and writing a second novel
I'll post this for feedback and then probably leave you guys alone for a while, I wont post the whole thing again because I'm sure your all sick of it by now.
>>24069024
>Please limit excerpts to one post.
>>24069036>Respecting rulesReddit is behind the hall to the left
If the word limit wasn't so low I would
>>24069024it's full of errors and typos . . . proofread your shit at least one time you lazy fuck
>>24067424 >>24067424 >>24067424 Less that 1 hour until promt drop!
>>24069242*than, I got too excited.
>>24069079How can something be "behind the hall"? Don't you mean "down the hall"? Can't tell if you're ESL or the product of the American public-school system.
My prose is so garbage...nobody wants to read past a chapter of it.
Writing this Bildungsroman/romance/tragedy thing that has two characters traveling across Europe as their relationship deepens and eventually unravels. >Haphazard summary based on what I've got so farGuy becomes obsessed with younger guy and uses him as an artistic muse, stalks him around a UK city. Eventually the two meet, and become friends, and then lovers. They travel across France to Italy, and while there, our protagonist eventually grows uneasy with the romantic relationship. He grows to hate how decadent and unnatural it feels. During a period in which they visit Capri, Naples and stay at a farmhouse in Le Marche, he ultimately realises that he is not a homosexual and this realisation sees the relationship fall apart, despite how much our protagonist does love his muse. His muse, an impulsive and escapist addict flees our protagonist in a last-ditch attempt to convince him to take him back, seeing the story go to Venice, and finally a wintry Vienna, where the muse dies of an overdose.There's some moments that I really like, and I am confident I can make it feel fresh even in this well-used European setting, but it feels like the whole journey is almost so I can set up these moments in thematically resonant locations. The same emotional beats can be achieved in the UK, but him reflecting on the nature of their relationship in Capri has a more weighty feel given the history of the island.
>>24069886>inb4 faggotIt's a bit faggy but ultimately becomes a condemnation of faggotry.
>>24069872I couldn't care lesswork on your plot hooks
>>24069886People might say it copies the Aciman book if you set it in Italy like that. But in general, this kind of book with a repudiation of homosexuality at the end (along with the "kill your gay") would be a hard sell to any agent or publisher.
>>24069788See? This is what I mean.You are exuding redditness
>>24069958I know, it's more for me anyway. I'd like it to turn out as something good in its own right. >People might say it copies the Aciman book if you set it in Italy like thatBiggest fear with this, part of why a broader European escapade is what I'm working with than a retreat to Italy. Story doesn't end in the Venice-Vienna portion. Keeps going as our now-lonesome protagonist takes a long-haul train ride across Germany to Cologne, fucks about a bit there and heads to Zeebrugge where he resolves some of his feelings before returning to the UK.
>>24069979>broader European escapadeDo you realize how much writing is involved with constant shifts in the setting? All the travel will serve as nothing more than a distraction and will not enhance your story but undermine it.
>>24070035I’m writing a story right now about a group traveling from medieval Rome through Switzerland to Normandy.I hope it’s not bad.
>>24070035I don't see why this would necessarily be the case.
I've written a few short stories, been thinking of posting them here for critique. Also considering starting a thread based on the main character over in /qst/. Any idea where I could post them?
I'm kinda thinking I can't make it bros. Go on without me, I'll join you soon enough.
I'm going to continue listening to Blood Meridian, and work on my book series.I'd like some feedback, positive and negative on something I wrote for the introduction of one of the characters:The beams stood ominously, taunting others with the prospect of conquering them by silently projecting a fantasy. The girl with brown hair down to her neck, an athletic frame and unnatural grace took time to examine her wooden opponents before she cleared them. She didn’t need much time.She walked back to the starting line. Three wooden beams, each subsequently higher and more imposing than the last stood after a long, dark blue gym mat. With each beam flipped and pranced off, the punishment for failure got bigger. Slipping or missing once would lead to a spectacular face plant into those things, along with a graceless, violent fall to the floor, leading to more injuries as the stationary adversaries battered you on the way down.She took a deep inhale. Her body energized. Her eyes fixated on the task at hand. Others, despite their gazes through her, faded into the background. They only shared a fraction of the anxiety she had. They weren’t important, not now. They couldn’t empathise.Emily bolted. Her chalk covered feet mashing into the gym mat with adrenaline-laden ferocity, her eyes locked onto the first beam as if they were gyroscopically stable. She jumped, flipping upside-down, hands smacking into the first beam. Her momentum didn’t let her catch a break. She flipped again, blindly planting her feet into the second beam. She didn’t slip, good. Time seemed to slow down, giving her minutes to analyse any mistake that could’ve taken milliseconds. Her feet were loaded springs, launching her forward into the second somersault. She spun, flipping like a loose wheel, doing a turn and a half to plant her hands on the second beam. For a non-super, that would’ve been two broken wrists and months out of action. But she trusted her body, and sprung off them, doing a second one-and-a-half flip. Her legs didn’t hit the third bench this time. Good, she hated that. Her flip finished with a powerful landing into the cushioned mat below. A gunshot of a sound rang out, as everyone watched with raised eyebrows as she made a clean landing. Most stayed silent. She’d done this type of thing before. Applause had worn itself out over the years.What do you guys think? I've continued with my first draft of my story because if I keep pondering on it inside my head, I won't get anything done. So I'm going to continue writing even if it's not ideal.
>>24069024I'm pretty tired and didn't read much of it. Seems pretty generic but I haven't read the whole thing so I'm not sure if there's a greater meaning to the fight scene. There are missing commas everywhere, and the fear about men second guessing themselves with tracks and stuff is placed well but not written in an interesting or novel way.
>>24067442What's RR?
>>24070152Complete nonsense.
>>24070160Why?
>>24070152Ah, forgot to add this.The premise here is that the character is a superhero, practicing her gymnastics before she gets accepted into the superhero team.
>>24070152you need to describe her feet in magnified detail
>>24070195Lmao ahaahaha
It really upsets me how I'm just not that good at writing. Been writing on and off for over a decade now, starting with writing horrid cringe stories that you'd imagine a 14 year old writing to stories that are "okay", sometimes even "good". But as I'm reading through All the colors of the dark, it really upsets me just how elegant good writers are. They manage to make me care so much about the people they construct. Never even finished anything more than a short story before, mostly because I'm just so dissatisfied with it that I start over.I'm successful in my actual job which is highly technical, so maybe I'm just not cut out for creative work? It's a depressing thought but maybe it's true.
>>24070206Show me your writing anon
You guys interested in helping a bro out?I’ve completed 15 chapters at around 40k words for my novel, so about halfway done. It’s a dark historical fiction with elements of adventure, horror, and occult. It features a witch hunter traveling through medieval Europe during the 100 Years War.I’m just looking any feedback that might help me improve. Let me know what you think.https://docs.google.com/document/d/18QaLso5KvCWkxQ4UAys5AzrjhJ0LOUhlLLr2HioC6aI
>>24070238>witch hunter >middle agesThere were more witch trials between 1600-1700 than in all the dark ages.
>>24070245Absolutely. You’re right. My story is kind of a precursor for the entire Renaissance, and in a way, makes sure it happens by stopping the coming of a second dark age. There will be a lot that feels kind of strange, because it does take place in the time before the Catholic Church had full control over mainland Europe during the Hussite rebellion where heavy knights were fighting gun lines and multiple cults and religious schisms were still active.
>>24070152So, anon. Do you have another hobby?
>>24070270Why is /lit/ so snide?
