What's the point?

>>24109101
it's a dreadful shame how many terrible books we will have to endure because someone held onto their dream for too long.

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>See all of my English professors together.
>Literally all of them are 60 year-old women except one guy.
It's so over.

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Dream fish are real, by the way. One guy ate them and wasn't able to drive because he saw a bunch of giant arthropods in the road

>>24109233
What is mixmade? Please don't use mixmade so much.

>>24109195
Men don't do women's work, that'd be gay

>>24109195
You have to get a PhD and right this wrong. They have to let you in for representation sake

>>24109184
>we
are you the broodmother that's spawning editors or something
the fuck are you talking about we like you're a publishing house

https://pastebin.com/cv9SSBy6

What do you guys think? First attempt at something serious. Any suggestions?

I'm not clicking pastebin links without a summary anymore.

underwriting. Anybody got any tips for this? I finished my novel but it's way under word count. I've tried to avoid flowery prose but I've added barely any description at all.

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Somebody give a fucking prompt ffs, usually there’s a thread ‘write a short story about this image’

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>>24109878
write a short story about this image

>>24109883
>If you're talking about taking people's work because they've "posted it in a public space" then no, that's literally one of the worst things you could do to a writer who has plucked up the courage to post their work on here.
I would not want to do that, no. I would not want to claim any work as my own if I didn't write it myself and I'd make it explicit in my review/reading that the work was made by someone else and not myself.
>Considering the anonymous nature of 4chan I doubt you'll be able to give proper credit or get consent from any authors.
If someone posts a snippet or unattributed PDF I'd agree, but if someone posts an AO3 link or some other site where I can link viewers to and say "Check this guy's story out, I couldn't stop reading their stuff!" or "I wouldn't bother reading this guy's stuff unless you want to die from terminal cringe", that would be fair play in my book.
>I'm going to remember this post next time somebody reams another anon for being worried that their work might get stolen.
Again, I have no desire to steal anything. That sounds like a recipe for getting reamed online which I want no part of.

>>24109900
>Should I get permission first?
obviously
you goof

>>24109900
In this case, you'd be better off trying to contact them through AO3 or somewhere where you know you're speaking directly to the author. What you're suggesting isn't necessarily a bad thing and could be good to give exposure to writers, but if all you can say is "thank you to Anonymous" for every story, it's not really helping the writer (does that make sense?) In short: I don't think 4chan is the best place to get content for this.

>>24109845
>I exit the pharmacy, and walk over to the bathroom
Already confusing.
So, this is an outdoor bathroom?
Is it a bathhouse, or a latrine?

>I notice an oddly dressed looking boy
Bro........... either he's oddly dressed or odd looking, not oddly dressed looking.

>Just looking at that brown faggot
Stopped reading.

>>24109886
They were the best of friends, the two of them sitting on those steps; but perhaps it was for the last time.
"Gigachad," said the other, with one final pleading overture. "You like Warhammer 40k, chasing girls at night, bro splits and peanut butter. You don't simp, you don't doubt and you never got vaxxed. Face it; you're gonna make it."
Gigachad, normally so self-assured, took a split second.
"I don't wanna make it," he glowered, "I just wanna..."

>>24109886
WHEN I WAS
A YOUNG CHAD
MY FATHER
SHOWED ME HOW TO BE TRAD

>>24109905
I'll do due diligence, but if someone doesn't follow up with me in a timely fashion and all I have to go off of is their AO3 profile there's only so much I can do. I'd mention that in the review of course.
>"I couldn't get in contact with the author but you can check out where I found their work here (link)."
In some cases, the author may no longer want to be contacted or they might be dead. Whatever the case, I think their work would still be fair game for critique/review.
>>24109907
>"thank you to Anonymous"
>I don't think 4chan is the best place to get content for this.
Assuming someone in the thread might be larping as an Ao3 author, I'd have them send a message from that site from the respective account to verify whether that was the case or not.

>>24109938
If you can get verified permission from the author like that then there's no issue, and could even be a good thing. A lot of us writers are a little paranoid about people stealing our work, even if it seems shit or throwaway, so as long as you're conscious of that you should be fine.

>>24109886

The whistle blew. Chad took off his helmet and ran to the locker room with his teammates.

They had won, defeating the rival school.

In the locker room, their coach, a greying man who had served in Vietnam, started on a sullen diatribe when Chad stood up and started hollering, and then everyone was hollering, except the old man, who walked sullenly out.

After the hullabaloo subsided, an underling said smilingly "What'll you do tonight Chad?"

Everyone looked at Chad, who walked over to his locker, next to a pile of sweaty red clothes, and pulled out a black graphic tee, and a vial of black eyeliner.

"Got a date with a goth girl," he said, then started dancing, and all the guys followed suit, dancing like red Indians round a fire.

>>24109943
>If you can get verified permission from the author like that then there's no issue
Again, if I can. I have an AO3 account myself and I don't check it regularly so there's a more than decent chance I may have missed some messages. If someone doesn't answer me within a week, I'll have to assume they either can't or won't bother. At which point they should have made their shit private if they didn't want people reading it and talking about it.
(this is assuming I'm not poaching writers from a /lit/ thread and are instead combing through the AO3 archives or wherever.)

>>24109938
>there's only so much I can do
yeah, so if you don't get permission you don't do it. the fuck are you saying man

>>24109959
>At which point they should have made their shit private if they didn't want people reading it and talking about it.
This is where I have a problem with your approach. There's a difference between people continuing to discuss your work and actually taking it and making content (and potentially money) from it.
You even say this right after you admit that you sometimes miss messages on AO3. Please, anon, if you don't get permission just leave it alone. Trust me, if you ask nicely many writers would jump at the opportunity, but if you have even ONE instance that could be interpreted as plagiarism it'll completely undermine what you're trying to do.

>>24109966
I don't see it any differently from Flamewar theatre from mega64. I don't like the idea of writing off media critique because the author has died or has otherwise gone silent.
>>24109971
>There's a difference between people continuing to discuss your work and actually taking it and making content (and potentially money) from it.
If someone posts a work publically online they're opening it up to critique & review. As far as making money off their stuff, I doubt that it would. I don't even know if that kind of content would make for good monetization.
>You even say this right after you admit that you sometimes miss messages on AO3
If someone made a review or critique of my publicly posted work and they tried to contact me and I missed said contact, I wouldn't hold it against them for going ahead (under the assumption I'm MIA or ghosting). It'd be up to their discretion to continue of course. If I was concerned about that, I'd private/delete the work from AO3.

Given the strong sentiment about the issue, I'll make sure to do my due diligence in every case and give whatever credit I can if the author is MIA. I can go full whataboutism as well and point out the same due diligence probably wouldn't be paid to videogames, music, and other art. If anything, I'm going above and beyond what I need to do I'd argue.

>>24109991
>assumes he defacto is entitled to making use of people's writing
Pretty shitty of you
Post your channel so I can start the rumour mill about how you ask kids for nudes

>>24109991
>If someone posts a work publically online they're opening it up to critique & review.
Maybe I have misunderstood you. Are you going to be reviewing these works or are you going to be creating what are essentially audiobooks out of them? I have to ask because they're completely different things. I agree you have a right to critique and review anything that's published online, but I don't agree that you should farm the content without clear permission.
> I can go full whataboutism as well and point out the same due diligence probably wouldn't be paid to videogames, music, and other art. If anything, I'm going above and beyond what I need to do I'd argue.
Sure, but that's down to your own moral scruples. You could go full indian scammer and just steal the work and create AI generated audiobooks and put no effort in. The fact that you even asked in the first place makes me think you would like to do right by the authors.
Do you write anything yourself? If not, I think you should try writing your own stories and then use them to build a reputation on your audiobook stuff. This will give you some credibility, and you may also understand why we are so protective of our work.

>>24109999
The guy's right, though. It's perfectly legal and allowed to make videos, reviews, critique, commentary, etc, of content that's published and publicly available online. You don't even need permission to do that. Nice quads btw.

>>24110006
>It's perfectly legal and allowed to make videos, reviews, critique, commentary
again, that's completely different from making an audiobook out of it. The guy isn't being clear with what he intends to do with the stories.

>>24109991
it's one thing if someone has an ao3 or RR account and are actively uploading, it's another to snipe things from the thread
if you start lifting shit from here without explicit go ahead I'm joining this dude's platform >>24109999 and #metooing your ass

>>24110007
I only see him talk about reviewing, or then I missed something. Audiobooks would take a lot of time and effort for little to no profit, one guy wouldn't do that for long, even if this were the intent.

>>24110013
There was a dupe /wg/. This should give you context >>24109874

>>24109560
it's an inverse of the quote in OPs image

>>24109999
I haven't even started work on any videos yet, just some vlogs where I talk about whatever. If I have something /lit/ related to showcase I'll make sure to post a link so you can have a comment section to shit up.
>>24110002
>but I don't agree that you should farm the content without clear permission.
A fair assertion I suppose. At the very least, in the course of a review (not a full read of the work), it'd be necessary for me to read passages and utilize quotes I'd argue. A proper audiobook presentation I can reserve for more explicit and thorough reads with the author's permission.

Assuming author permission for instances where I am doing a full read, I probably wouldn't do more than one chapter unless the author wants to compensate me (if that's the case, that's a whole other project). If it's a short story I may be able to tackle it one go. In my head, it's going an introduction to a work with a review of it and a recommendation if applicable.
>>24110008
>it's another to snipe things from the thread
That's not my intention.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKDs8dTnMg8

>>24110016
Of course, that's a copyright infringement if done without permission. But I don't see any point in making videos of stuff here in the first place, since anons post usually only 1-3 paragraphs, or individual pages, not whole stories. What is there to share?

>>24110024
Frankly I think you need to pick an approach, because I still don't understand what your intentions are. When you say review, do you mean being critical of anything you don't like in the writing? Because it might be hard to convince an author to let you read their story if you've given them a bum review. I want to be really clear that providing critique and offering to read their stories are two completely different things that require different levels of permission. It sounds like you understand that, but I'm not completely sure...

I don't want to shoot you down completely because like I said, this could be a good thing for amateur authors, but you need to look at it from their perspective.

