"The Ressurection of /wg/" EditionPrevious: >>25086419/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.Discuss the written works below 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.Shitposters should be ignored and reported.Beginner guides on writing:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHdzv1NfZRMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whPnobbck9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKcbvioxFk Intermediate guides on writing:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48654.Storyhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3097766-borges-on-writinghttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23056.Image_Music_TextAdvanced guide on writing:Just do it.Theme: https://youtu.be/7TX5ofXR2T8?si=nS5CsqmmfCo0Pv8K
>>25105037I'm surprised nobody here written anything to do with Christianity
>>25105165My military fantasy novel is allegorical to soldiers finding God while at war. No athiests in foxholes, etc.
I just finished planning out the major plot points between the start and end of my story. As it stands, it means I would have to write 8 books total to complete the story.Am I retarded? I take the "kill your darlings" advice to heart and the structure is pretty lean as is. Should I look at condensing the books or just accept that writing filler isn't necessarily a bad thing?
>>25105167>military fantasy novel>Fantasy No. That won't do. We need a story that references Christ
>>25105173Post chapter 1 and chapter 10 and we'll help you see if it's really too lean. The author cannot see what works and what doesn't.
>>25105180Guess you better go back in time and tell CS Lewis to throw all his Narnia manuscripts in the bin.
>>25105186No, because CS Lewis wrote other things like the Screwtape Letters
>>25105167>fantasyAlready you people are shitting up this thread.
>>25105165The Victoria story posted is a Christian Historical Fiction.
How does this guy write so much?
I try to read stuff that's close to what I want to write to see what's already been done, how it's similar to what I'm doing, how it's different, and what's done well in my opinion.I found the Tales of the Octopus, an european comic about a supernatural mafia based in Paris around the late nineteenth- early twentieth century. It was actually pretty great. Each book is almost self-contained, but I was impressed how it blended fantasy in very small yet interesting ways, ruthless mafia business, and most of all the characters that you really start caring about even if the bodycount of each album tend to be quite high.The english scans are in /co/'s archives if you wantDo you guys also try to read stuff that's similar to your own, or do you try to keep yourself pure of any influence?
>>25105037I have a week available. I gotta figure out a mini arc to give a newly introduced character because otherwise events will come off as contrived. Problem is I'm a pantser and I don't know how to do things not established in an outline.
>>25105243it’s easy to shit out meaningless words.
>>25105243It's easy to pump stuff out with the help of a formula. All you have to do is be devoid of creative passion
>>25105173Writing filler is necessarily a bad thing
>>25105165My anthology (only one novella out so far) is about the antichrist, does that count?
>>25105173I got requested specifically to add more filler. I did not have it planned in the outline so it's extremely difficult. My work is very character driven and I was told it was necessary to craete organic chemistry.
>>25105338Whoever told you this is either stupid or trying to sabotage your work
>>25105296I read books because I love them and not just to cynically collect influences for my own work.
>>25105306You've got it backwards, planners use outlines, panters do not
>>25105342My writing style is definitely older, might be considered archaic. My genre is epic fantasy and I was told they are into deep character building events that don't necessarily do much outside of establish character relationships so that the quest feels more organic.>>25105352I meant to say not a pantser. I can't function without an outline and right now the outline doesn't leave much space for filler.
>>25105338>character driven story>forced to add character-developing fillerHow the fuck did you convince someone to pay you to make anything?
>>25105424Standards are way lower than you expect. Making a good story is something I have to work on. Publishers and even audiences don't care about it as much as you think.
>>25105448That's both unfortunate and encouraging. I've felt the decline in writing quality over the years but it never stops feeling strange when it's pointed out
>>25105456Learn about the audience you want and make sure you pander to them. It's up to you to make sure your pandering doesn't come at the cost of the story you want to tell. Once you get a small group things become feasible.
>>25105296i try to avoid reading anything similar to what i'm writing
>deciding what clothes to wear is conflict >No not that kind!>He should be deciding what sword to use, not what shirt to put onWhat's the difference?
>>25105613For me it's having my FeMC decide if she should wear a bra or not
>>25105613Who are you quoting?
Crazy revelation right here: there's no simple secret ingredient that'll automatically make your writing interesting
>>25105382>My writing style is definitely older, might be considered archaicNo, it's not. Several people told you as much last thread. You don't even read in "your genre" to know what expectations people have. Who is telling you and requesting these things? Grok? What a joke.
>>25105786You must be thinking of someone else. I don't post much here.
>>25105802Yeah I don't think so retard.