>>24070255From what I've read, you are aiming at a darker atmosphere. Which sadly oddly fits with Italy, which was the wealthiest part of the world during the Middle Ages. Your dark story needs a dark setting. Hence try to put some alternative historical explanation for Rome being a shithole.>Grip on the continentFun facts: In 1300, the Emperor appointed bishops, and the Pope waged war to gain that power.
>>24070273ok, i take it back. if you read it a few times, it's actually very amusing. i give it 3/4 stars
>>24070238Bro, you're writing is immersive, but you get the whole setting wrong.In the pic Saint Peter Basilica
>>24070284I can smell the sarcasm through the screen
I just ordered 3 books on the history of the devil. I'm convinced that if i understand the concept of evil and its personification throughout time and how it changes, that will make me a better writer.
>>24070166Cormac's style isn't "string together random words that mean nothing in the context", and this "style" was not made for cartoon anime slop.
dismiss any post with finger quotes
>>24069975NTA, dumbass. cope more about your illiteracy
>>24070152You really should try and find your own style instead of trying to copy
>>24070403> Unironically media literacyWe've surpassed a level of readiness never seen before.
I think I need to make my book a lot longer, not to satisfy a word count but because it's incomplete as is. Fuck bros I thought I was nearly finished.
The girl was sad. "I am said," the girl said to her friend. "I am your friend," the girl's friend said to the sad girl. "So I can tell you are sad. But why are you sad?""Because I am sad," said the sad girl.
>>24068646>A one-off 10k chapter in a book of 2k chapters sucks.Not as much as your mom does, faggot.
>>24070152Jarring to be honest, but keep going. I think you could make something out this.
>>24070255>>24070245the last witch hunter with vin diesel. immortal witch hunter, started off around ~1100 or 1200. the witch was much stronger than fictitious salem witches
>>24070417I'm not trying to copy anyone. What does this remind you of?
Is it more exciting when a hero out-smarts a big monster or when he defeats it in hand-to-hand, full frontal combat? I have a resolution idea for my main character, but I don't know if it'll be stupid.
>>24070878>a big monster>it'll be stupidyes
>>24070650Thanks for being more positive. What's jarring about it? Purple prose? Lingering too much on irrelevant details? Bad pacing?
>>24070878>full frontalThere’s more than one way to tame a beast.
>>24070238I did ten pages, it's good but I found a couple of things jarring. Some things are overly descriptive (you start describing his sword mid fight) and the stuff about the dragon cult just feels like an exposition dump. Credit it to you though I can see it being an entertaining read
>>24070878match the monster's ability. if the monster is smart, your MC has to be smarter. if the monster is agile, fast, hard to catch/spot, your MC has to be a hunter/trapper. or your MC could just find a mister hyde potion and transform into a monster like that one beast-something game from sega way back when
>>24070957Not him but I would say its almost too fast paced. But you do get the point across and what you need established so maybe just me
>>24071139The monster being smarter but underestimating/understanding humans and exploitable hubris is the top tier option.
>>24070285 There are two St Peter’s Basilicas.Obviously, they wouldn’t have called it the “Old St Peter’s Basilica” before the new one was built.
>>24071146Huh. I think more people have said that it's too fast vs too slow, so thanks. What would you change if it were up to you?
>>24071194So MC sees head cardinal and it feels like>lol so the goats just a goat but we actually have a super important secret mission for you>no don't ask questions about it there's some guy in France ask him>no you can't have any money fine have someFor an institution that puts everything into solemn ceremony and hierarchy, it just feels brief and over too quickly. You do a good job in getting over the obvious wealth (and implied corruption) though.Same for the inn - MC rents a room feeds the goat goes to sleep kills the assassins and gets told 'look out for the dragon cult they're after you'. I didn't read much past that yet, I like that you get everything set up quickly and don't over describe it all, but it feels like your just getting the beginning out the way. Its only minor stuff though, I've read worse by authors who've been published by big names.
>woke up to another acceptance email We're gonna make it.
>>24070362I don't even watch anime. If that's the vibe you're getting it's cause I haven't posted all my scenes and chapters here.
>>24070931>>24070970>>24071139My thought was >MC and knights fight dragon>dragon fucks them up>MC seed the dragon try to eat knight but can't chomp through plate, resorts to roasting him>fast-forward to next fight, MC has plan>knight Leeroy jenkins in again, but split off>dragon chomps lone knight still charging>cooks him>head explodes because it was a dummy the MC packed with blackpowder
Note; the focal character of this passage is not human, so don’t mind if some odd terms regarding his appearance or anatomy or whatever come up.>Things had been hectic for him ever since he came into existence. He was constantly on the move, never had any time to really do much beyond rest a bit, and was constantly being ordered around by others. Guess that’s what your life becomes when you sprout during a time of unprecedented crisis. The radiation made his people’s environment unlivable, and everyone was constantly trying to escape. It had been this way for 20-something years, but only for him. Then his people cracked the code, and figured out a way to escape to another plane of existence.>It wasn’t something he knew about the complexities of, but he didn’t know many things to begin with. For now, all of their needs were met and they weren’t suffering from radiation poisoning. And as he lay there, occasionally glancing out his window at the odd, shadowy, ancient landscape of their new home, he wondered. For the first time in his life, he had time to rest, relax, and recuperate.>But now, he was unsure as to what he’d do now. He had been so very busy from the moment he came into being, and it never occurred to him as to what he’d do beyond that business. It was a kind of confusion that ate him up inside. What would he do? Would he put on his support suit and go for a long walk in this new world? Would he just sit here for a while longer? Now that he thought about it, did he even have any hobbies? Any friends? Anything? Well, he had time to get those now but he wasn’t sure how.>Peace is such a burden, he thought
>>24071397>the dragon try to eat knight but can't chomp through plateall right well, i do not believe english is your native tongue. you're at a disadvantage already. dragons can puncture armor
>>24071408English is my first language, and the dragon cannot if I say he can't based on jaw strength. The experienced Knight holds shield out, wedges near the inside as the beast is trying to bite, allowing for the least amount of leverage on his body possible while holding a knife, stabbing at the soft parts of its mouth, knowing he will probably die but it's worth trying. Remember high school physics, please.
>>24071417You sound like a twat
>>24071417dragons can eat people. why fight this observation lol? is your big bad monster dragon like something shaq could dunk on?
>>24071336Congrats, anon. Which publications are you having luck with?
>Currently writing a romance>Want to write a war epicFuck my life
>>24071428It is large enough to eat people but not a knight in full plate, with a large shield, deliberately trying to not get eaten.
does anyone have any good resources on poetic rhythm/meter that's prescriptive? I'd like to experiment with arranging sentences with more attention to stresses but all the resources I find are aimed at teenaged girls and completely insubstantial.
>>24071311Thanks for reading. I think there’s good stuff ahead.I think I write too fast. I like to keep things moving. I’ll probably have to go back and spend more time on a few scenes, but man, I just want to hit the ground running as much as I can.Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate it, and I agree with you.
Got distracted and lost another day prompting instead of writing.
>>24071661How specific is this for a prompt? I mean, did you want pink pointed wings like that? Or did you just type in humanoid succubus and just roll with what the machine shat out? Genuinely curious. Also you're never going to make it etcetc
>>24071661>Want to look at everything i've written into chatgpt and find all the good ideas I've come up with>Export data so I can browse through it with more ease>It's over a million wordsFuck...