>unless the author wants to compensate me
you're lucky I'm in a good mood today lol

well everyone who was worried about posting things here in case of issues with future publishing, consider that worry cemented as valid
if you ever post something decent some dude is gonna use it to try and farm clicks

>>24110028
4chan has a mystique that is enticing to normies who only browse tiktok. I assume he'd be tapping into that.
>>24110039
Yep. I've told myself for ages that nobody has any interest in stealing my work but I'm starting to second guess all that.

>>24110045
>4chan has a mystique that is enticing to normies
lol

>>24110048
can't blame them. A website where people are allowed to speak freely is like fucking wakanda to these people.

>>24110049
This place entices normalfags as much as hitlerjugend

>>24110045
there was a phase a couple years ago when I was posting flashes everyday. I improved a lot and even was told that my prose was beautiful on a few times
now I have like 300 pages of flashes and short stories. I write almost exclusively for myself
there's an assumption that when you share something here you're participating in a passing moment. if I wrote something and shared it here and it ended up permanently associated with some dude's shitty youtube project I'd be pissed

>>24110054
>if I wrote something and shared it here and it ended up permanently associated with some dude's shitty youtube project I'd be pissed
Me too. I just hope the anon actually understands that. I've tried to explain it.
>there's an assumption that when you share something here you're participating in a passing moment
Absolutely.

What the best writing AI tool to use to help me figure out what happens in my story idea?

>>24110060
idk I just ask my friends to help me come up with ideas

>>24110054
Are you 15? This is the fucking internet. The default assumption is that anything and everything you do or say here can and inevitably will be used for nefarious purposes, and there's nothing you can do about that. Don't like that? Then unplug your router immediately

>>24110037
>because I still don't understand what your intentions are.
With no permission, I can understand someone not wanting me to a full audiobook read. At the very least, that sort of work is open to critique & review if it's posted publicly online.
In instances where there is permission and I do a full read, a critique & review would also be in order. In either case, the work would be subject to a critique & review if I felt it merited discussion. In instances without permission, I'd employ excerpts but only as much as needed to communicate relevant parts of a critique & review. I'd attempt to let the author know and get whatever permission I can. If none can be acquired, I won't do a full read (content farming). That's about as fair as I can be.
>you're lucky I'm in a good mood today lol
In the unlikely event the author simply can't get enough of my saccharine voice I would not be against providing additional voicework if compensated.
>would I get a worse critique/review for not letting you read my work!?
No. While I can state my subjective take on your work, not letting me do a performative read would not influence those thoughts. At least as far as I can tell. Maybe I might enjoy it more if I read it aloud subconsciously? I don't think that would affect my outlook on a work but I'm no psychologist so who knows.
>BIAS CONFIRMED!
At the very least I would strive to be unbiased in regards to technical aspects such as grammar and punctuation.
>>24110039
I won't, but that is a legitimate concern when putting stuff up online anywhere on the net.

>>24110079
damn bro you sound hard, preaching some real tough guy shit
the existence of niggardly behavior isn't justification for engaging in niggardly behavior
places that are chill are more pleasant than ones where people fuck with you constantly, especially when it comes to creativity

>>24110079
None of that means we should roll over and let somebody steal our work. You think you're being edgy but all you're doing is proving our point. God forbid somebody do something themselves instead of farming other people's work. Defending it like this makes me think you don't even write.
>>24110083
> That's about as fair as I can be.
I guess. I still don't understand what you want to be. A full read and critique are still completely different things to me. It sounds like you understand what I'm saying about permission, but asking for money like that seems wrong (to me). It takes time and effort to do a full read, so I understand the desire for compensation, but at the end of the day you're not providing a service you're using their work for your own gain.
Look, go for it, godspeed and all that, but you asked if anybody would have a problem with it. I've tried to explain why somebody would.

>>24110061
What's the best AI to use to simulate having friends?

>>24110108
probably a sex one
god I wish I had a goonette to mutual masturbate to my erotica with

>>24110104
>with permission
"Full read" (1st chapter of a book or a short story) + critique/review
>no permission
critique/review only (no content farming)
>but asking for money like that seems wrong
That would be if someone wanted to commission me to read a full-length book which (again) is a whole different project. I was mostly shitposting there, but gun to my head, if someone wants to pay me to read their stuff and the rate is good, I'd at least consider it.

So to be clear, my "full read" (1 chapter or a short story) is like a demo of sorts.
>I've tried to explain why somebody would.
To which I took it under consideration. I won't do a full read without permission from the author...unless the work is excessively shitposty like some full-life consequences.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHxyZaZlaOs

>>24110121
Thanks for the clarity. That seems like the right approach to me. You may have some pushback with the no permission route, but I said before that commentary/critique is fine without permission and I stand by that.
Good luck with the project.
Unfortunately this has made me rethink posting my work on here. You've at least asked and been willing to discuss it, but who knows about the next guy who is potentially inspired to do the same. Whatever. Like other anons have said there's only so much we can do to protect our work if we post it on 4chan.

>>24110131
lots of people won't post their work knowing this guy is waiting to snatch shit up

>>24110131
Why don't you just grow your YouTube channel with reviews of people here. And when you get significantly more popular, you can have authors submit works to you for publicity? You earn YouTube bucks and the author gets their name out there. Win win. You can't immediately charge money from people when you're insignificant as well

>>24110148
>when
ambitious

>>24110135
Most people only post little snippets anyway. Not enough to content-farm it. Even if I read the whole thing and did a critique on it, there's just not enough there if I only have 500 to 1000 words to words to work with. I'd at least want something in the 2500~4000 word range.
>>24110131
>You may have some pushback with the no permission route
For the full read, I can understand, but posting shit online and expecting people not to be able to comment or critique it is a bit silly. If you don't want people doing that, keep it private and only share it with people you want to see it.

>>24110152
a comment or critique is not the same as a content video
people post here asking for feedback. nobody has ever posted asking someone to put a video up on their youtube channel about it
>well technically it's the same thing
don't be disingenuous

>>24110148
>Why don't you just grow your YouTube channel with reviews of people here.
I may. There's plenty of content on the net though. I don't have to source everything from the autismo hut that is /lit/.
> And when you get significantly more popular, you can have authors submit works to you for publicity?
I need to get the wheels spinning first, but I assume if I'm popular enough, people will start throwing their shit to me anyway.
>You can't immediately charge money from people when you're insignificant as well
My reading and reviewing stuff is mostly for my own amusement. I wouldn't charge anyone for that. If someone wants me to read an entire book, that's a little different.

/lit/ shit isn't my own content concept. If it turns out the juice isn't worth the squeeze I might abandon it in favor of content I enjoy making more that's less taxing on my time and resources. A lot of work goes into reviewing, reading, and making something worth watching. In my head, I think it could be cool but I haven't produced anything yet.
>>24110155
>a comment or critique is not the same as a content video
I would agree.
>nobody has ever posted asking someone to put a video up on their youtube channel about it
I feel like I've already been over this, but I'd get permission first if possible. If I can't source a work I won't bother. If you're that paranoid keep it off AO3 and other online publication sites where I can cite you (4chan doesn't count).

>>24110168
so to clarify
>you would only do videos on anons with their permission
>you would ignore permission for works uploaded to online publication sites
and contentwise
>readings/recitations
>critiques/reviews
does this cover everything?

>>24110168
Just buy a book from the pastebin and do a review of it. Is it that hard?

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>>24110173
>you would ignore permission for works uploaded to online publication sites
I'd still try to get permission for them as well (anons may be on those sites after all). If I can get permission, I'd do a full read. If not, I'd limit it to a critique/review.
>readings/recitations
>critiques/reviews
Sounds about right. If a particular author is feeling cheeky I may offer to speak with them and have them talk about their work and their ideas. Considering how apt people are to spilling their spaghetti here, I don't think I'd get many bites from /lit/ but you never know.
>>24110174
>gib money
Why don't you buy one? If I encounter a work that really strikes me as a good read that I can buy somewhere, I wouldn't mind buying a copy. Similarly, if someone has a body of work for sale and I liked whatever free work they posted, I'd consider looking into and purchasing that body of work as my finances permit.

>>24110197
alright you don't seem too bad. I'm a bit skeptic but I won't tell everyone you're a pedophile groomer who supports drone striking the middle east. for now
there's this guy who wants to do contests every month. maybe you could get involved in with them

>>24110197
>Why don't you buy one?
I have. And you're the one trying to monetize your YouTube channel. Go put some investment into it.

How do I print my own book into a booklet or pamphlet format? Is there q template

>>24109276
Magic

>>24110204
Just use Amazon's publishing for your own fun books. Then just enroll in kdp and get 2 cents a year for your writing

>>24110202
Your money is yours. I'd want to sample a work before I put money down on a book. I didn't get to have as much money as I do by buying a bunch of shit all the time.
>>24110200
>there's this guy who wants to do contests every month. maybe you could get involved in with them
Maybe. I'll keep an eye on the OP.

>>24110218
Read the sample pages on Amazon? You can at least do that dummy. C'mon put some effort.

>>24110207
I can't this is just to have for me

>>24110218
Wait, so you claim you have tons of money, want to start their own YouTube channel, but won't put in $10 bucks to buy some book to start said YouTube channel? Holy fuck you're one entitled bitch aren't you? Even booktok girls have more sense than you

>>24110224
Do the same thing then archive the title.

>>24110086
>the existence of niggardly behavior isn't justification for engaging in niggardly behavior
You think the people doing that need justification? Those who live in their own imagined chill bubble and refuse to see bad things only invite exploitation. You do realize that everything posted in these threads, for example, is preserved in several archives, accessible to anyone in the world, bots and pajeets, and not somehow reserved for anon's secret club of frens

>>24110104
>Defending it like this makes me think you don't even write.
I'm defending nothing, retard. If someone wants to use your work, they will. I'm stating, in plain words, that there's not a shit you can do about it, except turning off your internet, or avoiding posting anything. I'm so tired of you tech-illiterate retards going like "wooow, how was I supposed to know that could happen!? i cry" if and when your shit is stolen.