>>25105772other than reading
>>25105861That's not true unfortunately. Most writers are readers and most of them are absolute garbage. Like you.
>>25105875do you not read?
Who are we shitting on this time?
>>25105919The homo that posts excerpts of other people's work for critique once a week to make himself feel better about his garbage dark academia getting shit on three years ago.
>fart as I write>Write a farting scene>It's relevant to the world building because lol the MC is relatable because I fart too!
>>25105924Someone else in this thread writes dark academia? I'm sure you can't mean me because I only published my novella due to someone here telling me it wasn't bad. I also don't bother posting or even reading excerpts at all anymore.
>>25105899
How is it?
>>25105991I like it but the character goes from being sad to being sad, is the loss of mortality then important or not? He should at least feel temporary liberation at being immortal and go beat up his retarded relatives
>>25105991Very good. Great prose, great, conflict, great hook, great world building. Absolutely no complaints. Other anons should take note and use you as how to write. Best writer on /wg/. Period.
>>25105969You got trolled just like this >>25106012
https://youtu.be/twkhipz4_nY?si=obNy9tqsIK3r4pyR
>>25106019Sounds more like you're sad nobody ever praises your stuff
Screenplay alertThis a good start to a short film? Are you hooked? Do you want to know how it ends?
>>25106099>Another VictoriaThis meme needs to end
>>25106106Well luckily I wrote that script to make the images, I can ctrl+h and change the name very quickly if necessary
>>25106113why? Victoria is a good name. It's just funny there's like 5 different victoria stories by 5 different anons all at once. For some reason Victoria is very loved here.
i asked this yesterday but what's a decent website to upload writing? mostly short stories. anyone have experience with that?
>>25106159your own website or royal road
>>25106069Coping and projecting.
>>25105165My current project is an intelligence thriller slash conspiracy slash human drama set in a world where Catholicism is literally true and mind reading is real
I’m a writer and illustrator with a few traditionally published short stories, some self-published collections, and a novel out with agents. I haven’t been jazzed with most writing communities online, and decided to make my own. The goal is to get quality feedback and help others improve. I’m also planning on putting together some anthologies with evenly split revenue sharing through Pubshare. I’m hoping some motivated people might be interested, and we can make cool stuff.https://discord.gg/6eEhxw3Me
>get beta readers >The point out shit that's already there>Miss all the subtle messages>Can't fill in casual dialogue between characters >Thinks cursing is matureI realized there are also a lot of bad readers.
>>25106270Where do you find them? I have friends and family but I feel their feedback is biased because it's me. I found one person online who gave me feedback for the first half of my book (which was actually very helpful) but then just stopped reading and ghosted me.
>>25106270Missing subtle messaging is fine. It shouldn't be crucial to tell a good story anyways but rather give hints to make people want to re-read. If a normal person could understand it immediately then it isn't subtle.
I think the only advantage written smut has over all other pornographic mediums is the ability to focus on character emotions and reactions to an extent that images and videos just can'tI strongly believe that if you're gonna be writing smut at all, every motion you describe should also describe the feelings involved in it even if it's just physical sensations, and if you're not gonna show an emotion you shouldn't be writing the action. Even if it's an action that's meant to move the scene along.
Sent something of mine to my sister the other day and I forget the opening chapter makes allusion to the potential fishy smell of a 13 year old's vagina (the MC's little sister, no less; in jest), and then further allusions (comedic ones, yes, but comedic mostly because of how persistent they are) to the fact she's menstruating. Is she gonna think I'm a weird cunt?Also her boyfriend of 10 years broke up with her the next day
>>25105173>I would have to write 8 books total to complete the story.No you wouldnt. How long is out outline?
>>25106478The fact you have to question it means you already know the answer, weird cunt.
I have no idea what to write about. Whatever I think about just feels useless or stupid.
>>25106302Not with every motion, but yes, the feelings should add to the erotism of the scene. Remember, the purpose of smut is to get off, not a psychologist session.
>>25105991You, good sir, are a master wordsmith. A true intellectual akin to the great men of old
>>25106722>>25106006>>25106012Thanks guys. Ive been trying hard to write this. It has taken months off my life.
Why do you all write in first person?
>>25106782Because I can self insert
>>25106760kys retard
>>25105165I wrote a novel with a Catholic protagonist and deutertagonist, and played with faith as a theme. I posted about it once every few months.I have a few short months until my editor can start work, if you like neo noir and sci fi let me know. I can post a sample or give an email to let you (or anyone else) look at the current working copy.
>>25106883Post it
>think of writing something>"who the fuck is gone read this unc shit?"
>>25106886As requested. Here's the first pages.