>>24071665Specific enough that it would be embarrassing to reveal.The dick shrooms weren’t intended
>>24071676Show us show us show us. >She lost the single suspender strapShame, that was the coolest bit. What software is it? Are you at least using it for character concepts in your book or are you just straight gooning
>>24071680Believe it or not, I actually commission artists for my writing stuff. No coom, mostly badass male sorcerers casting magic and animal chimeras. I also commissions pinup art of characters in my story with much larger breasts than I’ve written on paper
>>24071658 I'll read more of it, but its NYE and I'm at a party.How long did it take you out of interest? I'm writing myself but due to life only get a few paragraphs in here and there, I'm more testing the waters than anything. The though of writing a whole book seems incredibly daunting, especially since I have a beginning and middle in my head but no end
>>24071687>No coomYeah fucking right. Anon it's new years and we're the only people here. Why lieIf you aren't going to show us, give me some idea of how sophisticated we're talking here. I dabbled in ai slop once for a meme but couldn't get it as good as I wanted it. We talking lines? Paragraphs? Talk to me about this commission, I'll do it but it will get *esoteric*
>>24071661>>24071676>>24071687Pick up a pencil
>>24071701I’m not the right person to ask because I have no idea what I’m doing. I came up with the character a long time ago, and never knew what to do with him.Then I read Between Two Fires, and was like, yes, this is what I want to write. I really want to dig into history and carve out my own story in an interesting setting. I do something I call my factoids, which are little bits of history unrelated to the plot because I like it. If people come out and say the story was just okay, at least they’ll know they got some cool history facts out of it.It’s taken me two months to write the first 40k words. But I do go back and reread and edit, so I’m slow. I didn’t do deep plotting, but I kind of know where I’m going, and I have the last scene planned.
>>24071311>>24071658Someone here replied to the wrong person. Possibly deliberately.
>>24071744No, that’s a guy replying the doc I posted.
>>24071438I'm just finding places through stuff like Facebook groups devoted to publications that are accepting submissions, alongside Submission Grinder and Horror Tree.
how intricately do you guys plan your short stories before you start? I have a paragraph-long plan, with a character, the setting, their goal, and a few set events/interactions, and im gonna just go from there.should i already have a theme in mind, or do those usually make themselves evident to you during the process?
>>24071702>If you aren't going to show us, give me some idea of how sophisticated we're talking herei dabble with sd1.5, using forge nowadays. this is an early example of me learning the program and tricks. a year or two ago, there were some neat riots in london. someone got a picture of a pale horse running through the streets. i attempted to capture the essence using automatic 11 11. dont use that one anymore, its out of date.
>>24071833>single black rose, mystical ominous magical, soft dark out of focus celestial backdrop, high detail, magnificent, professional oil painting style, minimalistthe oil painting style had to be fixed later on, but a solid first run using basically that prompt. cant recall exactly what i used, but my greentext is 90% accurate.
>>24071842>>24071833>>24071687It's funny how (no doubt through obscene amounts of porn edits) much better ai can do women than anything else. ai for hentai is pretty much a victimless crime imoHas stable diffusion finally graduated away from having a discord server? I'm very far out of the loop
>>24067343Fuck it, I’m writing mmo slop. Seems like a fun idea plus it gets me out of the funk I’m in
How do I make writing with a pen not painful on my fingers / wrist?
>>24071852They have grips and stuff for them
>>24071850thing is, any new tech that comes out is either for porn or war. every single time. new tech is for porn or war, and then occasionally jamokes like me come along and have a giggle with it.
>>24071789I'm browsing those "success stories" that agents like to put on the top of the webpage. Was your original query OC, or did you take a "successful" query and change the details?I see a success query im saving right now
heh hehjust wrote a clever poemSo long as I keep writing its a good year
>>24071902You're talking about novels, I see. I do short stories at the moment, so my road to moderate success will look a bit different than yours.
>Subject: the things you enjoyed as a child remain enjoyable as an adultI think I'm gonna like this one. Not sure who I'll be selling it to, but just the immediate answers coming to mind make me smile. I need to focus on one or two. One that comes to mind is tossing random shit into a campfire and see how it burns. Everyone did it, and we were all smiles
>>24071889meant for>>24071913
>>24071417What a lame dragon
>>24072089But anon I want you
You fucking cowards are so scared of writing a book while this coomer woman wrote tentacle porn and revels in it.
Is there any published writing so bad that contemporary critics thought it should be studied and enjoyed its incompetence
>>24072155the chicken paper. in the advanced science fields, it is legendary. the formatting and structure are perfect. the parody/satire is amazing, and he really only used a few words. he did use both singular and plural forms of "chicken". it is a fantastic blend of technical writing, prose, and satire.it's even been referenced for unknown reasons.
>>24072152I write longer books of weirder porn than that, so speak for yourself coward
I need to think of a way to establish my protagonist's character in a very concise way with minimal words.>Martial artist. Rather experienced despite young age due to how early he started. >NOT a sportsman or athlete kind. Fights in more violent, loose-rules competitions that are akin to early Vale Tudo. Has a style that primarily consists of surgical, fast, extremely hard strikes and an excellent sense of positioning/distance.>Primarily motivated by his own pride. I wanted to avoid the "Oh you don't need to prove anything to anyone" nonsense. He's put his body, mind, and soul into his art, and telling him that he doesn't need to prove anything is a fucking insult because it implies what he's worked for is worthless.>Is genuinely good at it and has trained his ass off to get to where he is.I need to get across the points that he's >Experienced despite his relative youth>Kind of an animalistic sonuvabitch>Very prideful and takes his craft dead-seriously>Most of all, overwhelmingly strongIn as few words as I can, but I'm not sure how to communicate that. I was going to have to have him wordlessly enter an arena and dismantle an up-and-coming fighter with three hits the moment the starting signal comes off, but I don't know how to make this communicate his character.
>>24067343Intolerably overwrought and self-indulgent pseudo-Proustian sous-Proustien slop what do?
>>24072416Actually, watch this.>He didn't say anything as he emerged, with the announcer reading off his name and physical statistics. I wasn't focused on those, I was merely interested in him for a couple of reasons.>His footsteps weren't heavy, but they felt... Hard for lack of a better term. Like his feet were rock solid somehow. But the moment he entered his starting position, he took his stance with zero hesitation. It was something similar to Muay Thai, but with a couple of modifications to how he was balanced. A little closer to the ground, slightly more hunched. Felt like he fused it with Karate or something. But that wasn't what really caught my attention. It was his eyes. >They weren't exactly disinterested or cold. In fact they were quite the opposite. He was dead-focused on me and only me, and I felt like his eyes were burning a hole in my own. I could tell he was strong just from the way he carried himself. I took my stance as well.>The moment the starting bell rang off, he closed distance in the blink of an eye and struck me with a right straight, his arm perfectly distanced so that I got the exact strongest point of his punch. I don't think I had ever been hit that hard in my entire life, and I had been hit by people who weighed close to 300 pounds. I stumbled back, my nose oozing blood, and could barely react in time for his next attack. A left elbow. I grabbed it and tried to change it's direction to throw him off-balance, but he almost immediately pulled back and struck me in the eye with the same elbow. I briefly thought I had been blinded in that eye, but I couldn't get any more information before he vanished from sight. Immediately, an indescribable pain ripped through my body. A liver punch, no doubt. >That fight must have lasted only five seconds. My last thoughts before I slumped to the floor unconscious were>"Who the hell is that man?"
>>24072079>dragons are lame when they're not invincible
I need some help.How does one truly write the experience of going on an absolute trip?TLDR>Magic powers awakening via regaining memories>Results in a transformation or evolution of the body and mindWhat wording works for "I just underwent a fucking nonconsensual spirit quest in 5 seconds after remembering my daughter's name and my body has physically, radically evolved as a result."
Anyway know a means of getting around Amazon's bullshit quality control checks? It keeps flagging the images in my manuscript as being "outside the margins" even though I'm using bleed.