>>24110240
And like I said, that doesn't mean we should roll over and take it, no matter how edgy and smart you think you are for knowing there are malicious people on the internet.

>>24110233
I can't. Can you please help me out. I don't use Amazon. I'm not going to publish.

>>24110253
You're fucking stupid, you know that? I wish you actually paid attention to what is said instead of being intimidated by direct words.

>>24110257
I fail to see how anything you said intimidated me. Maybe the word you're looking for is 'irritated'? Because you're irritating me like a 13 year old who just discovered nietzsche.

>>24110254
Stop being a child that latches on to their mother's dress every time you're met with even the smallest of hardships.

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>So tired from community college that my head hurts too much when I'm home to write good
>Have to settle for writing not good
Listening to the modern poison all day drains the soul even when you don't pay attention.

>>24110304
But I came here to ask

>>24109101
Writing is good and all, but let's pretend for a second I'm done and I wrote an absolute literary MASTERPIECE.


Now the question: with zero connections and only some money to my name, how do I absolute get the shittons of money from selling it, or if that's impossible at least the recognition?

>>24110320
And I helped you already. I even gave the dimensions you need to properly print a book using Amazon in a previous thread

>>24110324
This would honestly be better as traditionally published just to get your name and reviews out there.

>>24110373
Previous thread? This is my first post. You haven't helped me. I need to print it myself

>>24110381
Dig out the dimensions then.

>>24110379
>This would honestly be better as traditionally published
What would be better as traditionally published? And should I use my real name or a pseudonym?

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Looking for critique on this poem please, anons. Very new to poetry so I want to know what I'm doing wrong or right.

(Also please don't shitpost about the politics of the described situation, I genuinely do not give a fuck, I just think the setting is kino)

https://pastebin.com/KcX5TeEc

>>24110418
>like feathered Vasilisa
Stopped reading there before I die from cringe

>>24109867
How much of a summary do you want?

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Do young people even read books anymore? It feels like it is getting niche evermore. If Id publish I would want it more for accessibility and archival purposes. On the other hand: its really unpolished

>>24110446
they read webnovels
people who girl boss in literary spheres are double pathetic because not only are they engaged in degrading profiteering, but also chasing money and attention in a space where both are becoming more and more scarce

>>24110418
It has some impressive metaphors, but lacks fluidity. My impression. Its a little pretentious in some parts

To gain more fluidity do some shittalk on 4chan and write diary. Try to write down what you really think

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>>24110446
Reading is for research for me these days. If it's for entertainment or biographies I'll just listen to audiobooks. Otherwise, manga is the only thing I read these days.

>>24110462
Thanks anon.
How do I get less pretentious? This is literally just how I naturally think.

>>24110324
be born into the industry

I'm still struggling with my book.
I have this premise that all fathers are tyrants, all mothers are whores, all siblings are criminals and all children are punks.
The problem is that you need to have a family so how do you justify living with these people assuming the "all x are y" thing.
If I figure out how to argue for that then I would not be naive about people but I also wouldn't hate them for performing their role.
Like maybe I just write essays like Machiavelli where there is this love for tyrants but just expand it to other familial roles.

>>24110487
NTA but pretension is really about dishonesty. Reading your poem, I didn't feel anything. That could just be me, of course (I don't like blank verse for one), but maybe the other anon also felt that (hence why he told you to write down what you really think). In absence of emotion, erudition can become mere pretense, a mask. In effect, the medium becomes the message and the actual emotion you are trying to communicate (assuming there is one) becomes mere showboating.

My point ultimately is that there probably isn't a simple fix for this poem if that's the problem. You can't reanimate the dead. You can't "get less pretentious". You can only get more honest.

What I would do is take this poem, read it over once, and then try to rewrite it from memory (within some short limit, say five minutes) even if all you end up with is a list of words and snippets. That may have the effect of revealing to you its real essence and you can then rewrite it based on that.

>>24110521
what are you trying to do? a fictional story where everyone is some extreme generalization? or is this how you view people?

>>24110534
Thank you anon. I think I sort of understand what you mean. I wrote the first draft of the poem in about an hour while very distracted and sleep deprived, and then went back and altered/embellished it multiple times, which I guess was exactly the wrong thing to do and maybe what made it come across as dishonest. I wonder if the original draft was actually better, and I should probably go back to it. I appreciate your input.

>>24110521
>I have this premise that all fathers are tyrants, all mothers are whores, all siblings are criminals and all children are punks.
Do you mean this literally or figuratively? I don't really understand your premise.

>>24110534
nta but how would i write poetry if i am as divorced from my emotions as the stars are from the earth?

i do not mean to say that i am emotionless, but for some reason i find my emotions to be strangers. whenever i feel anything, in lieu of the emotion i should feel, i instead experience actual physical pain similar to a heartburn but not the same.

the only emotion i suppose i’m really familiar with is the awe i feel in the face of nature’s beauty, and that’s that.

most of my poems, i’ve noticed, try to capture that same awe i felt when i beheld an ancient shrine and touched the same walls people a thousand years before touched, or when i first beheld the night sky, unpolluted by light.

>>24110434
One short sentence of what the piece is about is enough to tell if it's worth a look.

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Is this good advice

>>24110724
This is really just basic "show, don't tell." However I think he falls into the trap of over-describing. I'd be fine not knowing half the details in the first example.

>>24110724
I never used those words in the first place. Thanks for nothing. But guess it was good advice, since I do that.

My MC picked up too many love interests and now this thing can only end in an eight-way murder-suicide.

>>24110753
>However I think he falls into the trap of over-describing.
Shut the fuck up
T. Cormac McCarthy

>>24110667
It seems like you've already figured out the answer. I don't think there's anything wrong with centering your work on a singular emotion if it truly inspires you. Dishonesty can also arise as a symptom of insecurity, not just in your own talent but of the things you love and which move you.

>>24110724
It can be. But when I read classics, they tend to just tell readers and rarely waste time showing everything

>>24110653
>>24110636
Oh It's some arbitrary axiom from which I can use as the foundation for arguments in essays.
It's not true but it is a framework that explains sociological phenomena well enough to be the best abstraction.

>>24110899
Sounds like you've read a few babby tier novels and decided all writers are like that. Try reading someone like faulkner

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>>24110925

>>24110956
Faulkner doesn't use big words tho, ironically

Bark and bark
Its a vacant turn
The only one no one knows

>>24111000
wrong thread soiva

how would you describe someone vomiting?

>>24111130
Vomitus

>>24111130
A sudden surge of unease erupted, spilling a bitter stream from the depths of his twisting gut.

>>24110724
>Is this good advice
For the kind of garbage you are likely to write, yes. For serious novels though, this kind of writing would cause it to balloon to 2000 pages.

what do you think about "over describing"?

>>24110724
If you did this in every scene your book would be a long and boring read. Used judiciously, it's reasonable enough.

>>24111163
Usually a consequence of lacking narrative focus. We had a guy in a thread recently whose excerpt started with a very elaborate description of a garden that the protagonist then immediately left and which had no further bearing on the narrative than one paragraph of set dressing, making it pointless word count bloat.

>>24111180
I wonder how the general public would feel about a hyper minimalist novel

Like literally not even full sentences, something like
>James train station. Ride 2 hours. Paul at destination, discuss crisis at home. Leave train. Daybreak. Road ahead. A village. Fight or flee. James stays. Triumph. Night falls.
Are there any novels like this? I don't mean short stories or poems, but literal dozens or hundreds of pages in this style
If no, I'm gonna write one

>>24110418
is it about flying in an f-16? I am bad at poetry.

holy fuck writing a ballroom dance scene is 10x harder than a battle between two people.

>>24111180
I'm the guy who posted the excerpt. I don't it was too over-descriptive. Sure, you might argue about the quality of the prose and the descriptions themselves, but it's supposed to be the largest hospital in the nation and I felt not giving the reader any sort of visual cue about how it looked (inside or outside) would just make the text feel poorer.

Which might be because most novels that I read are way more heavy on descriptions which may impact my writing, and sometimes even one paragraph of description seems too modest in comparison.

>garden that the protagonist then immediately left and which had no further bearing on the narrative than one paragraph of set dressing

would you prefer in a scene like that for the description to only focus on the building itself (in this case, the hospital which the MC approaches) rather than its surroundings, to avoid word bloat? I'm not disagreeing with you, just curious, because I've heard differing opinions on this matter

Leo woke up in a damp, tight room and his head felt like to burst. Every time he stirred, his whole body writhed in pain. He laboriously rose from the wooden alcove that served as his bed and made for the nearest bucket lying on the floor. He vomited into it, retched and shuddered, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. For several minutes he stood there shaking and breathing heavily, then started examining the room he found himself in. There was a plate of hard cheese and stale bread by his bunk and a commode of rotten wood on the corner. On top of it was a small, dirty mirror of Furlan craftwork. This design somehow seemed familiar. He had slept here before, but when or where exactly, he remembered none of it.

He inspected the mirror closer and the image produced from within made him wince. He could hardly recognize himself. There were bruises and contusions all about his face, and half his head was covered with thick silken bandages spattered with blood.

Yet another short story sent to yet another publisher. Wish me luck again!

This rough draft I'm writing is taking everything out of me. I hate typing this dogshit out. I know everyone recommends it so that I can have a clear idea of how my story is going to go from scene to scene, and for plot holes and shit like that, but I hate it so much. I'm about to say fuck it and just begin work on a final copy that I fix as I go if necessary.

>>24111401
that anon is just a loser
I can't imagine how brain damaged someone has to be to find your simple, two-sentence description "elaborate"
normal human beings can focus long enough to let the author briefly set the scene

>>24110724
yes... the modern mandate of "just get to the point" is a cancer that's ruining literature... never get to the point... don't let them know what the point is... don't have a point to begin with... reject the point... good storytelling doesn't need it...

>>24111436
ganbatte

>>24111633
what's the prompt word?

>>24111633
writing people are so fucking annoying

>>24111686
Many of these points are valid. A lot are very overdone.