>>25106886>>25107039And here's a sample from deeper in the text. These were the samples I used when reaching out to editors.If you'd like to read the whole thing, email me atstarlight.beta.reads@gmail.comThanks
>>25107039What's the point of starting talking about the weather? Just skip it, jump straight to the sci-fi.
>>25107039Yucky. So much yucky smut. Kissing and handholding. Honestly though, you have millennial writing. Everything beats around the bush and everyone sounds kinda samey. Even Ana, a supposed vulnerable girl, puts on a tough girl act that feels very inauthentic.Gus even sounds like the kid selling him cigarettes. Both have that annoying ellipses talk and in movies its that inaudible raspy mumbling conversation that forces everyone to read subtitles I do like your use of repetition and setting the mood of the story. Your word choice is very good. It makes it dark while using enough vocabulary without making it sound like you dug through a thesaurus. Makes me wonder how it'd sound if it was written in 3rd limited.
>>25107083I was born a few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, so yeah guilty as charged for being a millennial. I don't even know if kids know what the Berlin Wall is anymore, or even 9/11.I know, handholding, it doesn't get lewder than that. I'm sorry to hear it all fell kind of flat for you. Gus is a bit more of a subdued protagonist, more of a focus character while a pretty eclectic ensemble cast swirls around him. What makes it feel inauthentic? And thank you for the compliment on the prose.
Are there any resources out there for determining the syllable stresses of words? I've tried saying it out loud but cross referencing that with ai answers has lead me to feel like I either talk in a very strange manner or that the robots don't know what the fuck they're talking about or probably both.
>>25107039if you need a title for you novel: cigawettes
>>25107039>>25107051this is good; you can write.it could probably use 'modern' pacing, and i see what you're doing but i wish they were interacting more w/ the setting.re: pacing. i didn't really see catch the hook, you just jab us a few times with mention of the job. a few of the paragraphs were redundant, and weren't moving things along.
>>25107165howmanysyllables.com
@25106173>meme buzzwordstry getting creative next time
>>25106782It's the #1 person
>>25106247What a terrible place to attract users that'll give "quality feedback and help others improve"
>>25107051>It was a dark and stormy night. A stormy stormy night. So stormy. Holy shit, the stormyness, you wouldnt believe it. Did I mention how stormy it was? Allow me to reiterate: the night was indeed very stormy. And there was much water, as storms often have. All joking aside, more description does not make better description. Anyone can describe something for a long long time. It's not impressive. Be more concise and try to start a story with a character, or something that isnt description of a sky.
>>25107247Thank you for the kind words and feedback. Sometimes it feels like I can only write well constructed boring text. As far as hook, no, its not explicitly in the first section. But the second segment introduces the city at large, another key character, and lays out the 'job' and emotional stakes. Then the third and fourth segments introduce the rest of the main characters and the finer details of the situation. There's an ensemble cast of characters and I wanted a very slow roll so the reader isn't overwhelmed by a half dozen characters and plot points. But in the first dozen pages the entire story and crew are laid out. This probably comes from the fact that I favor the pacing of older movies. Like how in Alien, The Alien doesn't even show up until well into the movie. If I can be a crotchety old grump, 'modern' pacing feels like it's catering to readers who have burned out dopamine receptors. Like if you want to know what happens in a book, read it! I know, old man yells at clouds.
LLMs are such fucking garbage, you are a drooling retard if you let them influence your writing
>>25107613If that were true then what reason is there to seethe about it?
>>25107613I love LLMs. They provide sentences and words you have forgotten about or tell you a better word to use. Sometimes LLMs can make your writing more accessible
For some reason, I thought it was a good day to reflect on the older versions of characters I've made and to compare them with the current ones. Ended up writing 1k+ words about it, I could have done 2k if I went into spoilers for my story, but I didn't want to do that just incase. No I'm not publishing it until after the story is done, thanks for asking.
>>25107747Nobody cares about your mental masturbation fuck off
>>25107863I think it's good to reflect to see if there are any holes to fill.
Please rate. My first attempt at neo-noire sci-fi/cyberpunk. Very new to writing in this genre. Find it almost impossible to do without just aping Gibson. But that's how a lot of people seem to exist in this genre.
>>25106722>>25106012>>25106006Nigga just replied to himself?
>>25107884You need more metaphors. MC need to be more hard-boiled.
People don't really like fantasy, do they? And I include sci-fi here. What was the last true big high fantasy hit? Lord of the Rings? Because Game of Thrones: low fantasy, it's basically just an European medieval soap opera. Harry Potter? English board school mystery, magic actually plays a very small role (Harry doesn't use a single spell in the first book). What else? Sci-fi is dead. So that's it, if you're writing something weirdly creative and different, chances are no one will read it. People like what they already know, weirdly enough.