>>24072577I had this same issue once before and the only solution is that either you fit your images clearly within the margins, or else extend them all the way to the bleed line. Also, an unnecessary point if you're a burger citizen, but otherwise, make sure your document units are set to inches and not mm. Because the required bleed in millimeters is actually not exactly the same as the bleed in inches, which also causes errors. Or at least, used to.
>>24072440Maybe don't write 65-word sentences?
>>24071743Do you work full time? Between my job and only writing when my wife is at work (I don't want her to know I'm trying to write a book) I'm struggling to get much done
>>24072698I’m a copywriter.My girlfriend was pretty ambivalent to my writing until the romance subplot came around, now she is interested in it and I can read her my chapters.Having someone who is supportive of your writing really helps.
>>24072829It's not that she's unsupportive, it's the opposite. If she knew I was writing she would want to read it and I couldn't trust any feedback she gave me because she wouldn't be critical enough, though it's not really her genre anyway. I also don't want to tell her, so if it doesn't go anywhere(which it probably wont) she won't be enquiring about it.
>>24072445>Immediately, an indescribable pain ripped through my body. A liver punch, no doubt. >>That fight must have lasted only five seconds. My last thoughts before I slumped to the floor unconscious were>>"Who the hell is that man?"your character is somehow examining his opponent while his body is being broken in real-time. write his thoughts as if he were tired, bloodied, confused, and lastly, terrified for his own mortal being. at the end of the fight, your character should not be able to compose thoughts in his head like "who was that guy who practically broke me in the ring before i could blink"
>>24072440I disagree, if you're going to write for academics do write 65 word sentences. And if you're not writing for overschooled intellectuals then scrap everything because no common man from the unwashed masses is going to read that.
THIS IS THE YEAR MY FELLOW WRITERS AUTISTS, LETS FUCKING GOOOOO
>>24073401Where is this from?
>>24073016Do not engage the martial arts autismo. Once you get him started, there's no end to it.
Here's what I'm working on:>"Its a dog eat dog world." I say to my pal. "Sure is." he responds. We are the Reavers. In our world, to succeed is to fight. I remember what my master told me. Look at the environment, learn from the land. There are those being eaten and those that eat. The master taught us to hunt and gather. He taught us that we're part of the ecosystem. We are warriors by nature. I belong to the Ape Gang. "Remember, one cannot prestate all possible uses of the humble screwdriver." the gearhead says. "Sure, but when is my doombuggy done?" The gearhead replies: "Done." We are opportunistic, making use of every opportunity that lay ahead of us. We are generalistic. We are cunning like the coyotes and foxes. I grab a beer. I ought to make a reputation. It is like they say: life's a bitch. We climb the dominance hierarchy. It is a pecking order. All we do, is obeying the laws of nature. In this dog-eat-dog world, only the strong and cunning survive, and we are the strongest and most cunning of them all. I say: "You know Zep, I like fighting the Evolved. They are menacing freaks of nature." I laugh and say: "Who knows what they are upto." We like fighting. It is part of our life.
>>24073539mortal kombat game. conversation between scream killer and omni man.
Got any advice on how to write academic papers?I read all I can about the subject I want to write about, take notes and classify them for easy reference, but when the time comes to write I am overwhelmed by all the information I've got and I get anxious about how to address everything I want to without making the resulting text a cluttered mess. I just end up paralyzed and writing a couple of sentences at a time before a sense of dread stops me dead in my tracks.
>>24073708>Not a "doggy dog world" with a "diamond dozen"C'mon.
>>24073752That's more something for the Keeper faction
>>24073016Anon, it's in past tense
>>24073806Unless he's reviewing video, fighters dont have that memory. I won't speak for all, but I've gotten fouled hard in various sports. Here's the thing: third parties tell me what transpired, and i believed them because i had no memory after a decent hit.Fine intro, though too many assumptions made before bad dude even signals a punch. end it after seeing the elbow coming straight at the eye socket. make it a poetic ending as he fades, no concrete thoughts. once elbow comes into eyesight, fade to black. i'd recommend more fear being described when bad dude closes distance. thats when fear sets in and he should wonder>wtf did i get myself into?>*elbow*
>>24071442>gay soldiersProblem solved.
>>24073827That "Bad dude" is the main character
>>24073745You're in humanities, you're not writing academic papers. If you truly had a scientific hypothesis to prove then the process would be trivial (not the execution of course)Understand you're writing fiction and the process becomes much clearer. You're writing a novel, approach it like one.
>>24073827Also, there's a really important part that happens much later on. I wanted to post it because I felt like it was really cool. He watches the guy who beat his ass take part in a tournament >This was a losing battle. The guy he was facing was like a deity in human skin. A perfect physique, perfectly honed techniques, immense composure combined with refined brutality and immeasurable versatility.>He meanwhile was bleeding all over the place. One of his eyes was swollen shut, he had bruising on every inch of his body, and I could swear it looked like his skeleton was about to crumble in places. Yet despite being struck with blows that were fast as lightning and as loud as thunder, he didn't go down for good. Despite having been hurled by a force that was comparable to a tsunami or earthquake, he continued to strike back. Even when his opponent's guard was akin to a mountain, he didn't stop hitting.>I was reminded of that delinquent who kicked my ass years ago. How he reminded me of that man when he did the same to me. But watching him do this made me think. Why did I lose? I thought, pruning off every possibility until I came to a conclusion.>It was fear. The moment the duel went out of my favor, I hesitated and panicked, spelling defeat. But even in a situation like this, where victory was impossible, he continued to clench his fist and strike with every ounce of his body and soul.
>finish novel>pay for beta reader>decide to make major revisions based off of their feedback>each time i think i've finally reached a worthy final draft, i have to completely rework it, necessitating another beta read for the new changes>cycle continues until I've spent hundreds of dollars on beta readers over the course of a yearGod what the fuck is wrong with me. I just want to be done with this thing.
>>24073897Allow me time today to browse through one or two jack reacher books i have. lee child has an amazing way of writing first person view of a guy who meets reacher for the first time. i'll see if i can find a 8/10 or better paragraph. I'll list suggestions:>recommend cutting back assumptions made as silent violent main character enters. professional fighters, and i mean professional as in ethical, dont jibber-jabber as they enter.>remove the footsteps and subsequent assumption. >the guy getting his clock cleaned is also a fighter i presume. fighters are confident, even the bad ones. no "merely interested in him for a couple of reasons". fear sets in here. no escape, everyone watching, shit.>there's an air of command when great fighters enter a ring. silent violent main character having the eye of the tiger is standard for all pro fighters. every fighter illustrates endless pain with their eyes>fighters also hide their moves/styles/change-ups, not easy to immediately understand. that sort of pokerface in the ring is the scary part.>you and i know there have been a few different legendary gap-closers in pro fighting. have guy getting clock cleaned feel dread now. a flawless gap closer can end a fight just as you say, approximately five seconds.>your guy is silent, confident, beyond normal power. ip man was a great example; he fought using wing chun, but it was HIS wing chun. he rarely ever took a punch because he punished people very quickly.>your silent violent guy could very well simply be ip man fused with mike tyson via an average day on a starfleet holodeck.>but he almost immediately pulled back and struck me in the eye with the same elbow.nope, he IMMEDIATELY PULLED BACK, no almost. or say that silent violent main character "feigned" a hook or punch or jab or block or whatever.