>>24111722
It's not necessarily wrong but it comes from a dumb place. a place accepting mass submissions is going to recieve a lot of trash from dumb asses and there isn't much you can so about it
this list of suggestions isn't informative or productive. It's just a passive aggressive way to vent for annoyed people who have to sort through a lot of garbage

ChatGPT is the greatest editor in the world. I shall embrace and sell my soul to Bill Gates.

>>24111786
After rereading my paragraph I threw into A.I. I'm finding the problem with AI is it's very "impassionate". It regurgitates a lot of phrases and words over and over and never fully captures the character's voice. or tone of the story. It does do actions/descriptions pretty well.
>A.I.
And so, he ate the pig.
>Human
>And he ate the pig.

The second is far more abrupt and makes the reader feel far more visceral. the extra "so" and comma stops the pacing and removes the reader from feeling a directness with the sentence.

https://ghostbin.site/a8rcj
It triggered Pastebin's censorship, I guess because of all the hardcore goblin-on-elf fucking going on. Ooooooooh yeah, baby! Green jizz in the hoo haa!

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Keralis would have the voice of H Jon Benjamin ideally

i want to read your royal road story

Who do you know how I am.

>>24111911
i don't want to post my story on a slop aggregate

https://pastebin.com/Qr8CZW5e

Trying my hand some gothic prose. Something in the spirit of Dark Souls. Thoughts?

Every day can be Halloween if you write horror. Help me pick which idea to expand into a short.
https://strawpoll.com/YVyPvdGD7gN

>>24111956
I can see countless YouTubers trying to decode the lore in this piece

>>24111956
>The walls seemed to lean toward it,

>>24109886
It ain't so hard being an emo gigachad. Just put on some make up, paint your nails purple, flip your side-swept, wear skinny jeans so tight your cock shows and your balls are kept sterile. A steady stream of women who want you to destroy them in the ecstasy of love will come to you: scene whores, their bright hair and dark makeup juxtaposed with cum on their pale face; emo sluts and shared cuts, blood mixing, blood spitting, dripping, mixing with their tears and fears; fucking goths like their dad wouldn't, drunkenly, violently, surprisingly.
Cigarette finished, the chair kicked. Feel the snug hug that my mother never gave me, its love choking me, freeing me.

>>24109101
I'm finally going to turn my fantasy world into a book this year, but I've never written creatively in my life. I think I'm a creative person, and I have fairly good prose, but how do I actually start writing? Any tips on what a writer should know?

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>>24112112
>I've never written creatively in my life
>I have fairly good prose

>>24111198
Bumping this question

>write something
>day 1 after finishing
Hey, this is pretty good.
>day 2
This is irredeemable dogshit.
>day 3
This is okay. Maybe not good, but acceptable, I guess.
>day 4
This is great. What was I worried about?
>day 5
This is irredeemable dogshit.
>rinse and repeat
I hate writing.

>>24111198
Up to the author's discretion. I wouldn't use that kind of snippet dialogue for a whole book. I might utilize it as a perspective shift to someone with a mental illness, under the influence of a drug, or perhaps some alien species. That way, the reader can better separate the perspectives of wildly different kinds of characters. It could also be used for recorded logs or something like that.

You should be fine as long as the reader can understand the writing. As to whether the reader will enjoy it, that's another story.
>Are there any novels like this?
I'm sure there are? I mentioned The Road a while back and how it handled dialogue differently. I didn't like it, but my aunt loved the book. You can try writing an entire book in snippet form, but I think that would leave most readers hungry for details. Rather, I'd reserve the "snippet" passages for the aforementioned perspective shifts and such.

>>24112148
Trust your intuition, the truth of the matter is there's probably some merit to your writing (if you have decent skill already) but it lacks polish. It's always good to get a fresh pair of eyes, perhaps even multiple pairs to read your work and give feedback.

>>24111198
>I wonder how the general public would feel about a hyper minimalist novel
They'd be annoyed.
>Are there any novels like this?
No, because it's unreadable.

>>24112150
>>24112161
>noo don't do it, just do it sparingly like every other normie actor
>readers will le hate it, it's le unreadable
Prime indicator that I should do it

>>24112186
I said it was up to your discretion and told you what I would do. I didn't tell you to ape anyone else. Maybe you have a way of writing that will make it work. At a glance, that style of writing looks like it'd suck to read in a longform format. Either do it or don't. Post your shit and we'll tell you what we think.

>>24112195
Imagine saying something like this to Faulkner before he got famous lmfao
>i-its different
No it's not

https://files.catbox.moe/tifbz4.pdf
So I'm doing this unofficial translation, mostly for myself. Even if I get it done in full, I probably won't post it online because of copyright.
But I want some critique on this, obviously considering the fact that it's a translation and the original is not my writing.
Just want to know what can be improved.

Can i ask a fucking stupid question? Do any of you masturbate before or after writing. I'm porn addicted i won't lie and recently I've gotten into smut. Still the normal stuff I write are being affected by my horniness. Do any of you solve the "problem" before or after?

>>24112252
>Can i ask a fucking stupid question?
you already did
>gooner babble
I've never been in nofap communities so I don't know the discourse or their rhetoric, but I suspect there's some truth to pouring horniness into creativity. I pounded out a erotic novella in like a week just because I'd write every time I was horny instead of jerk off
I find that I'm less creatively driven for a few hours after masturbating but more driven after sex. probably something to do with oxygenation from the exercise
I suspect it doesn't really matter but you might as well jerk off afterwards. delayed gratification is a good thing to practice

What are your thoughts on the utilization flashbacks to give insight into character motivation?

>>24112302
A crutch and a cliche.

>>24112302
I don't like them in books because the transition to them isn't as clear often. You can get halfway into a flashback passage before you realize it's not happening in current times when a character gets mentioned who's already dead in the present (or some shit like that). There wasn't enough foreshadowing to clue you into the fact you were in a flashback up until that point and whatever new characters or ideas were introduced have to be contextualized on the fly to adapt to that new info.

I know in some instances you want to have a revelation be a surprise and mentioning to the reader this is a flashback can mess that up, but I feel like I've encountered more confusing situations than startling relations through flashbacks in a written narrative.

>>24112302
often annoying

>>24112319
>>24112324
>>24112328
You will absolutely HATE faulkner

>>24112319
>>24112324
>>24112328
My current reservation right now is about how much it might take readers out of the story. I'm utilizing it early on, to establish the protagonist, which is the silver lining, but as I'm writing it, I do have a little "hmmm" to it. My editor says he wants me to have an inspirational character in the story, who motivates the protagonist. But for this to work, I think this has to be a character he met in his past. Hence the flashback.

I just don't think I have many options to make everything clear. My other option would be to do it chronologically, but I think that slows the pacing down even more.

I'll break down my structure to hopefully convey what I'm doing. Currently, the structure goes:
>One page openly narration contextualizing the setting and high concept with a strong hook
>action set piece (editor demanded this)
>Introducing the protagonist
>Daily life scene with light hearted comedic relief
>Short private scene where the MC is alone, which segways into:
>Flashback where we get context into the Mc's motivations
From it's gonna proceed as:
>Trial scene where the MC fails at his goal
>Moment of silence and reflection that leads into climactic action sequence, where he proves his merit
BUT
>the MC dies in the process
>And it's revealed he's actually monster

Context for the setting. It's Victorian Gothic. Doctors posses supernatural abilities based on science and magic. They hunt monsters known as horrors. MC wants to be a doctor. He's rejected. At the climax it's revealed he's actually a werewolf.

So within the first chapter, I have to make sure I cover ALL of that to hook readers in. Hence my dilemma. I'm trying to make flashback more positive and uplifting so it's more fun to read at the very least. It's just again, as I'm writing it, in the back of my head I'm just wondering... "Hmmm, is this working?"

>>24112361
>action set piece (editor demanded this)
lmao
grim

>>24112365
It's a manga. So it plays by cinematic rules. You can get away with it so long as it's COOL.

>>24112361
I had a concept like that. I won't try to match your story beats but I'll say that the flashback should be big enough to properly contextualize the change in the character you want to showcase. As previously noted, I'd try to make it clear to the reader they were in a flashback before you started taking them through a past scenario.

Otherwise, readers who can't appreciate the likes of Faulkner may not be able to enjoy it as much. On that note, try not to be too esoteric with your prose, you don't want autistic faggots simping for you 100 years after you're gone and yelling at people online about not liking your work, as if it's some badge of honor for literary autists.

>>24112380
Ok I see. That was my intuition too. To treat the flashback almost like a self contained mini story, and just make it longer to justify and make it worthwhile. Rather than getting through it quickly.

Your thoughts reassured me it's probably best to just double down and give it more meat then.

Thanks anon.

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Deleted and reposted because I fucked it up, but thoughts on this dialogue and how to improve it?
The context is that the male character is a huge autist and possibly mildly retarded. So his manner of speaking is meant to be awkward and stilted and the scene is meant to be cringe. But I don't know if it's in the "right" way if I can put it like that. It feels lacking in something.

>>24111401
It's just a speed bump. Some description of the garden is warranted, especially if it's his first time seeing it, but if the main interest of the scene isn't related to the garden it should be relatively concise. It's disproportionate to its importance. Unless the guy is a gardener or something, taking a detailed look around as he passes through is unnatural and probably unrelated to what he's thinking and doing. I can't really give specific advice on what needs to be elaborated on more in your scene setting, except that it should come naturally with what the character himself is thinking and doing and what he would give attention to. A Japanese art college professor would look at a building in a different way to a truck driver from Nebraska.

>>24111633
It must be soul crushing to get to the point where you need to write this list lmao

>>24112410

>/wg/ stories in 2025
>thinly veiled ranting about faggots
>thinly veiled ranting about niggers
>nazi fanfics
I think this website is broken for good

>>24112476
So now nobody's allowed to write anything Nazi-related because it's cringe according to you?
The whole point is that the MC's behavior is pathetic and repulsive to everyone around him, and should be repulsive to the reader too. Do the girl's reactions not make this obvious?
I wanted to write a story about the psychology of submitting to and collaborating with an occupying force. If anything it's a cautionary tale against being a /pol/fag and idolizing those who not only don't give a fuck about you but would also be disgusted by your very existence.

