"Reading Rambo" editionPrevious: >>24684535/wg/ AUTHORS & FLASH FICTION: https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQRESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS: https://pastebin.com/nFxdiQvCPlease limit excerpts to one post.Give advice as much as you receive it to the best of your ability.Follow prompts made below and discuss written works for practice; contribute and you shall receive.If you have not performed a cursory proofread, do not expect to be treated kindly. Edit your work for spelling and grammar before posting.Violent shills, relentless shill-spammers, and grounds keeping prose, should be ignored and reported.(And maybe double-space your WIPs to allow edits if you want 'em.)Simple guides on writing:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHdzv1NfZRMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whPnobbck9shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKcbvioxFkThread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiD2Qcth0EI
>>24698741Another Reddit meme for another Reddit thread.
>>24698746I downloaded that image from /tv/.
Are there any rules of grammar or any known style guides that say you can't use "I" to begin a sentence?Every English class in every school I've gone to didn't let students start sentences with "I," and I kept up the habit of not writing that way into my 30's now, but it wasn't until today that I asked myself if that's an actual rule.
>>24698759I think that's due to stylistic rules. Obviously if you're writing a novel in first person, or narrating the thoughts of someone in third person, you can use I sometimes.
>>24698759Your teachers are mostly right. Using "I" to start a sentence is limited to specific contexts - >>24698764 mentioned two, and the other one is if you're expressing your own thoughts in something you're writing (e.g., "I think...", "I feel..."). But in literally any other context, starting a sentence with "I" is a mistake. And even when it isn't, the chances that you can find a better way to phrase a sentence so "I" doesn't start the sentence are pretty good. And in the case of writing opinion pieces and whatnot where your opinions come into play, getting rid of "I" statements can be helpful in getting to your point without subconsciously hedging your bets (e.g., "I think Rei is Best Girl, and here's why" vs. "Rei is Best Girl, and here's why").
>>24698753So?
What if I presented the 14 y/o love interest as the MC and her 22 y/o boyfriend as the love interest instead?
>>24698819Your work would still be ignored. Meanwhile, this has a 4.57 rating on Goodreeads.
>>24698841that's gotta be some AI shit
>>24698841Better ignored than cancelled
>>24698759I have never heard of this stupid rule. If you're writing in first person you will definitely be starting sentences with I all the time.
>>24698877Cope.>>24698879Far from being cancelled, Watkins is raking it in. What are you even on about?
I still have no idea what I'm doing. I can't come up with good characters, good designs good prose, change perspective, anything I actually want to do. Every time I open a Google doc and try writing it feels torturous because nothing that I'm wanting to write comes out. Its never to the standard that I want immediately.
>>24698989Sounds like you should give up
>>24698989Same. All my characters seem bland and flat compared to famous ones that are actually successful.
>>24698989Are you sure you're cut out to be a writer? Why do you want to write?
>>24698989>Its never to the standard that I want immediately.That's one of your problems: You expect to make gold right out of the gate when even the best writers will always make at least a little bullshit. Stop expecting perfection of yourself; you'll never reach it and you'll beat yourself up for not reaching it right out of the gate.Half of writing is editing. But that half has to take place AFTER you finish the writing. Editing while writing is a sure-fire way to fuck your shit up. So stop doing it.
>>24699022i just use a different voice in my head for each character its that easy
>want to write something>get depressed because I don't have it written>have something written>get depressed because nobody reads it>somebody reads it>get depressed because people can read it so fast and easily while it took me so much time and effort to writeI think I have issues that writing can't solve
>>24699422>write something people can't read fast or easily>get depressed because nobody reads it
>>24699438>write something that gets people easy and fast>they call it "smut"
>>24698989It never gets easier and it's not easier for anyone elseAnyone who doesn't find great difficulty writing is writing shitPush on*sick guitar riff Sysphius meme plays*
>>24698841t-b-f the book appears very direct about what it is, so anyone inclined to give it a poor rating (i.e., not interested in that sort of thing) won't pick it up in the first place.>>24698877It was published 2018, did legible AI books not turn up until the 2020s or did they have those back then too and I'm just forgetting?
>>24698879You're not famous unless you've been cancelled at least a few times.
>>24698759I ditto this >>24698909I've been told before to write like that on job applications because it's supposed to signal that you don't care about yourself and will sell your soul to the company. You might've just had that brainwashing done to you young. I do, however, remember getting told not to start sentences with "and." And I now know that's a bullshit rule, too. >>24698809I think this guy is probably like the know-it-all kid from Polar Express IRLI don't think there's a need to intellectualize your writing through this kind of dissection. You end up setting yourself a ton of arbitrary hindrances. Let the words flow.