>>25108053Genuinely great. Very rich and punchy prose. My only two bits of feedback to give is that final sentence being one giant run-on and the syrup > Virginia metaphor being convoluted.
>>25107921Not sure whether to take that as sarcasm as I already thought I was over-indulging on the metaphors and needed to cut back.
>>25108053Very philosophical. Clear prose and very interesting. I hope you expand on your essay
>>25108066nta, but yeah, you overdo it at the end, but the beginnning and middle is very good
>>25108060Thanks for the feedback. Agree on both points, will work it out.>>25108067Thanks it’s only a few pages. There are around 20 passages of varying length and topic. I have one about the importance of nourishing people in your own community that I might turn into an actual essay, though.
I hope you niggas can understand when she is thinking and when she is speaking without the italics bcs the converter didnt work it
>>25105991Im person aboveAnd this shit fucking sucks, its way to clique. And doesnt show, and only tells.>>25108053This is better but not fun to read, theres too many odd word starters, and overall its too clunky, for advanced readers im sure it is great, but I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to read a entire book of it. And guessing how much you have written, it goes both ways
>>25108060>>25108067Get a life stop trolling
You can't do anything right! Give me that. She steps into my space and grabs the vacuum cleaner out my hand and turns it on. I watch her as she furiously goes over the entire living room as if I didn't just... ah who gives a fuck. Throwing up my hands I walk to the hallway, grab my jacket and my smokes and walk to the backdoor. "Stupid cunt" I mutter, cigarette on my lip.I tap my pockets looking for my lighter. "crap, I left it inside."My shoulders tense as I put my hand on the door handle and pause. "Forget it" taking the cigarette out my mouth and walking to the back gate, I slip the cigarette behind my ear.As soon as I step out and close the gate behind me it is like a weight dropped off my back."Hey there neighbor! Going for a smoke?" I dont talk to my neighbors much let alone this smiley faced fucker. He isnt a bad guy, but I dont even know his name. Lived here all my life and I still don't know more than two names in the whole street and one of them is my childhood friend."Oh yeah, no, got no lighter." I say holding up my empty hands.He doesnt say it, but he knows. Instead he jokes "Rub your hands together." "What? Ah jeez man haha, ok, ok. I gotta get goin' it's nice seeing ya!" I wave and head down to the usual spot, past the pond and the "Yes man" an old fountain with a busted head that moves up and down like it's nodding.Who named it that? No idea, I just know it was always called the Yes man. My friend told me one of the older boys in the neighborhood had gotten his hand on an old grenade his dad owned and decided it was a good idea to see if it still worked.Pretty sure it's bullshit, but it's a good story nonetheless.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wrote this just now in 10 minutes or so, figured if I am not going to post my own stuff, might as well use this place for practice.
>>25108271it's funny
>>25108276thanks :D
>>25107627You retards can't even come up with a coherent argument. LLMs have rotted your brains.>>25107705Use a thesaurus retard
>>25108289Calling AI fucking garbage and people drooling retards isn't an argument. What's rotted your brain if not AI?
>>25108298I'm right
>>25108305Then why can't you form a coherent argument to support it?
>>25108031Fantasy is huge right now, you dork. Some of the biggest books right now are about girls getting abducted and fucked by fairies, and a gender bent Eragon where the main charcter gets raped by dragon riders at Dragonwarts school of witchcraft and dragon riding. That Minotaur Milking Farm book has thousands of reviews. Some of the biggest anime right now is Friren, and the other is a DnD cooking show. And then there's the isekai web novel slop endlessly copying each other. Now is any of this shit any good? That's neither here nor there. But saying people dont like fantasy is irrevocably false.
>>25108370None of them are fantasy. Frieren is ultimately not about fantasy either.
>>25107884Ludicrously cliche. The style and ideas are the problem. You're not just aping noir fiction, you're aping the apists who were aping 50 years ago for laughs. This is a Police Squad script without the jokes>>25108031Fantasy is declining (presumably as young male readers peel off), but it's not out.>At the genre level, romance remains one of the most commercially resilient categories in the print market, reinforcing its central role within the novel market, even as demand patterns shift across speculative segments. Publishers Weekly’s report in January 2026 noted that in 2025, U.S. romance category sales rose 3.9% to nearly 44 million units, underscoring the scale of reader demand for emotionally driven commercial fiction in the novel market. By contrast, fantasy sales declined 8.7% to 24.1 million units, showing that category performance is increasingly uneven and shaped by viral cycles, adaptation success, and reader community behavior rather than broad-based genre expansion. These dynamics are also influencing illustrated editions and crossover formats connected to the photographers market.