>>24111749
Can you blame them? If I had to swallow 1000 cubic feet of slop per day I would get ruthless about it too

>>24112302
Practically unavoidable in fiction. Crack open literally any book of any genre and unless the author has taken conscious pains to avoid it, there will be some kind of flashback somewhere in it. Since one of the primary reasons people even read fiction is to explore the motivations of characters for their actions (and reinforce an overbelief in causality) omitting any reference to their past makes the author's task much more difficult.

When flashbacks are bad it's usually because it's:
1. Overdone (too long or too many)
2. Has poor transitions (too abrupt or nonexistent)
3. Uses scene where summary is appropriate (or vice versa)

As long as you avoid those, you're good.

>>24112610
It's current year media literacy. You can't have slavery in your story even if you portray it as a bad thing that shouldn't be done because that means you endorse slavery. You can't have rape for the same reasons or any other socially condemnable activity. Any shade of nuance or commentary on society that highlights the flaws of capitalism, communism, nationalism, or whatever means you actually endorse those things because you wrote about them and you shouldn't have even bothered writing about them at all.

In the current year, I would write about whatever you want. If your story portrays the perspective of a young idealogical person in a natsoc country coming to terms with the fact that their prosperity comes at the price of discrimination or worse, do it. Even if you demonstrate that "x ideology is actually bad" in the narrative, the same vapid cunts that get upset at rape and violence in stories will call you a nazi because they have zero reading comprehension and are little more than social signaling lemmings. i.e. "people" to be ignored.

>>24112410
A localized silence fell at their table, even as pleasant conversation and laughter continued at others all around. Pavel continued his toying with the filleting knife, watched as liquid lamplight played the length of the blade when he twisted it in hand. Their waiter returned with their wine in a pair of stem glasses. Karolina took a bulb in each hand and placed both at her edge of the table. She took away her cigarette and raised one of the glasses to her lips, drinking a little too hungrily. Pavel would have ordered a lager, only, the management in here seemed to think it acceptable to bring back a glass of weak piss when the customer asked for a beer.
'You have heard of the Reich Protector?' he began.
Karolina showed him the eyes of a cat cornered in an alley. 'I'm afraid I know nothing of politics,' she curtly returned.
'Excellent, then I shall tell you of him. Reinhard Heydrich, an Obergruppenfuhrer in the SS, and the head of Reich Security Main Office. To our Fuhrer he is 'the man with the iron heart.' Pavel gave an unexpected little burst of mirth as he chose his next words, amused by them already - 'If so, perhaps our last Reich Protector was 'the man with the heart of water.' He laughed again. 'Or feet of clay, I should say. In any case the useless fellow is gone now and we've Heydrich to clean up his mess. It's good for you to know these things. Okay, so you say you've never heard of Reinhard Heydrich, but what about Richard Bruno Heydrich?' Pavel smiled expectantly. 'And, as a son inherits the genius of his father, our new Protector is a sublime artist of the violin. Why, only tomorrow we may see him perform at the very Wallenstein Palace. His father's work of course.'
'Good for him.' Karolina had not maintained eye contact past his first few of his words.
'We should all be grateful for this man the fuhrer has sent us. A real German man, for once. A fighter pilot too, ah? The Russians took him right out of the sky with an anti-aircraft gun, and what does he do? Merely walks home. Ha!' Pavel gave a laugh sharp enough to be heard throughout the space. All at once he lowered himself over the table on both forearms, leaning as close in as he might. 'You're serious, are you? You mean you've really never heard of Reinard Heydrich?'
'I'm sorry, I'm sure I must be very ignorant.'
Pavel laughed, as if endeared by a child. 'Poor girl, don't be sorry, but why don't you take an interest? This is your chance, come, ask me anything, anything about the man. You don't want to feel left out when important people are talking, do you? Trust me, these are things you will want to know.'
'Perhaps we could talk about something else, something I'm better equipped to speak on.'
Pavel shook his head, smiling down at the tablecloth.

>>24112697
> summary is appropriate
Show, don’t tell.

>>24111845
Possibly the worst slop I’ve ever seen here. It’s just two people talking. Why does it even need to have elf’s and goblins?

>>24112740
>prearmed to seethe about fantasy slop
>complains that the scene is just dialogue
maybe the most litfic thing you could do desu senpai
>>24111845
that being said you gotta work on your dialogue man this is bad

>>24112410
I thought it was pretty good. The vole line got a smile from me. And I like the rest of the descriptions.

There are a few small issues I found took me out:
1. The narration and internal monologue doesn't really coincide with Pavel's dialogue. I can't imagine Pavel thinking about the beer in those terms and then also autistically gush on about the RP. He feels too naive and childlike for that.
2. On a related note, I think the pov here should track closer to Pavel. Your descriptions of Karolina seem too much from her perspective (or else an objective one) but I think it would work better if it was from Pavel's perspective. If that is what you were going for see #1.
3. For the dialogue itself, try to avoid direct response. Stuff like "Then I'll tell you all about him" or "How would I know?". You can replace some of these with gesture, others you can omit entirely. One tip I picked up from screenwriting/acting is to first "block" the dialogue into discrete actions. I.e ignore the actual content of what is said and zero in on the intent, which should be expressible in a single verb like "attack", "seduce", "annoy", "ignore" etc. In acting this is usually enough. For screenwriters you can go one step forward and write a literal version of the dialogue where the action is rendered as directly as possible. So something like "I don't know anything about politics", which could carry the action of "dismiss", might be rendered literally as "I don't want to talk about that" or "That's not an appropriate topic of conversation". The point of this exercise is to see where your actual dialogue is too direct or where you are repeating beats or cramming too many actions into a single bit of dialogue or using dialogue where gesture would suffice etc. It also lets you try out different lines without losing the thread of the conversation. Use it if it helps you.

>>24110418
You do not know how to use a thesaurus properly

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It's over.

I'm too much of a hack to write proper descriptions, let alone follow the show, don't tell, or write non-reddit Dialogue.

I guess I return to /vp/ and /fit/ in defeat...

>>24112610
All I see in the excerpt and your comment is your love and longing for nazis and the many hours you've spent studying the magnificence of the third reich. Maybe you can bullshit your way around normies, but nobody picks a topic like this for any goddamn educational reasons lmao

>>24112753
>work on your dialogue man this is bad
Care to elaborate?

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>>24111633
>10.

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>>24111633
>Search and replace the following when appropriate:
>suddenly, started to, seems, that, had, just, simply, down, up, got, then
that's like 50% of the English language wtf is there left? you want me to build a house with only straw and mortar?

>>24111633
>Dream sequences in the beginning
Where did this meme come from? Why is it so common?

>>24112703
I'm glad you at least get it.
>If your story portrays the perspective of a young idealogical person in a natsoc country coming to terms with the fact that their prosperity comes at the price of discrimination or worse, do it.
Well to be fair he never comes to terms with it. In fact any time he's faced with any kind of evidence that conflicts with his worldview, he just doubles down harder. In fact he doubles down until it kills him, which I really hope will make my intent clear, but we'll see.
>>24112731
I enjoyed reading this, thank you anon. You rewrote the dialogue really well. It would be pretty out of character for him to speak so eloquently but still I'd like to take a few pointers from it anyway.
>>24112762
Thank you for your critique. I'm glad it wasn't terrible and I think you're right on pretty much every point. Especially the third, I do struggle with overly direct dialogue in general so this does help.
>>24112913
>nobody picks a topic like this for any goddamn educational reasons lmao
You do realize there are people who build entire academic careers on this topic? I don't even know what to tell you at this point.

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>>24112995
>You do realize there are people who build entire academic careers on this topic?
So you're writing about nazis for academic reasons now?

>>24112995
you're getting baited

>>24112929
it's worthwhile to experiment with an editing pass that cuts most of these words. Cutting "that" and "then" is retarded, though. I also don't really know what the deal with "up" and "down" would be, but it should be easy enough to not use them.

>>24112995
On second thought regarding my second point, it might actually work better from Karolina's pov. Much of the comedy of this dialogue comes from Karolina's straight man to Pavel's autism. So keeping it in her pov would emphasize that and give you more opportunities to exploit it.

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Full disclosure: I fell victim to the "just be yourself, bro" memetic construct and its equally suspicious companion promise, "someone will accept you for who you are, flaws and all." These are my thoughts on the aftermath of screaming in the void and receiving no echoes back.
https://pastebin.com/cKdXT9Vg
Critiques of the writing styles or the ideas, both are welcome.

>>24112995
I didn't even read your story, sorry. Whatever story you tell, as long as it's an interesting one I think the reader will appreciate it.

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my writing fucking sucks. I need to shit out some more short stories for practice but I'm just feeling so demoralized.

>>24113094
laughed at several junctures
it's interesting how you write word salad in a way that is easy to read. I suppose because the word choice is direct in conveying what is ultimately a pretty simple message
there is a unity in the writing style and the character of a rotten anon. I was grinning through the read but still caught myself thinking that I'd find this far more annoying in a different context
there's some sort of perfect storm of self inflicted alienation, intellectualized detachment from one's own experience, and short list of relevant characters and subjects of fixation which all together make this such a funny mental vignette
I don't know if you intended this to be such a gaff but it sure is one

Are there any books written in reverse chronological order?
How difficult would it be for an average reader to grasp if I write one?

>>24113131
every time you run into a piece of information which has a chronological antecedent simply insert a flashback scene

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>>24112302
It's cool. You spoonfeed the audience a traumatic moment without having to show the trauma of the moment, at least the immediate part.

>>24113140
Thats not what I'm talking about tho. I'm talking about a book where the entire plot is in reverse, so it starts out with the climax and then slowly bit by bit you get puzzle pieces of information preceding the event until at the end of the book you're at a place a long time ago where things seemed normal.

Question for the thread. Have any of you ever been successfully "jump scared" in prose? If so, could you give me a reference for the scare so I can look it up?
I'm working on a moment that is supposed to be sudden and frightening for the character and I'm looking for possible ways to do it.