Need to redevelop the first chapters again because I think they're too slow and generally uneventful. The basic plot before was this>MC 1 and 2 stumbles on the same criminal case from a different direction (MC 1 receives supernatural guidance, MC 2 opens a door and find the corpse), each one investigates on their own until they meet while cornering the same suspect>The problems I see: MC 1 is very passive, relying entirely on his supernatural abilities and personal connections rather than his wits. He should be more active somehow. MC 2 is better in this regard, but the way he finds the suspect (currently, he's ambushed at the very crime scene mere minutes after finding the corpse) needs to feel more justified (in this case it's the suspect who needs to be worked on more, but MC 2 is the one who interacts the most with him).My idea>MC 1 will start already being on the trail for the suspect, an international serial killer, for several months now. The city is only the latest stop in the chase>His contacts he would originally make use of will be moved for later in the story. Instead he will rely on more grounded detective work, directly on location (my goal is essentially to have him visit random places in the city asking strange questions to confused people, as a pleasant contrast to MC 2, who will be less "on the move", interact with less characters, and generally be less sociable). This also help me establishes the overall tone of the story better. >The serial killer (as you might've guessed if you read more than two books in your life) is not the real culprit of the murder that kickstarts the actual plot. But he needs a personal connection to it nonetheless. I've had something nebulous in mind for a while but writing this post helped me conceptualize it betterI hate writing outlines, I can write 400 words in 25 minutes and like them after but I write three sentences of outlines and it's a penance. But I need them otherwise I feel stuck.
>>24072416Obviously this is an open ended problem and much depends on your style and how you generally get things across, but all of these attributes are things that would come out in a fight, so I'd introduce him with a fight. His opponent may underestimate him if he looks young, which he can then defy by showing veteran savvy. I wouldn't have him just run out and smoke the opponent, either. That says cocky young retard, not experienced veteran. It's what a dismissive opponent would expect a young man to do. For pride, refusing to capitalise on some random happenstance like an opponent getting distracted by the crowd or slipping on a banana peel giving him an opportunity, wanting to win on equal terms. The physical stuff is obvious. In third person, use a lot of animal adjectives like prowl, pounce, maul, roar.
How braindead am I for actually liking what ChatGPT spits out?
Working on a Paladin type character and I think I really like what I've settled on>BBEG minions fucking up the world like the Flood from Halo 3>order of Paladins rise up who can dispatch the monsters in short order while restoring the possessed back to their previous forms>like the Flood, the BBEG tactically retreats to give them the idea that they vanquished the threat>over the next few hundred years the order forgets its old ways, original tenets are lost as they have no threat to unify against>their magic still works against the BBEG minions but now it completely obliterates them as well as gradually burning the wielder up with the power being concentrated on destruction of evil>Paladin girl protag is hard Ennegram 1, arrogant and believing her life purpose is to kill evil and eventually burn up herself>character growth, etc etc>comes to learn her God was really a God of Love all along, can utilize her power to a much greater extent at no damage to herself now that it's original intent is restoredThematically it's moreso focused on the characters development as a person than a criticism of modern religion but I like the direction it's in thus far. I just wanted to avoid "church is le evil" plot and do a more nuanced take on how religion can become misguided over time.
>Hundreds of arrows split the sky, dimming the sun. They arched and fell, dropping like skyeels upon their prey. Amaran's army raised their shields. But not Kaladin's squad. No shields for them. >Cenn screamed.>And the arrows slammed into the middle ranks of Amaran's army, behind him.How come nobody shits on Sanderson by saying "arrows slamming". Arrows don't slam. They pierce.
>>24073931No, no, I'm writing humanist academic papers. It's not fiction, rather, essays, except with a lot more citations.
>>24074000>>24073941i'm going through die trying. i'm pretty sure i remember beau borken being fascinated with reacher upon meeting him. same vein as what i think you're going for, though more sadistic rather than professional. a consistent build-up with recognizing that the person you are facing is at least one standard deviation greater than *victim* in every way. more hubris rather than confusion...i think that's what i'm getting at. it would explain why the inferior fighter lost without having the inferior fighter think and behave like an amateur. if a fighter senses mortal danger, defense mode up immediately. your inferior fighter must reference how he took a hit right after the bell, lost focus on silent violent guy, and put up his defense out of instinct. thats how i would direct a clean KO fight. your inferior fighter is doing more than "barely react(ing) in time for his next attack". your inferior fighter gets clocked and ALL mental focus went out the window at that point, and then his defensive stance goes up instinctually.
>>24074051>BBEG
>>24074067Seems a bit pedantic to point out a common shorthand for an antagonist
>>24074052As if I would read Sanderson!
>>24074032>isaac mewton}..Do cats yowl?>cryptidyikes>sniffing jeans. . .This story is falling apart>tripping in front of coworkershow is that a problem going commando in jeans?>creative... plus points for literally putting her on the rag.>mug of coffeeWhen did she make this?>LateBut she caught the bus? >thirsty pussy jokeacceptable
>>24074032Generative AI is literally just taking all human created content that exists, turning it into a giant dartboard, and throwing shit at it to pick out each word in order to simulate the creative capacity of a chimp with Alzheimer's
>>24074028>adjectives like prowl, pounce, maul, roarI swear this general gets stupider by the day.
>>24074032Structurally, it is surprisingly good. It is gigaslop when viewed up close.
>>24074060I can't read
>>24074073Isaac Mewton is actually good. It's exactly the name a dorky engineering girl's cat would have.
>>24074032It's astonishingly consistent and intelligible, but starts coming apart at the seams on closer scrutiny. Why would tripping without underwear be disastrous if the character is wearing jeans? They're not a skirt. When and where did Poppy get a mug of coffee in under seven minutes? The bus driver's reaction to seeing a woman trip on pavement is inhuman, etc. But with very minor edits, you have a story that's not only indistinguishable from human writing, but actually more engaging than most human attempts at the whatever genre this is supposed to be.Not that you can really use it anywhere. OpenAI saves all chat logs for their own purposes and anyone working there could easily expose the story as AI written, if it happened to get big.
>>24070206Writing is really one of those "you're either born with it or you're not" type of creative outlets. I hate to be a downer but you might be right in that you might not have that creative spark. I'm not going to ask your age but if you're on the younger side your inability to make something compelling might be due to a certain immaturity of youth. So in that case, keep honing your craft. If that's not the case I would suggest learning a more technical hobby.
>>24074113>anyone working there could easily expose the story as AI writtenI doubt anyone at OpenAI would ever care enough, but it really doesn't matter when there are websites that can detect AI-written and AI-assisted text.
>>24071531Wikipedia might unironically be a good source for this
>>24074123>AI-assisted textThis seems like a problem. It's one thing for a program to notice a piece of writing uses the same dictionary and sentence structure as AI-bot-65, but ai-assisted? i feel like these sorts of programs/websites will filter genuine, good-natured, naive retards who have few words to choose from. this is like some new turing test. is it ai-generated, or just a retard?
>>24074113>Not that you can really use it anywhere.I think the real use case would be not to sell LLM-written books to wide audiences, but to generate personalized books catering to the user's specific tastes. For better or worse, LLM's won't ever be able to do that, by design.
>>24074122it's really not. stop telling people that shit
>>24074174If you do something for 10 years and you're still unhappy with it you're either extremely insecure or you're correctly identifying you might not be cut out for it
>>24074174He's just baiting.
>10:30pm>kids asleep>wife asleep>softly lit house all to myself>decaffeinated black coffee>quiet drone of the dehumidifier in the hall, humming kitchen appliances >sleepy, disinhibited mindsetI feel super productive and creative at times like this.
>>24074269I also find myself at my most creative into the nightsounds cozy. have a good session anon
>>24074060found it. this is how to size someone up quickly and reasonably. this is being said by a character who is around six-foot-four-hundred-fuckin-pounds. he notices a fellow beast of a man when he sees one.