>>25108517What if I told you that the story is actually about an actor who brainwashed himself into thinking he's a neo-noire detective and the plot revolves mostly around his mental breakdown as his agency tries to cover it up and he tries to solve the case of his (made up character's) disappearance.There'd be a second POV character following the "janitor" from the agency trying to catch the actor and clean up loose ends.Is this a salvageable idea or should I just go back to the drawing board.
>>25108053Ideologically sloppy sheltered-youth writing, akin to Eliot Rodger. The whole world is out to get you, isn't it? You're a dear, sensitive young man who deserves the world, don't you? Don't you? Get a new idea. "The world makes me so ANGRY sometimes" doesn't cut it, hothead.
>>25108525Idk who that is and no, I’m not angry. Nice try, though. Was just having fun writing something I normally wouldn’t, it helps to loosen up for the better projects.
>>25108151Cut the fat from these similar-sized paragraphs and simplify what you're trying to express here. Fewer ideas, more detail put into each individual idea. Encompass what the reader is supposed to experience, rather than individual bits on the ship. Also a suspicious lack of crewmates.
>>25108523If it's supposed to register as comic then go all out. If it's not supposed to register as comic, you've got to slash those cliches.
How many stories have you anons made so far as a writer?
What's a good way to make money writing erotica?
>>25108558Fanfic counts?
>>25108592Yeah unfortunately but preferably I would like to hear actual novel,comic,manga stories you guys made
>>25108602You guys have unreasonable prejudice against fanfics. They might not be well written, but they're written at least.
>>25108606Well I was under the impression that some of you might have made a novel or two since this board is full of countless threads of people talking about their favorite novels plus this place is less retarded than /pol/
>>25108614>this place is less retarded than /pol/No there's way more unironic commies
>>25108614I have 3 and a 4th one I'm hoping to get trad published. Not looking good though
>>25108624What are they about?>>25108617I know that but at least it isn't a constant shitfest compare to /pol/
>>251086301. A lonely sad man coming of age story with a robot2. A Chinaman, a Dixie, and a Yankee finding their own American Dream3. A fantasy story about a cop trying to discover the whereabouts of her lost companions
>>25108645Not bad
>>25108542Sus
>>25108645And the 4th?
>>251086452nd one has some meat on the bones if its reconstruction america era
>>25108357You might not like it, but what I posted are facts.
>>25108558I've lost count but it's somewhere in the double digits
>>25108606Fanfiction is *literally* against /lit/'s rules because you autists would dominate the board if you were allowed to
>>25108645>can't stick to one primary genreHave fun not getting publishedIKTF
>>25108781But the world needs to experience my To Kill a Mockingbird continuation about time traveling lesbians.
>>25108781Fanfic belongs on /lit/
>>25108784I didn't know about this restriction until I wrote my 3rd. Publishers also like first time authors and debuts.
>>25109004This is fanfiction of IRL history and against the rules to post
>>25109011It's weird because you'll also hear people saying that anything that sticks to one genre is flat and boring, that you're supposed to mix genres to keep things interesting.As for debuts I believe what publishers want most is someone who makes money so it's not that you didn't publish traditionally first but that your self-published stuff didn't make money that's dissuading them.
Got feedback and it's reminding me of the post ITT mentioning them complaining about stuff missing while it's right there in front of them. In my case they said the protagonist lacks an internal struggle when making a certain major decision. Except they do struggle with it, and this struggle is made clear in the text. Also said was that the stakes of this decision aren't clearly defined. But... they are.Another critique was that it's not clearly conveyed that I'm writing 3rd omniscient when the entierty of the opening isn't even arguably 3rd limited.Starting to think feedback is entirely worthless after you've put your 10K hours of practice in.
I have been over my novel something like 5 times now, as in finished five drafts from start to finish editing sections repeatedly until they seem right. It takes me months to do each iteration it but it's getting faster. I did 20k words in four days recently (I only write part time). Every time I go back over it I still change a lot. Will it ever end? I have only edited prose for the past two drafts.
>>25109019That makes sense.
>>25108686Victoria
>>25109233Do you know why you're making the edits? Or are you just rewriting everything in the hopes it gets better? Because if you know you're making changes to fix X, and X is then fixed, you should be quickly reaching an end.
How do I make sure I'm not writing uncslop?