>>24113223
Never "start with the climax" but plenty of movies have done that "reverse style" storytelling. Memento and Pulp Fiction both immediately come to mind. Tons of Detective/Mystery stories do to. But you don't "start with the climax." They normally start right before the climax. Because the climax usually also contains the resolution to the conflict.

Essentially what you're doing though, is your opening presents a question or a riddle, and the rest of the story is putting together the pieces again, so that when you arrive at the climax again, the readers can put it together themselves. This also works if you're doing it in reverse or out of order like you say, but the only way that works is if the beginning and climax are somehow interconnected as well (like pulp fiction) that way it makes sense when they hit the "climax" point of your story.

The way you'd write this though, is you'd first write it in order, then start restructuring the story around a different emotional beat that makes the reverse storytelling important and meaningful to the story. If you're just doing it to be cute, it's a just cheap gimmick. You gotta find some sort of emotional or plot thread that makes the chronological bouncing around make sense.

This is also much harder to write than regular story, because typically in storytelling, there's a certain pacing and order in which information has to be delivered. This is true even if your story is told in reverse. But of course it being in reverse makes this much harder.

As I said, out of order stories are typically written in order during their early drafts.

>>24113255
Your strongest tool is a page turn, but even then it's hard to do. There's a reason horror literary fiction doesn't do jump scares.

>>24113255
you'd have better luck with a dramatic jump scare in the sense that it's something which is shocking in the context of the plot/character/atmosphere
which frankly is kind've the cornerstone of good story telling

>>24113282
Idk man Lovecraft got me with the last line of The Statement of Randolph Carter.
>>24113288
I knew I shouldn't have used the term jump scare. Not literally causing the reader to jump, but a quick shocking escalation of the situation from kind of unnerving to deadly.

>>24111633
is this a chatgpt prompt?

>>24113477
chatgpt is much more supportive than that even if you ask it to be brutal or obnoxious

>>24113094
Genuinely one of the best things I've read in a long time, here or elsewhere. Reminds me a lot of Nick Land's prose which I love. You also have what's missing from a lot of anons that post here (including the fantasy sloppers) but before I get to that a little critique: you're probably already aware of this but I don't think this could sustain a longer form like a novel. However, as a vignette it's not completely satisfying either so you could probably turn it at least into a short story or essay depending on which direction you want to lean into: narrative vs. commentary. You just need some opposing force.

There is an overuse of parenthesis, i.e you'll sometimes use it even when you're not really making aside to the reader and its omission would be perfectly acceptable. One example of this is the beginning of line 2--however, it's tricky because I can see that you're trying to establish a rhythm through the parallelism. The solution is probably not to remove those parentheses but to make the clause within them even more parenthetical.

You're overusing the word "existence". Non-existence as a synonym for suicide is funny and in character so I'd probably keep that. But I think you can come up with funnier and more specific words for existence where you use it.

There are some cliched/abstracted snippets that you can probably tighten up if you meditate on them for a while. Stuff like "harsh fluorescent light of public scrutiny", "toxic cocktail of judgement", "masks of concerned expressions", etc. are stuff you're just writing down rote. If you can come up with something as great as "expired breath mints" I'm sure you can come up with more specific language here as well.

I think you miss a typical "third extreme thing is not like the others" joke in this line:
>DSM would term "depressive ideation" or "cognitive distortion"
I was waiting for it but it never came. There's some crazy shit in the DSM (pun not intended) I'm sure you can find something appropriate to fill the slot.

But finally, returning to your secret sauce, I would say it's bona fide emotional transfer. It's played for laughs (which is an authorial choice) but the rage and exasperation is real. More importantly, it's filtered through a very specific lens which is what creates a unique voice. What I'm trying to say is, because I'm convinced by the voice of the narrator and charmed by his honesty, I'd be willing to listen to what he has to say on other things. I think Palaniuk calls it "Authority" in one of his books. In fact, what would make it even better I think is to trade the generality for a specific painful experience. Like the whole "experimental results" bit could just be replaced with an actual instantiation of alienation reported in the same voice. Then you'd really get me to believe and I'd be on board for anything.

>>24112112
assume that your prose is shit and work from there. also read books or it's over

>>24113501
If you need to brainstorm or bounce ideas around without people bullying you for them, AI is pretty good at that. If you're unsure about grammar and wanting it to check a passage to see if you're utilizing a semicolon correctly and other technical bullshit, it's good for that too. I know /lit/ hates AI, and I'm against slop as much as the next guy, but rather than blindly fearing or hating AI, I try to leverage its strengths.

I use Claude Sonnet presently for planning and whatnot. If I burn up all my free Claude Sonnet prompts, I switch over to Gemini, which is pretty close, but I like Claude's outputs better.
(The above text was proofread by Claude Sonnet, apart from adding some commas it approved of my passage.)

>>24112929
it's unironically 'show don't tell'; you don't say "suddenly, x happed" you just write what happened, and the reader should be able to infer (if you did your job right)

apply this to all other words. this is very basic writing stuff

>>24113501
if you pay for it, and utilize the memories feature well, it can be somewhat harsh.

one time i was experimenting with the api, 'jailbroke' it, and had it be relentlessly brutal-- it was actually sort of fucked up. i felt bullied

>>24112929
That list is helpful but it's not a hard and fast thing. I think it's more a case if you hit ctrl+F and find you have an inflated number of such usages, you should consider toning them down. Particularly if it's outside dialogue snippets. In that same vein, you need to be watchful of certain words you overuse and try to catch them. I'm bad with "a bit", "certainly", and a few others.

I'd worry more about something sounding better to read than adhering to some grammar rule.

>most modern writing advice comes from failed authors and trashy pop-lit hacks
>most great literature violates their established "rules" constantly
Just a thought: the literary world is full of charlatans and bitter failures trying to stifle genuine talent.

>>24112200
Then fucking do it

>>24113723
Who says I'm not? I just wanted to ask this board what your thoughts are

>>24113694
agree but I don't think most of them are trying to poison the well

>>24113694
writing advice also comes from classic authors and professionals. you don't need to make excuses on behalf of (yourself). the idea is to understand why the advice is given before you shirk it my little nitwit

>>24113750
Post your writing faggot

>>24113600
But it can change things dramatically.

>I tied up my shoelaces, ready to go out. A letter fell on the floor.
vs
>I tied up my shoelaces, ready to go out. Suddenly, a letter fell on the floor.

The first one seems like a mundane, inconsequential occurrence. The bottom presents it as a plot-changing element. Then some faggot editor would tell me to cut the word.

>>24113849
editors are scum but your take is beneath that of an editor

Just self publish and you won't need an editor, brainlets

>>24113862
The only thing beneath editors is the stool they kick off to hang.

>>24113849
could you give an example that doesn't contain blatant writing mistakes?

does anyone note down any unknown words/phrases they like whilst reading in order to enrichen their vocabulary?

>>24113946
if I'm reading digitally yeah
I also note down phrases and passages I find compelling to learn from and apply to my own writing

>>24113946
I actually skim through pdfs of notable works and mark down phrases I like and want to steal for my own writing. And I sort by genre so it's not incoherent

>>24113989
I do this but exclusively for posts on /wg/

>>24109171
Writing fiction is fun, and someone enjoying your writings is extremely gratifying.

>>24109845
By the first paragraph I could tell it would be a waste of my time to continue.

I skimmed the rest, saw it basically went nowhere, and would just be a waste of my time.

>>24111633
The fuck is wrong with simple directions like down and up?
already at 1 I know to disregard this retard's opinion.

>>24114072
Jim went up the hill
vs
Jim climbed to the top the hill.

Second sentence is better . That's why.

>>24114079
no it's not

>>24114079
Up and down are orienting directions necessary in keeping hectic action comprehensible while still keeping pace.
It also tells the location of things in relation to other things which is vital in a non-visual media like writing.
Your example does not apply to such situations and isn't how orienting directions are most commonly used.

They are basic works with necessary utility.
Much the same as many of the other words that were singled out.

>>24111845
I ain't reading that until it's been better formatted.

Today I'm taking a break from my novel to write some smutty sexist fan fiction.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61269832

This is a story about gunning down and stabbing dozens of petite female security guards.

>>24114095
That's fine, but you have to consider the editors and publishing house point of view. They are going to constantly see sentences like Jim is going up the hill. Which is a bad sentence.

>>24114259
>but you have to consider the editors and publishing house point of view
No I don't.
I am a straight male without a previous proven track record. I already know for certain such people have zero interest in anything I write or would write in the future. They aren't a potential audience worthy of consideration.

>>24114105
It’s alright. I’m sure you didn’t intend to read it anyway.

>>24114193
Good to see there's still psychos on /wg/

>>24111845
saw like 300 quotations and closed it

How do I stop my brain from coming up with and daydreaming about new story ideas every single day?

>>24114172
Hot, which fandom?

>>24114405
higher standards

>>24114405
Add on more and more detail to a single story idea as you daydream. Like really visualize each scene and setting in as much detail as you can muster.
Jump around different parts of the story and flesh them out.
When you can note down some of the better ideas during this daydreaming to plop into your outline.

Combine this with regular writing sessions so you can get some of the ideas out into a proper story.

If you aren't too slow of a writer you should be able to get a pretty good amount of a story written out before you start to get bored with the idea. At that point you likely already know the plot beats and how the story ends so it's just a sprint to the finish during a few good writing sessions. Bing bam boom, you got yourself a more or less complete first draft and can now start obsessing on a new story idea while daydreaming.

>>24114407
monster hunter rise hinoa/minoto/hunter

hunter comes back from being the hero of the game to the quaint village he started at. Hinoa loves him and wants to gain his favour, but feels too humble and "ho hum" in comparison to his new found grandeur. A bit of bad advice from the loli dango girl makes her decide that the only thing she has to capture his affections is a hot twin sister. Who would turn down polyamory with twins?

So she puts into motion various plans to get the hunter to fall in love with her AND minoto, only problem is he really just falls in love with minoto and she's stuck as bottom bitch.

>>24114405
By writing. Honestly. If you're actively focused in constructing one story, it will basically consume every waking moment of your mind.