>>24074143Just look up "ai detector" and pick a site. I have no idea how they work but they seem pretty good at detecting human writing vs. AI generation regardless of the human writing's good-naturedness and/or retardation.
>>24074054Would you call your essays an aggregate? You're not peer reviewing, correct?
Where did you stop in my writing?
Is this a dumb sequence of events?>character has to exit a crashed, inverted spaceship on an unknown planet with unknown conditions outside>suits up and leaves via a hatch on the top (bottom) and gets the visor covered in sticky mud>fumbles around for a while>remembers (dead) partner has an EVA suit too, goes back in to retrieve the helmet in a bag of some sort to keep the mud off it>switches the helmets outside the spaceship by holding his breathWhen I wrote it I felt like it showed how resourceful and situationally aware thi character is, but reading it back it just seems like a pointless speed hump in the scene.
>>240744107 words in
>>24074410First sentence.
>>24074410Chapter
>>24074410Your third paragraph should be your first>Abyzon Goreheed the Seventeenth seethed in silent anger knowing he was responsible for losing the family heirloom of over five-hundred years.Is far more interesting than introducing him as Silithar. Play with it and try to introduce the comedy earlier.
>>24074410"dark lord"
>>24074410>The on-hundred seventy-third Dark Lord, Silithar the Maliciousthis seems like it's going to be bad>end of paragraph 1this is probably going to be bad>end of paragraph 2 I'm not reading this
Is getting an agent a meme? Is there a point to hiring an editor before I exhaust my options with getting published?
>>24074414Is there a tangible consequence of shitting up the original helmet? What would change if the character simply reacted quicker and dodged the mud in the first place? If switching the helmets changes nothing down the line, you are likely just dragging out the pacing.
>>24074443>Is getting an agent a meme?If you are you a straight white male, it is.
>>24074443Unless we somehow get in touch with a publisher directly. Agents have access, and they're all exactly who you would expect. They all want to represent the people you would expect, and they don't want to represent the people you would expect.
>>24074076Instant meme!
>>24074032The problem is that it’s fine in a vacuum, but when thousands on thousands of people use it, you start seeing patterns, and it’s easy to identify that’s it’s AI. As if everyone is using the same ghostwriter. If you send that to a publisher they’ll notice it immediately and black list you.
>>24074410dark lordBut I don't talk trash behind anonymity. I hate it when people shit on other people's work as anons, if you're gonna dish it out you better take it. Here's mine if you wanna tell me where you stopped reading it.
>>24074410>PLAGUE VOIDIsn't the spell called void plague? 9/10
>>24074123>OpenAI would ever care enoughSome day they'll probably sell a subscription service to universities and publishers for detecting if something is written by their AI. But OpenAI is on the way out anyway because of DeepSeek.
>>24074509>detecting if something is written by their AIThat's already a thing. Look up "ai detector."
>>24074410>streamstopped reading right there. couldn't take anymore
>>24070238Just bumping my story if anyone still wants to give it a look before the thread is archived.
>>24074410>Silithar>Arulian III>Abyzon GoreheedThen also>Rory :Dand>StonebergWhat on earth is going on with these naming conventions? Is there a reason for it? Aurelian is blatantly latinesq, then Stoneberg and Rory :D come in strong out of nowhere. At this rate you may as well call the girl Latisha or Mèng yáo. I don't know if this is explained, and if it is then cool. But it's just something to consider... ano-kun
>>24074410(((Stoneberg)))
>>24074622The story is about the Dark Lord seeking revenge against the hero by crashing and ruining the heros wedding. There's no reason behind the names
>>24072553You know what, I just tried anyways. Any tips? NOTE: For context relating to some of the language I use, he's a human soul contained in a body made of marble and wood.>As I plummeted down the crevice, I panicked. My body would not survive the impact, if there even was one, even if it was made of pure metal. Nobody could catch me where I was going, and I could just imagine my friends and family calling my name and reaching out, their sleek marble digits trying to before turning towards and confronting the stone golem that had knocked me into the depths. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I could almost hear one of them calling me. >I tried to calm down and accept my impending death, desperately trying to find some kind of stillness or calm at the end of it all. As I closed my visual perception off from the world, for what little difference it made within the blackness I was tumbling down, all I could hear was wind rushing past my head. My own funeral dirge. How poetic, I thought.>But there was another noise that cut through it. I don't know where it came from. But it was like someone saying one word over and over again. Alice, Alice, Alice, I heard. I knew that was not my name, but it belonged to someone else. Someone I knew, but as to who I was unware. I went through the slurry of vague images and events that made up my past, and to my surprise there was someone I could almost recognize as an "Alice." The face and voice were not there, but I could assign a name to it. I didn't know who that truly was, but I needed to find them. I needed to get out of here.>I felt a warmth surge in me. A bright flash and a weird tickle on my back. For some reason, it felt like there was something sticking out of my back, like there was an extra sensory organ that just appeared there. And to my shock, my fall slowed with a "Thoom" sound that emitted from my back. Every single time that sound rang out, I felt myself slowing down bit by bit. Suddenly, there was a sound that was best described as thunder. I felt myself being lifted upwards. I saw a light that grew brighter and brighter by the second, and I almost instinctively knew what was happening.>I was flying. In a half-second, I assessed the situation topside. The golem was still there, my friends and family were still in danger despite their bravery.>I needed to do something. I needed to find Alice, and I needed the power to do it.Whatever
>>24074640It's probably good enough. Below average compared to the top contemporary fantasy authors (Sanderson, Martin, King), but probably adequate after some editing.But if you really want to do what you asked here >>24072553 the only thing I can think of is writing of the experience using Finnegans Wake's style or something like that. Since it's in first person you can rationalize the style change as being in the present.
another short story I've been working on. a pseudo-history of a made-up archaeological site. I had a lot of fun writing it and I think it reads pretty well. let me know what you think!https://egregoreandi.substack.com/p/the-fourth-and-the-third>>24071799planning short stories always seems like overkill to me. I usually just start with an idea that's been brewing for a few days and then see where it takes me.>>24074410I agree with >>24074427 also I wouldn't introduce your writing as if you know we're not going to enjoy it.>>24071661I really enjoy generating AI art from prompts. unique style of writing and its pretty magical for something just to appear based on only your words.any ideas/resources on self-promoting your own work? I find the actual writing process pretty simple but the promotion and marketing aspect is so demoralising. traditional publishing and literary agents seem like a waste of time and effort but pushing for the new-media earned audience route is a lot of work and with no guarantee of results. any other starting authors in the same situation? let's talk
>>24074657>any ideas/resources on self-promoting your own work? I find the actual writing process pretty simple but the promotion and marketing aspect is so demoralising. traditional publishing and literary agents seem like a waste of time and effort but pushing for the new-media earned audience route is a lot of work and with no guarantee of results. any other starting authors in the same situation? let's talkI'm going to throw up an ad on 4chan and see if it works. The best thing however is to find a cute girl have her make a small Tik tok video and post it.
>>24074656Any examples of what you mean exactly?
>>24074711I’m in bed right now, but for once using made up words to describe things. So for example if you wanted to describe a blushing girl you could say her blushance. The words should be clearly made up but also clearly understandable. > Methought as I was dropping asleep somepart in nonland of where’s please (and it was when you and they were we) I heard at zero hour as ’twere the peal of vixen’s laughter among midnight’s chimes from out the belfry of the cute old speckled churchSee also how one “sentence” melts into another, I think that style is quite reminiscent of trips where things kind of seem to lose their boundaries. It’s almost like AI generation where some shape can appear from another unrelated one, or like dreams. There’s also Ulysses which is a bit more readable > BLOOM: (Communes with the night.) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen him. (He murmurs.)... swear that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts... (He murmurs.)... in the rough sands of the sea... a cabletow’s length from the shore... where the tide ebbs... and flows ...