>>25109482you dont
>>25109233For me there are two kinds of revision and it sounds like you're trying to do them both simultaneously.There is "while writing" revision where you go fix a plot hole or add foreshadowing or tweak a line that's never sat right. You avoid big structural change at this point just little polish and additions.The 'omg kill me' revision step should only be done when the first draft is done imo. This is where you gut things and rewrite whole sections and murder chapters.By doing big revision during the writing process you're diverting attention from writing itself and honestly it's a waste of time you don't even know what you should revise towards because the story is still being created.
>>25109519>can't figure out what sections need to be rewritten>don't know what to cutHelp
>>25109538Focus on cutting first. When starting big revision I like to save my og draft, and then spend a few days slaughterint every line and passage that doesn't drive the story forward. Be ruthless and even go overboard.Once you have a "bare minimum" cut set it aside for a week write something else, then go back and read the minimal cut and see where it needs more (more info more flavor, a relax in pace) and add things back from the original sparingly. As you read, note or fix things you don't like.Beyond that, beta readers or a writers critique group.
Do you guys have whiteboard?
>>25109630If you mean *a* whiteboard then no, I pantsIf you mean some kind of software I've never heard of, also no, all I need is a text processor no fancy gimmicks needed
>>25109690No I mean a whiteboard yeah, where you can write down your ideas with arrows and shit.
>>25109630i've considered getting one, but unrelated to writing
>>25109710>schizoboardingNo I can turn the apple in my mind
>>25109630it's called a blackboard you fucking racist.White man can't leave nothing for the black man.shiiiiieeeeet
>>25105180>No. That won't do. We need a story that references Christyes. pretentious fart sniffing only will do for /wg/
the end
>>25110018>the endyep
>>25106545>implying I wasn't baiting for a "what!? that sounds crazy! post excerpt" so I could pretend to be reluctant and be like "o-okay, if you insist... n-not that I wanted to post excerpt or anything, y-you baka..." and then you call me a faggot and then I kill myself again
>>25106478what!? that sounds crazy! post excerpt
I was planning a story split into 5 parts with 5 POV but I've done it too clumsily. First part has two POV because I was worried that one single character to follow around would bore the reader (even though it's the shortest part anyway, and). Then part 2 had 3 POV, 4 on part 3 and on part 4 I had to take a break and not plan any new POV. It's so unelegant. Especially since I've noticed that I can absolutely shift events that I had planned in part 1 to happen in part 2.The funny thing is that I had planned one character to be a deutagonist, at some point early on he was the one with the very first POV, and now his views on event have been pushed all the way to part 4, though he's introduced pretty early on.
>>25110077Well now I don't feel like it...
>>25106478Whoah holy smokes that sounds completely WHACKO SMACKO. Please post the excerpt!
Wrote this randomly in the middle of the night.Why has a tiger not torn me apart? As I lay on this sofa and read a book I ask myself that. I am safe and there are no tigers anywhere in my general vicinity. As far as I’m aware they can not be found anywhere close to this region where I live. I have however recently watched a documentary about workers somewhere in India or Southeast Asia, I can’t remember exactly where, who when they go out to work, wear masks that they attach to the backs of their heads. They did this so that when a tiger approached them from behind it would hesitate thinking that they were staring at it. Some would still occasionally get attacked and killed by them. What makes me different from this person that is being torn apart by a wild and savage animal? Is there something that dictates that I should lay on a sofa and relax while someone else loses their life? I thought of that and many other things until I sensed a presence behind my back and as I turned around a great big monstrosity stared at me with small and sharp eyes. It stretched as long as my entire living room and in a moment it opened its jaw wide and it pierced my shoulder and neck with its teeth and clenched its grip rigidly so that I couldn’t move at all. I tried to do something but I was like a helpless animal spazzing out and flailing my arms and legs until I stopped completely still, and then did the same futile action again. It held me in place so firmly that all I could do was slowly tire out and bleed to death. I thought of that as I lay in bed and read a book. It made me think that there was nothing special about somebody’s individual existence and that it was a matter of chance as to who gets to lay on their sofa and who gets to be torn apart by a tiger. It makes no sense that it would be divinely ordained and that there is a rhyme and reason for these events. It seems like pure luck and nothing more. I am wasting my existence laying here and I need to go out there and get torn apart by a tiger.
>The Gemini/Chatgpt's sycophancy ends up with them defending the villain of the story and all of his motivations thinking I support his beliefsLol
The man farted. “I farted,” said the man.
>>25110279>depressionslop
How do I make sure that the reader appreciates that the one torturing and murdering the family of a reformed villain is the good guy?