Also, forcibly trigger those daydream sessions by going on walks. The blood flowing and lack of anything to really occupy your mind + the relaxing nature of a walk, triggers imagination. You can the guide and focus this almost as if it were a lucid dream to further develop what you want to make.

>>24114405
Start the story. Your brain becomes obsessed with that one idea

A story of the average /lit/ard fantasy writer:

Anon readjusted the scathing laptop on the mound of his belly as the white pixels blasted his face in the dim of his room. The air smelled of pepperonis. It was noon-ish, but the curtains were drawn. He worked his best prose in darkness.
>Elakhon towered like a column as-
He stopped reading. Towered? That’s a little overused, no? He tried to think of another word for tall things. Temples were tall.
>Elakhon templed like a column as he admired his bulging muscles glisten with condensation, those loyal fibrous companions which enveloped his bones since birth. He tensed them and they rippled like a storming sea of madness, his head-hair its thick ebony clouds and his nipples its two islands of solitude. He was covered in the blood of his two victims, toe to head, looking devilish. He was a killer, ooooo yes-
He wondered if he should delete the ‘ooooo’. He decided against it. He would not compromise his voice for marketability.
>-ooooo yes, a killer is what he had been, a killer is him and him would be killer. A grimy prophet once whispered madness in his ear, his voice a slithering, slippering gel that oiled the eardrums with gooey slime: Oh, young one of olde, killeth you shall, so killeth you willeth.
The rhyme felt good. It made him think that he should do poetry too. Not to mention the pride he felt at that gel line. He imagined a blockbuster line of arthoes lining up to talk to him at conventions once he was a famous author. One of them would come over - shy and smelling of strawberries - to offer him her virgin body as thanks for the emotional catharsis she felt while reading his work.
>Elakhon felt his voluptuous member dangle between his muscled thighs like a town bell, swaying with him in grief. The gigantic warrior enveloped two dead babes in his enormous manly hands and banana fingers, each of his narrowed eyes crying beautiful diamond tears over their innocent, deceased foreheads. He looked to the skies of swirling clouds of madness where the evil god Garmol sat cross-legged with a smirk.
>“I had to!” his voice boomed like a legion of exploding hurricanes, “I had to kill the babies in order to save trillions!”
Damn, he was good. He once again got shivers on the reread.
Time passed. The word doc titled 'Chapter 1' lay untouched since that day three years ago.

>>24114613
As 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!"

>Post a chapter of a story
>Someone makes a joke about a scene from the chapter using a gay twitter meme
This is seriously one the most annoying fucking things ever.

>>24114650
show me the chapter, i don't use twitter

https://pastebin.com/XNGTsbzG

I don't do comedy or anything like this. Figured I'd try my hand at light hearted fan fiction. How does this read? I'm at that point with this that I think it's just complete shit.

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>>24114829
not reading any more of this shit; but, consider cutting (this) to better link the simile to the metaphor and improve pacing

>>24114829
That intro paragraph is too purple. Other than that it's cute. Feels like something a horny 14 year old girl would write, which I guess means you succeeded?

>>24114829
>>24111633

>>24114072
You should bear in mind that this was seemingly written by someone who reviews submissions for a writing contest of some sort. He probably sees the same shit all the time and is telling prospective writers what will make him quit reading on the spot. If your work had been good up to the point of reading one of these, he would probably be less harsh on it, but if it hits more than 1 of them on the first page, it is 99% likely to be slop.

>>24113114
Hang in there, kitty

>>24113886
>No faggots today, I thought.
>Suddenly, anonymous

Where do you dudes post works in progress and short stories?

I can't wait until I have full length novels to publish before getting any sort of feedback.
Writing for yourself is all well and good but at its core stories are meant to be told and writing is primarily a form of communication.

>>24115035
>Where do you dudes post works in progress and short stories?
Literally here read the thread

>>24109101
You don't want to read my book. I have never been able to escape, pulverize or even subvert my conditioning successfully.

>>24115233
k

>>24115035
If the /lit/ thread isn't giving you the volume or quality of feedback you're looking for, you can search out specific communities. AO3 is pretty good but the feedback can be little more than short comments. You'll get more eyes on it there for sure at least.

For specific genres, I'd recommend seeking out distinct fandoms. If you're telling a story about space adventures, you may want to go science-focused community who are hungry for that sort of thing. If you have a story that features monstergirls, you'll probably get more feedback if the readers are partial to that content. A lot of /lit/ posters generally love reading and writing but they may not have a strong hunger for a specific flavor of content. At least not the content YOU'RE producing. That doesn't mean your writing is necessarily bad, it just means they don't care for the content.
>Where are these communities at?
You have to seek them out. If you find them though, you'll be regarded warmly if you give that community content they're hungry for. I got a lot of feedback for my monstergirl stuff because I posted it in a spot that specifically catered to monstergirl stories. Know your audience. Tell them the story you'd want to read and at least a few of them will align with your narrative.
>so you're saying not to post my shit on /lit/?
You can post whatever you want here, just be mindful that the tastes of the average /lit/ user may not align with yours stylistically or thematically.

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>>24109878
write a short story about this image

>>24115428
why the fuck did 4ch rotate it!?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/CatKittenAndMakkah.jpg there's the original link for you

The alley reeked of rust and decay, the faint hum of fluorescent light buzzing like an insect trapped beneath glass. The air hung heavy with the smell of damp stone and forgotten things—memories buried in walls, lives abandoned to silence. Somewhere above, the night sky loomed unseen, its stars choked out by the pale, suffocating glow of the distant clocktower.

Its face hovered like an unblinking eye, green and gold and impossibly bright, peering over the city’s carcass. It watched without pity, its hands marking time with the precision of a blade slicing through flesh. To look upon it was to feel the weight of inevitability, the slow erosion of hope into resignation.

Below, a cat lay sprawled on the cracked steps of a doorway, its fur matted and stained with the grime of the street. It did not move, save for the faint rise and fall of its ribs. Its eyes, dull and reflective, stared at nothing, though the light from the clocktower caught in their surface, making them gleam like shattered glass.

The building behind it leaned against the weight of time, its facade pocked with the scars of neglect. Wires hung from its frame like veins stripped bare, sagging and tangled, feeding into the buzzing light above the door. The glow spilled out in a pale rectangle, illuminating the steps but going no farther, as though the light dared not touch the darkness beyond.

A man stood in that doorway, his shadow stretched thin and crooked against the opposite wall. He was a gaunt figure, his face gaunt and lined, shoulders slumped beneath the weight of the night. In his hand, he held a watch—its face cracked, its hands frozen. He stared at it as though it might offer him an answer, though he already knew there was none.

He glanced at the clocktower, its face looming above the city like a distant god. He had once admired its beauty, its grandeur, its precision. But now, he felt only loathing. The tower’s light was no beacon—it was a specter, illuminating not the path forward, but the ruin of all that lay behind.

The man looked down at the cat. For a moment, he envied its stillness, its quiet acceptance of the world’s cruelty. He wanted to speak, to say something, anything, but the words would not come. His throat burned with the weight of unspoken thoughts, the kind that festered and grew until they consumed.

>>24115438
For
>>24115434
>>24115428

>>24115438
The clocktower’s chime rang out, sharp and clear, cutting through the silence like a knife. Midnight. The sound rippled through the alley, and the man flinched as though struck. He clenched the watch tighter, the cracked glass pressing into his palm. Blood welled in the lines of his hand, dripping onto the steps below.

And then, the cat moved. Its head lifted, its eyes meeting his. For a moment, he thought he saw something there—something alive, something aware. The light from the clocktower flickered in its gaze, and for the briefest of moments, he felt as though it were mocking him.

He stepped back into the doorway, the buzzing light framing his silhouette. The world beyond the alley seemed impossibly far away, unreachable. The man slid the watch into his pocket and closed the door behind him. The light cut out, leaving the alley in darkness once more.

Above, the clocktower gleamed, its hands moving forward, indifferent and eternal.

The darkness of the alley settled like a shroud, heavy and still. The faint hum of the clocktower’s distant machinery vibrated through the stones, a low, rhythmic pulse that seemed to come from the earth itself. The cat stretched languidly, its claws scraping against the step. It moved with deliberate slowness, as though time had no hold over it, unlike the city’s restless inhabitants.

Behind the closed door, the man leaned against the wall, his breath shallow and quick. The cracked watch sat in his pocket, its presence an unbearable weight against his chest. He could still feel the edges of the broken glass cutting into his palm, though the blood had already begun to dry. The wound was shallow, but the sting lingered, as if the watch had not merely cut him, but marked him.

His thoughts spiraled, looping endlessly like the gears of the clocktower far above. The tower’s face flashed in his mind—green, gold, unrelenting. It had been there for as long as he could remember, dominating the skyline, a monument to precision and control. But it was a lie. Time was no master; it was a predator, a beast that devoured without mercy. He had seen it consume the city, its people, its dreams. And now it circled him, its jaws closing in.

The hum of the fluorescent light buzzed through the thin walls of the room, mingling with the faint chime of the clocktower, each tick echoing louder than the last. He pressed his hands to his ears, but the sound grew sharper, more insistent, digging into his skull like a burrowing worm.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

>>24115443
It wasn’t just in the clocktower anymore. It was in him, in his blood, in his bones. The pulse in his wrist throbbed in time with it, a perfect synchronization that left no room for escape. He stumbled forward, the room spinning as though the floor had fallen away. The cracked watch slipped from his pocket, landing on the wooden floor with a hollow clink.

He stared at it, its broken face catching the faint light that leaked through the cracks in the shutters. The hands were still frozen, unmoving, defiant. For a moment, he wanted to crush it, to grind it into nothing beneath his heel. But he didn’t. Instead, he reached down and picked it up, cradling it in his hands like a fragile thing. It was his curse, his reminder, his tether to something he couldn’t name.

Beyond the walls, the city stirred. A distant crash echoed through the streets, followed by the faint sound of shouts, though whether they were of anger or fear, he couldn’t tell. The city was restless tonight. The clocktower’s light seemed brighter now, piercing through the cracks in the shutters, cutting lines of green and gold across the walls like a prison’s bars.