>>24074725Excuse the typos it’s hard to post from my phone. But I think any flowing prose like in those examples could work well. Of course there’s the fact that readers may not appreciate it.
>>24074725>>24074730Odd, but greatly captures the "My body just evolved with my mind" vibe
>>24074703> The best thing however is to find a cute girl have her make a small Tik tok video and post it.I hate that this is the best marketing strategy for today's ecosystem
>>24074752Me and my sister were just talking about that shit
>>24074796I'm going to masturbate to rapid edited videos of your sister dancing
>>24074800I meant that she bought it up and we both thought it was garbage. She, and I quote, said>The only books they advertise are porno
>>24074803pornos are what sells
In case you guys missed it, here's are the results of the most recent /lit/ short story writing contest:https://pastebin.com/L4KNqXYkWe're planning on doing another one in early february, so stay tuned for a chance to hone your craft and get feedback from others in a fun little contest. An announcement will be posted on here 1 week leading up to the contest to give everyone time to prep.
>>24074832fun event. see you next time
Which animals do you consider to be the most suspicious?
>>24074897Cats
>>24074897there is no such thing as a trustworthy marsupial
How do i know if my prose is any good?
>>24074929based demotivational poster posterthe only metric that matters is my approval
>>24074929Have you ever heard the saying, if you have to ask how much it is you can’t afford it?
Are there any instructional books on writing that were actually written by successful writers?
>>24075051what, you don't trust stephen king?
>>24075054Let me rephrase that. Written by good writers.
>>24075051a lot of great authors write essays on writing
>>24075064Any you recommend?
I've started novels, screenplays, stageplays, ideas for television or film, but I've never finished any of them. I keep giving up. I try to edit and I find too many flaws in my prose and in my broad plot weaving. I'm 30 this year and decided on finishing something. How do I do it?
>>24075134accept failure and imperfection
>>24074929Good is a meme. Whatever book you pick, someone will always say, "the prose in this is great", while another one always insists, "the prose in this is fucking shit". I don't think people have any idea what is good prose, what makes prose good, or actually, what the hell is "prose", anyway. The only thing that really matters is clarity. Are you able to communicate what you wanted to communicate, the way you wanted to, or did you fail to hold readers?
>>24074123>there are websites that can detect AI-written and AI-assisted text.These are all bullshit. There is no real way to tell, unless it's really copy-pasted without any editing, in which case anyone can tell. There are certain phrases and patterns all text generators seem to repeat. But if you edit and break those patterns? There's no way. People have said the "detectors" will report 100% original human texts as 90% AI, or give a pass to slightly edited AI prints.
>>24075056You're asking whether Dostoevsky wrote a how to book? He didn't.
>>24075269I've been reading "The Anatomy of Story" by John Truby, and it's a good book but John Truby only really wrote television episodes. I was curious of a talented author ever wrote about how to write books.
>>24075051You should look for instructional books written by unsuccessful writers, because popularity shuns geniuses.
>>24075201Makes me wonder: if you ape someone's writing style hard enough, will the detector think it's AI? At that point, you're just a human AI making "what if Nabakov wrote a vampire novel" prompts.
>>24075305>what if Nabakov wrote a vampire novelThat would probably be the most homosexual novel ever written. It would probably have incest too.
>>24075305No. AI detectors and plagiarism checkers are two different things. AI detector doesn't check for personal styles, only the frequency and patterns of words, or more like, the frequency and patterns of characters, or further, the data strings that represent the characters, and if the sample data correlates with its algorithms. If you merely imitate a style, your output should still be organic enough to not trip any detectors. Plagiarism checker, on the other hand, only checks for similarities to existing texts in its database. So unless you copy a book word-for-word, it obviously says nothing.
>>24067442>>24067490if i don't want to write litrpg slop, should i even bother posting on rr? i'm looking to publish weekly chapters since the short scale carrot-and-stick appeals to me, but what i'd be writing would essentially just be a weird fiction or a fantasy novel
>>24075579Regular fantasy can do well too, but "weird fiction" by 4chan standards is what generally goes straight in the trash with normies.
>>24075579might as well>but muh analyticsare you a human being or a corporate drone. why do you care?RR values pulp over any genre. you see different genres come and go. so long as it prioritizes fun it can do alright >but can make me moneyjobbies get money, not creatives
>>24075593alright, i'll give it a shot then. honestly i doubt what i'll write for it will actually be weird fiction - i've just written mostly weird fiction and horror before doing this. it'll probably just be fantasy/dark fantasy
>>24074929As if litfic is any better.Lord Giovanni Ivenobrain, resplendent in the finest silks from the Orient, flopped haughtily into a large, cushioned, award-winning chair in the stately parlor. "Oh, woe is me!" he gasped. "It's so difficult being a rich, lazy layabout! Why, I don't know whether to play croquet or harass the milkmaid."Lady Silentbottom looked on, her face an inscrutable puzzle of long-forgotten secrets. "I do so concur with your misery, Lord Ivenobrain," she pouted. "Why, I could just kill my handmaidens for being prettier than me. How dare they be ten years younger!" She straightened her blouse and set her face firmly. "I'll just have them apply more makeup to my face for the next hour. And meanwhile," she added, "why doesn't thou spanketh thy monkey in thy study, while perusing any number of ribald portraits by famous Baroque artists?"Lord Ivenobrain slapped his crotch as he stood up. "By gum, I'll do just that! Until the morrow, Lady Silentbottom!"
Only have a few chapters left but my story really feels like it's missing something big. It's about 40 chapters and 90000 words but... I'm not sure, I just feel like I'm missing a significant plot beat somewhere.
>>24075748I don't want to feel too academical, but in The Anatomy of Story by Truby, the author postulates that most stories share the same "steps" that come in one particular order (like the inner weakness the main character starts with or the self-revelation that comes at the end). He makes his point by applying his model to a variety of works, mostly movies (because he was a screenwriter first) but also some books. Although even he aknowledges that any step can be dismissed, duplicated, or moved around a bit.Maybe try applying his method to your current plot and see if you identify any missing or misshapen link. And if you do, maybe see if you can explain why this is so. If you can, there's probably no problem. If you can't you might need to rethink something.This probably work with any other writing book, the goal is simply to twist your story up so you can look at it from another angle.
>>24075741Historical is genre fiction though
>how to write-guide>author explains other books suck because they apply (mechanism) to producing stories>"instead, try this *establishes an even more convoluted (mechanism) to produce stories*every time
>>24075134Focus on the process instead of the goal. I'm in the same boat more or less but for the few short stories I actually finished, it was because I just committed to making small progress every day. It also helps if you're working toward small milestones. Some people use page numbers or word count. I find that too abstract so I use plot moments instead (twists or anticipated beats).
>>24075766Idk these things always seems like "just so" bs to me when people make arguments about how ackshually every story fits into this structure they devised. Not him btw.
>>24075766I really disliked Truby's book. It's unnecessarily convoluted and Truby contradicts himself constantly. By the end of it, none of the promises of the book are actually fulfilled. He doesn't give you any kind of useful, coherent process for constructing a story, just vague generalities and platitudes. The only thing that was half-way useful was the section on four-cornered opposition, although that really only applies to tv shows.There far better books on structuring screenplays and far, far better ones on understanding fiction from first principles.
>>24075789>Truby contradicts himself constantly.Got any examples, by any chance?