>>25108558I wrote over 30 short story smuts, but I'm still making my 1 big beautiful novel.
>>25110465How am I supposed to interpret this comment?Do you dislike it?
>>2511080190% of what you find in this general is about a depressed character contemplating suicide.
>>2511080990% is literally fantasy stories. for all the people on this board who pretend to read literature, none of them are in this thread.
>>25110827So fantasies about characters wanting to kill themselves … using magic?
>>25110801It's melodramatic. He doens't like it.
>>25110840But did he not like it because it’s melodramatic or were those unrelated statements?
what text editors do you guys use when writing? anything good out there for writers ?or do you just use a basic note pad or word like piece of software and worry about formatting etc later?
>>25110018Wtf but still made me feel something
Hey anons, been trying to practice by just knocking out a fun sword and sorcery romp, any feedback from this small opening snippet?>>25108053I liked this, its overwrought and depression rambleslop but I like the imagery and tone. It gave me a Spike Lee feeling, like how everyone in his films is hot, uncomfortable, and moments away from exploding
>>25111130Microsoft word
>>25111130Pen and paper.
When planning your story, do you take in consideration things hard to adapt to TV like full metallic robots or super weird buildings?
>>25111224This has some good pieces in it, especially liked the ‘wet ground sucking at their limbs’ so I’m going to steal that and make a note in my foreword that I stole it from you on here.I think you get a little too convoluted with things that could be described normally. And could edit some words out. Like left already implied to the side then you added flank and it sounds redundant and ruins the flow of the scene. I would remove flank, then remove the and before describing the next two characters being to the right.Using Gwylltaeth immediately like this, I can contextualize what it means but just feels unnecessary. You could explain what a Gwylltaeth is later when world building and just use something like squad or troop for this initial section.You could probably find a clever way to combine the two sentences about smoke at the beginning of the next paragraph as well to keep the pace better.No critiques for the rest of it besides ‘they traveled like that’ could be ‘like this’ instead. Good stuff
>>25111130scrivener is good
>>25110831You might be onto something here..
>>25111341Arigato anon, very hard to go over and over everything I've read and catch all the unnecessary wordiness I throw inGlad you like it!
>>25111236bro isn't even published and he's worried about the adaptation
What if nobody reads my novel?
>>25111540Don't worry, they won't.
>>25111540Worry, they will.
But the old man didn’t just fart. Watery brown shit dribbled down the back of his pants and left smelly streaks behind him. Children danced around the old man, pointing and laughing. “That old man shit himself,” they teased.
>>25111870Get a life
>>25111876No u
>>25111870Calm down, George.
>>25111224>sun [...] painting the skyOverdone metaphor, do something else
>>25111508Luck favors the prepared.
How do you deal with conflict against the main antagonist in your stories? How to walk that line between making evil enough for the protagonist to care but not enough as to be cartoonish?
>>25112026I’ll prepare your ass for my dick, faggot.
>>25111224This is good, aside from some minor polishing and editing. I’m intrigued and would like to read more
Late to the party. I know you guys will hate it. It's beginning and end of a chapter.
Rate my flash fiction:>Once a shaman came to me for wisdom. His shaman wife had told him she would leave him, unless he grew wiser. I asked the shaman, “Do you love your wife?” >“Yes, of course I love my wife,” said the shaman in response.>It was at this moment that it became clear to me: the shaman did indeed love his wife.>I decided to help the shaman in becoming a wiser man. “How old is your son?” I asked him. The shaman, now with furrowed eyebrows, said “I don’t have any sons, we only have sex with her on top.” This gave me pause, and I wondered if he had outwitted me, or if he was blessed with divine purpose. This was not a man in need. I sent the shaman, who we’ll call Steve, away, with the wisdom he both sought and came with.
>>25111130OpenOffice>>25108151The first speech ("I am sitting on etc"), doesn't have rhytm, try dividing it in two. People don't speak in such long sentences, especially when talking to themselves. Otherwise agree with the previous guy who responded to you.>>25105991Idk, starting with question like that evokes in me that 'You sure are wondering how I got here, huh?" meme. And I, personally, would cut down to response to simple "I would choose to die," or something similar the rest of the words in the "response paragraph" drowns the message of it.>>25108053Strong opening sentence, but the rest is overwritten and edgy, the opening sentence prepared me for a comedy, and I got manifesto. "Letting them in, letting them close, letting them close" - pick one, it's all the same.I am >>25112312 (since I replied to others I surely deserve others to reply to my excerpt :) )
>>25111130vim + goyo
>>25112375>>25112312It's bad. You do not have the appropriate amount of shame for how bad it is.