>>24698753I read this in Homer's "I bought these shoes from a hobo" voice
>>24699479>I ditto this ><24698909The rule that you uphold is the same you break. You are as honest as a wind is still.
i shared my wip draft with my girlfriend and i feel so embarrassed
>>24699461>did legible AI books not turn up until the 2020s or did they have those back then too and I'm just forgetting?AI only really became a thing last year. The models before that were useless
>>24699037>>24699022>>24698991I've been writing and role-playing for 12 years. I've been writing since I was 12 years old. I've also had people tell me that I'm an amazing writer. I don't know how I did it before.
>>24698989this poster doesn't want to writethis poster will not listen to what you saythis poster makes this post every other week and has for yearsignore this poster
Do readers like light-novels? I've just commissioned some illustrations... Also, I just wrote my first webnovel!! Easy to look at on the phone, easy easy...https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/128737/the-wheel-and-the-wing
>>24699966>>>/lit/wngnice art doe
>>24699978Haha... my topic was of web novels but also light novels to get one foot in the door. Good catch.
>>24698759>Every English class in every school I've gone to didn't let students start sentences with "I,"Not because of grammarr but because of style. Since "don't write your essay in first person you retards" is too complicated for the average american schoolchild to understand
>>24698753It’s woke DEI bullshit dude, it makes you look dull and uncreative. Delete the pic or the thread and make a better one. You can do better man.
>>24700110lol touch grass chud
>>24699790You need to stop caring about what the inner voice you've cultivated to protect your ego says, kids do whatever the fuck they want because they feel like it and don't have the years of failures and other people shitting on their efforts that adults have.
Where to find real (non-ai) beta readers in the big 25? Most websites I've looked are useless without a subscription.I'm willing to take the time to read and swap critiques.
>>24699582Soon to be ex-girlfriend now
>>24698967I'm talking about an underage heroine.
>>24698741I'm 67k words into my book but I hit a mental roadblock and I went from writing full chapters in a day to not getting more that 300 words a week. I hate It because I know how to end the story. I hope to make a push and just blarb whatever comes out of my head into the computer and let It rest into a Word file.
>>24699978/wng/ is only for a specific kind of webnovel
>>24700479I'm in a similar boat. 50k words in, have no idea how to proceed with the middle portion, though I do have a vague idea of the ending. I just can't think up anything interesting to happen to link them.
>>24700482What kind is that?
>>24700482nah
>>24700493Let's hope we can finish our books before losing hope.
Yay I finally finished the first draft of my princess story the rest of you all hate. What are some good tips on how to edit?
>>24700544Make the prose as purple as possible. Add a lot of alliteration also.
I'm looking back at my old writing and wondering how I did it before.
>>24700565I do this too
In high school I had to go see a therapist / social worker. My mother at some point gave him some essay I wrote, I don't even know what about. From then on he was convinced I was some genius writer and kept comparing me to Oscar Wilde. I read some of us stuff and it's nothing like the garbage I write.
So I keep reading books and books and I hardly feel encouraged in my writing due to my own fault of normalizing myself quite a lot. I do hate some authors and their obvious fetishes but I think I should be open with mine when writing. I'm not writing porn, I mean that I lack confidence, intellectual insecurity is rather pathetic when writing.
>>24700587>I do hate some authors and their obvious fetishes but I think I should be open with mine when writing.Be cringe and free, and you'll have an audience.
7th rejection letter. I should have just wrote a queer romantasy about a woman in a coffee shop being kidnapped by aliens who become sympathetic to her plight and agree to help her punish her boss by repeatedly pegging him. "Space Lesbians Fuck The Patriarchy".I'd probably be on my way to being a millionaire right now.
You can shit on AI all you want, but I find it very helpful to work with it to find me plausible locations for my setting. I'm doing a story in Los Angeles, know nothing about it, and ChatGPT is helping me find locations I can base me scenes in that are realistic so the natives won't complain about plot holes.
>>24700659AI is the future and anyone who says otherwise is just coping.I use it to make illustrations about the setting I write. I'm not publishing those, I just like to make them and share them on X.
>>24700684I've done that too, trying to help me get a feel for outfits and designs since I can't draw worth shit.
The twig-woven nests fallto the ground and shine as blacklicorice to taunt me that wouldaccept any sustenance. My muscleshave long since passed the point ofcramping no not mere cramping theycontract and bubble to crushmy bones from within I'm sure ofit worms through my shoes tofeast on my dead skin, they'll hit the livingsoon enough. Carcass after carcasspasses me by in pieces torn by notsavages but madmen and the stenchbegs me to finally fall and join the soupI have already become so tender.