>>24075789I'm currently reading it and have found his analysis helpful. The step-by-step process seems practical to me.
>A bit >Slowly (verb)'d >sighed These are phrases, or words choices I find I accidentally use over and over without me consciously realizing it. Anyone else?
First page of my short story
>>24075799Well how about right the start his harangue about the use of typical screenwriting terms like climax, midpoint, inciting incident etc. and how they've lost all meaning and then going on to establish his own terms which are even more ambiguous and meaningless like "organic plot", "designing principle" or even the titular "22 steps". He does the same thing with three act structure, complaining that its too mechanical, then suggests an even more mechanical process with 22 steps instead of 3 (he also doesn't really seem to understand why the three act structure is so ubiquitous to begin with). Or how about his insistence that "this is the most important thing, you must have this in your screenplay, if you don't you'll fail" and then two pages later "this is the most important thing" ad nauseam. And then realizing that I can list multiple successful movies (even the way Truby defines success--which is also annoying--the box office) that are missing or intentionally contradict those "important things". But really, my main complaint with it is that I can't imagine myself (or anyone) actually writing a working screenplay with his method (or improve one already written). Not even that the method is bad, but that there really isn't one to speak of. I literally can't imagine what that procedure would even look like. Which is not the case for other books I've read, where even if I disagree with the method, I can at least see how I could use it to go from idea to script or identify problems in my script and fix them. But hey if you found it useful, more power to you. I don't really have a dog in the race beyond offering a differing perspective to anons who are considering shelling out money or time for this book.
>>24075826What does Eliath Vex look like?
>>24074032i dont find this to be readable
>>24075830>He does the same thing with three act structure, complaining that its too mechanical, then suggests an even more mechanical process with 22 steps instead of 3The 22 steps aren't just about the structure of the story, they encompass the entire writing process from coming up with your premise to putting your pen to paper. They aren't really comparable.
>>24075822I do, too, but I do it consciously, and it doesn't matter. Read Agatha Christie or some other English writer and every other word they use is "rather" or "a little", etc, all the time. It's just part of the culture.
>>24075831I intentionally do not say. Every story gives you a description of the main character, I thought it fitting for the title and premise to leave it vague
My writing process has just one step that anyone can follow:just writeToo bad, I can't stretch that one out into a 200-page guidebook to get rich.
>>24075838They are comparable in the dimension he is arguing about, i.e they are supposedly tools to aid a writer in constructing a screenplay and one is apparently mechanical while his is not. Anyway, I already shared my view. Why don't you post what you personally found helpful or even better, talk about a screenplay you wrote or improved using his 22 steps.
How reasonable is it to write my short stories and then just wait for contests where the theme somewhat align so I can send them out?I have a couple pitches on the back of my mind that are like 5k words long at best while I fiddle with a bigger project, but I can't imagine sending these out on the great big void of the internet for everyone to ignore. Or at least not for a few months.
>>24074032Pure garbage. Structure is good, but why pick that storyline? What prompt did you give it?
>Want to share my story>Don't want to be associated with 4chan in case I make itHas anyone else got this feel? I wouldn't mind it if I were already a name, but I think it would be damaging in a field like ours.
>>24075895You're completely correct, anon.
>>24075895Yeah. There's probably a lot of creatives who frequented 4chan at some point and kept it secret.
Where or what should I look into to get a good foundation on Noir? I've realized I have only seen modern interpretations and things inspired by the originals but never the originals themselves and I have something I'm working on which I don't want to call noir, but I'd like to have a foundation like I said if I do want to go down that route
>>24075895>>24075899>>24075902Embrace your autism, you silly billies. Be authentic.
>>24075949But being authentic is inauthentic for me
What do you write, /lit/?I write wattpad smut about stacies for horny teenagers
>>24075895I've shared my stories here several times and it damaged shit. Nobody cares. No one will read it and you'll never make it.
>>24075895>>24075899>>24075902No skin in the game you twerps
>>24075925Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett
>>24074725The best way to describe what's happening here is this. Envision this>Be some blank mannequin looking sonuvabitch. Supposedly you were human once>Have a complete revelation caused by recovering a memory of your former life>This mental clarity causes a physical transformation or evolution.>Go from mannequin to mannequin with onboard magic weaponry and a fucking jetpack
>Party takes shelter from a storm at an abandoned manor with a diverse group of travelers>Despite being deserted, the manor shows signs of recent habitation, which becomes even stranger when members of the group begin having unfortunate "accidents">Party winds up exploring the manor almost in its entirety, the arc ending with a chaotic battle that ends in the attic My question: at the moment I have all the characters and story beats in the right order... but I don't have a manor. Would it be better to>Pause my writing to make/steal a floor plan, then navigate the action around this floor planOr>Write everything down, then just design the manor around the action?
>>24075868It's reasonable but write for yourself. Gain amateur experience before professional. Also write porn to be more popular. That's what I did.
>>24076289I would search floor plans online fitting the kind of building I have in mind, maybe with references photos. Then I'd sketch something real quick on a slate juste so I can erase things as needed. Mostly I'd want to avoid dumb situations like "I made the master's bedchamber accidentally face the part of the yard where all the horses shit", but beyond that, I wouldn't commit to a real fixed design. Maybe once in the end when everything is more or less set in stone, just to check if what I thought made sense after a while
>>24076293Where did you publish your smut?
>Characters have a cute moment where mc realizes that love interest loves her>They don't kiss yet for reasons but they do sit happily togetherQuestion is, do I now make her overwhelmed with emotion and start crying? I'm not sure what to do. Maybe I'll write it, see if I like it and if not delete it
>>24076289People will literally not even care if the floor design isn’t consistent, as long as it’s not blatantly so (kitchen being on ground floor and on the first floor in the next scene)
>>24076324A girl can cry for just about any reason. It wouldn’t be unrealistic for a girl to just start crying out of the blue
>>24075984say these two sentences out loud (do it!) and compare them:>It was she that spoke first>It was that she spoke firstask yourself why they sound so different, and then answer that question via revision
>>24075843Personally I have trouble connecting with characters whose appearance I don't know. At least mention if he is tall/short and muscular/scrawny.
>>24076374Not him but that's more of a (You) problem. It's actually fitting in that story that his physical appearance doesn't come into it. I have a mental image regardless based on the character and actions he shows.
>>24076323https://www.furaffinity.net/user/alexbguyMy most popular story so far is The Vegetarian Option. Quite proud of some of the double meanings there. It's also the only story there I wrote for voreday and not for money, which probably influenced how much effort I put into it.
>>24076459So furries have their own wattpad huh
>>24075984It's ovewritten anon. Try a little restraint.
>>24075984It's underwritten anon. Try letting go.
I just finished up the second chapter of the fantasy story I’m writing about a Necromancer’s apprentice, if any of you gents are interestedChapter 1https://pastebin.com/mF0J1p4JChapter 2https://pastebin.com/V50DuK3iAlso available to read on A03, Wattpad, etclinktree/BornUnderaBlackSun
>>24076668girlboss goddess
I need some help.How would I properly make fun of Korean culture
>>24076679Make fun of their tea made out of corn.
>>24076679Juxtapose it over a clearly superior American culture? That's what I'm doing at least
>>24076673qué?
>>24076487It's mostly for fetish and porn. Pics and stories are welcome there. And of course they would; they're overrepresented in the IT industry. Gooning is a great motivation.
>>24076722>>24076722>>24076722
wow, look at this pile of crap: https://files.catbox.moe/d9sukc.zipand these bundles of joy: https://files.catbox.moe/aw9gz2.pdf https://files.catbox.moe/rpuvnd.pdf