He moved to the window, pulling the shutter open just enough to peer outside. The alley was empty save for the cat, now perched on the top step, its gaze fixed upward. The man followed its line of sight, his eyes drawn inexorably to the clocktower. Its face was a radiant wound against the night, its hands moving steadily, endlessly. And then, for just a moment, they stopped.

He blinked, certain he had imagined it. But the tower’s light flickered, its glow dimming as though it were holding its breath. The air in the alley grew thick, suffocating, and the distant hum of the clocktower ceased. The silence was absolute, a void that pressed against his ears, his chest, his mind.

The cat turned its head to him, its green eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. It did not blink, did not look away. For a moment, he felt as though it was waiting for something. Then the chime came again, louder this time, ringing through the city like a shattering scream.

Midnight, once more. But something had changed. The cat leapt down from the step and vanished into the shadows. The man felt it too—an unease, a shift, as though the city itself had drawn a long, trembling breath. The clocktower’s light returned, brighter than before, and the hum resumed, but the sound was different now. It was deeper, slower, like the grinding of ancient gears long left to rust.

The man turned from the window, clutching the watch tightly. He didn’t know what had just happened, but he knew one thing: the clocktower’s rhythm was no longer the same.

And whatever force had disturbed it, whatever had turned its steady march into this fractured beat, was moving now.

And it was coming.

>>24115428
https://pastebin.com/Q940DyRc

>>24115422
>AO3 is pretty good
what the...
/wg/ is honestly pretty good for prose critique but pretty ass for story telling and narrative structure

>>24115476
That's because narrative structure is the harder of the two to master.

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I didn't say /lit/ was bad, just that posters here may not get as excited about your work as some more fandom-centric communities might. I didn't get any bites on my monstergirl story I posted a few days ago but I don't blame /wg/ for that since that's niché content arguably. That and the "short story" I submitted was almost 20k words.

>>24115482
tis true

>>24115499
I'll probably read something from you once you post something that's not 20k words
you're a bit misguided as a anime gooner but you seem invested in the medium and have a good faith mentality. gmi so long as you try

>>24115518
>good faith mentality
That's my main problem.
>I'll probably read something from you once you post something that's not 20k words
It was more like 17k, but I digress. It was originally written in chunks via green text and consumed by my audience over the course of a few days so the original consumers of said content didn't down it all in one go to be fair. After re-editing that monster (hue) of a greentext I haven't touched any of my earlier works for a while. I was letting my brain recover from the prior labor. I'll see if I can find a smaller work for my next editing project.

>>24115559
Dude, every time I read some of my older stories I die from cringe.

>>24115566
Brother, I cringe at my own stories while I'm writing them. Try to bear in mind that you are going to be your most vitriolic critic (if you're a half-decent writer anyway) and that's a good thing. I'm not saying to go out of your way to neg yourself, self-flagellation is for sad sacks who like the taste of their own tears. Find your resolve and work to improve. Remember
>No first draft is perfect.
If you really hate your old writing so much, go back and change it. Figure out what you did wrong and improve on it. Maybe you can salvage a concept or a passage that was meaningful if somewhat misplaced when you wrote it. Maybe it's all garbage with nothing to salvage. What's fucked up is you'll get people who love the shit you hate and hate the shit you love and it'll make you question if you have any idea what you're doing at all. Whatever the case, you should strive to tell stories you'd want to read, and more than likely, you won't be the only one who enjoys them.

>>24115593
better to move on and start something new. reflect on and analyze your old efforts but you'll stagnate if you just poke at the same story forever

>>24115604
Well, the re-editing I'm doing is (in the hope) I'll have a little compendium of assorted stories as a little collection of "here were some of my earlier writings, enjoy".

The exercise will also serve as a proofreading and self-critique that gives me the opportunity to repackage a lot of my previous work. None of my stuff is so terrible that I hate it completely. I may abandon some things but I have a decent body of content that I can play with.

This is the year I become kino at writing.

this year I become cringe at writing and finally allow myself to write slop instead of insisting on the highest standard at all times

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>be short on money and desperate
>out of all the ideas I tried, one was creating a KDP account and uploading a smut short story
>obviously it doesn't sell
>fast forward 5 years, not broke anymore but wanting to write more seriously now that I can afford it
>mfw that book is tied to my account now
>mfw I can't remove it entirely
Is there any way to 100% remove the book from my account? It honestly causes me a bit of shame having that item forever there. Will editing it with a different title, cover and even the story to SFW content work, or it will always show the old horny title?

>>24115879
>>be short on money
>have your first thought be "lets write porn"
>think its gonna sell
uhm anon

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>>24115881
Honestly I tried many side projects at the same time, throwing them to the wall to see what sticked. One of them was enrolling into a CS degree, got lucky during COVID and now I make plenty of bank WFH with enough spare time to pursue my hobbies.
Writing smut wasn't my best idea but hey, I wanted to try, and I read plenty of stories about fantasy authors flopping hard that I decided going with a lower effort theme with a "hungry" reader base.

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>>24115906
smut peddler here who did it for free.
Writing smut can be fun and get you validation for your weird kinks and fetishes but turning that into a commercial endeavor will be tricky. Rather than focus on smut, I'd say to focus on a good story that has sexual elements or undertones. Just bear in mind a professional editor will probably tell you to cut the smut from the final story so they can sell it to a wider audience. Especially if you're a no-name nobody.

On the flip side, if you've built up an online cummunity that enjoys your work and doesn't mind the smut included in your writing, they'll pay to keep you pumping out more content. As a guy, if I'm going to spank it, I prefer hentai doujins or some other visually stimulating media. Women can fiddle their beans to books but you have to keep in mind that audience if you're catering to women. Generally speaking, if every chapter includes some lewd interlude I think you'll wear out your welcome for most readers unless the smut is tied into the plot in an interesting way.

If you feel confident enough to share it, go ahead post some of your work. Maybe your particular brand of "He shoved his engorged girth into her waiting gash with glee, intent on filling her womb with his potent seed" will be the next big thing.

David Lynch wrote kino but now he's dead just like all the rest. What's the point?

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>>24116025
>Nietzsche pilled
Everyone dies.
99.99999% of people ever born will be forgotten within 2 to 3 generations.
Even if you're part of the .00001% that makes something worth remembering, that thing will barely be remembered by the smallest niché of people for about 200 or so years at best before your legacy falls into antiquity. At this point, you will be little more than a blurb on Wikipedia or some esoteric website that caters to a very specific brand of history or culture.
Ego is a spook.

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That feeling that you get when listening to your favourite guiatr rif or epic orchestral piece? That inspiration you get when watching anime or michael bay movies?
EMBRACE THEM!
Reject the self-doubt of being cringe or too unaware.
Stop it with the eyerolling satire.
Destroy those who would do self-aware 4th wall breaks.
Purge away every single pop culture reference.
Make yourself anew.
Embrace the camp.

Yet another different short story sent to yet another different press. Keep wishing me luck!

>>24115879
>out of all the ideas I tried, one was creating a KDP account and uploading a smut short story
Was it good at least?

Nobody make a new thread
>>24109814
>>24109814
>>24109814
Also, how easy is it to pay to win? I hear that breakout science fiction author Pierce Brown was rich and bought his way into the industry

>>24115422
>AO3
I thought that site was only for fan fiction?

>>24115672
>>24115799
This is the year I actually complete writing projects even if I think they are bad once in the middle of them.

>>24116235
where'd you hear that? red rising is actually alright

>>24115672
>>24115799
>>24116370
This is the year where I force myself to write every day.

If I took a bunch of random posts from 4chan, used them as dialogue, then wrote prose around them, would that be considered plagiarism?

>>24116617
Yeah but what the fuck are we gonna do about it?

>>24116358
It also allows original works.

>>24116459
Goddammit I love those books

>>24116672
allowing isn't the same as being a good place for it

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>>24116617
At the bottom of every 4chan page it says "Comments are owned by the poster". So yes, you'd be committing plagiarism. Plus, you'd be pissing off a bunch of autistic shutins that have nothing better to do than track you down, dox you, and make your life a living hell. Not worth it.

Would anyone care to experience a beautiful book entitled Feeding Taylor Swift 78 CheeseBurgers and 1 Hamburger

it is you do . . .

https://feedingtaylorswift.com/

>>24116765
Yeah, but at least they don't censor works, and there are not alternatives as permissive as AO3.

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>>24116869

>>24116798
Get real, nobody here would ever even know it existed, much less get upset over it

>>24116617
It's only plagiarism if you get caught. No, seriously.

Regardless, it wouldn't be a very good book. Dialogue isn't meant to mirror irl speech. People don't talk like characters, and characters don't talk like people. Whenever characters talk in a story, they're always delivering information about the story, be it plot, character, theme, setting, what have you, and doing it in a way that's masked as a natural conversation.

When done poorly, it looks like:
https://youtube.com/shorts/x4KuIo0RF9Y?si=_rt8mj5uQYLprFCD

But done well, it looks like:
https://youtu.be/9FnO3igOkOk?si=1yl0aCsfMuQaii0V

for litrpg does the backstory really matter? or do you just want the most sound and succinct bullshit excuse to level your mans

>>24115438
Positives:
Good description
Good atmosphere

Areas for Improvement:
Far too purple - in the first paragraph you have described the smell of the air in two different sentences, with six different words basically conveying the same thing
-rust
-decay
-damp
-forgotten
-memories
-abandoned

Pacing needs to be tightened - you have multiple paragraphs dedicated just to describing the scene from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, before introducing the character. Consider that it may be much more effective to first introduce the character, and then describe the scene from his perspective. You have done this with the clock and the cat, but after previous paragraphs where you basically describe them in the same way. Too much of this slows things down and makes the reader lose interest. By describing this from the characters perspective, you are also developing them out, giving the reader a look inside their head, so double effect.

Basically, always better to describe things from a characters POV, and always better to use as minimal description as possible, that crucially is able to convert the same emotional impact. If you can use one good word instead of two to describe the alley as neglected, just use one.

Good stuff though, just need to add forward movement to the scene. Readers only have a certain allowance for description, no matter how good.

>>24116930
You must be new here.

>>24111130
I would not write about the kind of people who vomit.