>>24700482not really, they talk about all of the different flavors and genres of popular webficif you're just writing a trad book and planning to drop it on royalroad or something like that, though, they will advise you against it (because it's retarded to do that).
>write outline>start story>something I didn't begin to consider in my outline pops up Am I doing it right? M
>>24700659But chatgpt doesn't know anything about los angeles either.
>>24700740The various flavors of progression fantasy are all they seriously entertain. If you want to do any other type of webnovel you're SOL.
>>24700851My goodness a stray m found its way into my post!
>>24700859not true
>>24700866Let's have a look at the OPs of their past threads... Oops, all prog fantasy!
>>24700865
>>24700872it's a picture
>>24700258You could reach out to me personally if you want to swap.I have an 85K-word satirical horror manuscript in need of feedback. I posted about it looking for readers quite a few threads ago. productionblues@proton.me
>>24700859they talk about Katalepsis (lesbian cosmic horror), Pale Lights (trad fantasy, more or less), Wandering Inn (way more slice of life than actual progfantasy, but sure, technically a litrpg), Worm (capeshit with minor progression elements). there are also several sci-fi fans writing space opera shit thereessentially all long-running serials will be prog fantasy in some strict definitional sense though. but so are most actual fantasy and sci fi novels lmaoif it's popular as a web novel, they'll talk about it and not be bothered. they get annoyed when people come in with obvious trad-style writing that isn't popular anywhere on the web.
>>24700854I'm cross-referencing its recommendations with Google Maps. I'm noting locations and measuring driving distance to see what's plausible.
>>24700659>hallucinates locations
>>24700916Less than a dozen out of the hundreds of stories they talk about and it's all royalroad.
>>24700921Why do you need ChatGPT if you're still using Google Maps anyway? Cut out the middleman. Better yet, crawl out of your hovel, visit the place, and get some genuine experience with it
>>24700946They talk about webnovel.com and scribblehub.com serials plentyWhich major web novels do they shun? You're talking out of your ass
>>24700946you're making no sense and this coming from nowherebe honest, are you just baiting a threadwar to pass the time?
>>24700948Because LA is fuckhuge and trying to find certain features is like finding a needle in a haystack. And hell no, I couldn't be paid enough to visit that dump.
>>24700951>and scribblehub.com serialsNow you're being silly.
>>24700993scribblehub is the one that allows erotica and they do talk about smutty serials on occasion. much less commonly, of course, but smutty serials are a very small niche, so that makes sense.the only writing they shun is tradshit, because obviously it doesn't belong in the web novel slop thread
Spent 9 hours editing today. My story is still an utter mess but I'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe this will turn into something worth reading in the end
>>24700740tradpub is hopeless.
>>24701002You're being dishonest about what they talk about and who to write for, their suggestions all revolve around publishing for royalroad.
Try to force myself to finish this short story or write something very short and simple to push myself out of this funk?
>>24701029>You're being dishonest about what they talk aboutHow so? They talk about RR stories most but they definitely talk about webnovel and chinkshit (RI, LOTM, SS, etc) all the time. They also frequently talk about serials only posted on personal author sites (wildbow's stuff, TWI)Most writers there focus on royalroad because it is by a full order of magnitude the most popular western-oriented web serial site. It's like complaining that a self-pub thread mostly talks about how to publish on Amazon instead of the tiny pub sites no one has ever heard of. You're being retarded, manBesides, that wasn't even the topic. You were whining that they shun serials other than RR, and they certainly don't.I wasn't convinced, but now I am: You're definitely some tradfag who dropped his 30k word collection of short stories and got told to fuck off because that isn't what the web novel thread is for
>>24701041I've never posted any stories of mine there because I know the community.
>>24701046You come off as extremely low IQ. You just say whatever comes to mind as if it has anything to do with anything.
>>24700479Two suggestions:1. Switch to writing something else for a little while; getting out of your headspace for your main project can help you refocus later on.2. If you're running into a problem with the story itself, your issue is likely somewhere before where you're at now and you just don't realize it yet, so look back and see if there's something you wrote that put you into a corner.
>>24701060You come off as desperate to protect your community from any criticism even when it's based in fact.
>has nothing to say>can't hold onto a rhetorical point>pointlessly chain replying for hours on endname thyself
wrote 37k words this week lads, how are the rest of you doing?
>>24701159Wrote about 140 words on the 31st. I've been busy bingeing webnovel sloppa after finishing the Iliad recently, and before I start on the Odyssey.
>>24701122there are many valid things to insult /wng/ for but what you've said has been nonsense the entire time. that's why im responding.more importantly, you have to be like 80 iq because nothing you say stays on topic, you just post random shit as if you're making a point