What do do you do when you've set up a story... characters, a setting, a start to the plot... but then you have no idea what to do next with it?
>>25112317I didn't understand. Can't rate it, sorry.
>>25112986 Nobody here knows. We don't actually write.
>>25112989Well...... shit
>>25112986You had nothing to say, and you thought that if maybe you came up with characters, a setting, and a start of a plot, suddenly, magically, you would? /wg/ cannot create depth within you.
>>25113016CorrectI have other stories in the works where I have things to say. But this one just kind of came to me as an idea for a situation... so I set it up, and now idk what's next.
Hi, first time posting. It seems like everyone's posting the first page of their book, so could you guys review page 344 (the last one) of mine, instead?>>25112312The first paragraph was nice. The second descripting the environment felt like o.k. filler. The third one you completely lost me. Way to many 'she her' going on, i notice you underlined them all, which probably means you're aware of this and you're trying to tell us who is who, but you need to totally redo this. use their names more. combine sentences and re-arrange them so you need to refer to people less. I CAN parse this if i really needed to, but if i opened a book and read this, i would close it.next paragraph, i'm confused. They don't know why she died, but they say it was a good death? How does he know it's a good death, then? Is he commenting on some other aspect of the death? The location of her body? I don't get it.Next paragraph as a lot more 'and then she x and then she y and when z happened she did w and then-' and i just do not care.At this point I don't want to read more.>>25111224first thing i notice is 'far ancient to even the people of Catthak'. It's far ancient to them? Do you mean it's 'far too ancient for them to remember', or do you mean 'far older than the people', or what? and if it's too old for the people of Catthak, why do we give a shit about the people of Catthak, who will presumably not appear in this story, since they don't know what the fuck is going on in it? It kind of feels to me like you just wanted to say 'so old that some dudes dont know it' but didnt have a reason to.Normally I'd say that it's a trivial typo but the first line NEEDS to hook people.The first paragraph after that is good, though. I like the boys, they're going through yellow seeds. I see it, I get it.I'm not sure how they can be going 'only' by the light of the moon if the sun is creeping up. I assume that both would be providing light, but, you know, whatever.The words you're using are great. Like some other anon said, I love 'wet ground sucking at their limbs', and I REALLY like 'stretched out their aching bodies, joints crackling like dry wood'. You've got some very vivid description in here.The dialogue seems reasonably solid although there's not enough of it to really judge.
does this seem too heavy handed, in terms of stating things too obviously rather than showing them? pls ignore the repetition of words, it's a rough draft and at the end of the writing I did today so my brain was running on fumes by that point
>>25112312milquetoast. you probably use the ceiling light in all the rooms in your house with 6500 color bulbs.
>>25111957Overdone doesn’t mean ineffective, not every sentence needs to be wrought anew to the reader.
I give up writing. Nobody will ever read my shit, my prose is garbage, and I'll never improve to the point where anything I write would be worth reading.
>>25113257Another /wg/ success story. Thank you for sharing
what makes an interesting story?
>>25113315a good story
>>25113315gay rape
i had to spend a couple of days making an author website just so i could claim my goodreads author account. do you guys all have author websites?
>>25113315I've read in multiple places, from multiple perspectives, that a story should somehow be about the most important moment in the main character's life... so far.
I can only write female protagonists, what's the cause of this? It makes me insecure given our day and age but male protagonists, unless very specific to a point I don't wanna reveal here it's all female. Contemporary, short stories, science fiction, whatever.I'm gonna get mocked....
>>25113370How gay?
>>25113528it depends on the story, but enough to be hot without being gratuitous. maybe once per paragraph
>>25113315>>25113370>>25113528Just as his cock slid out of the young man's previously virgin ass, the next man lined up his disgusting unwashed dick. NO MORE! he begged, but rather than mercy he was beaten more. Shut the fuck up bitch! one of the Warden's said to Arthur Fleck the main character of the Joker movies played by Joking Phoenix.Shut your faggot mouth up or we will let the prisoners have a go, sweet cheeks.
>>25113315Conflict. It's conflict.
>>25113795I’m gonna flict your con
>>25113437>>25113795Formulaic writing
>>25113963Sorry, anon, but your novel about a depressed, unemployed 30-something man isn't that interesting.
>>25113966Confederacy of Dunces is extremely intresting though
>publisher asks me to write a flash for themI did it bros. We're all gonna make it.
my short story is free until March 3rd if you guys are boredhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQHKJPYP/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=2480QFADIDR9W&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ChXPTqlJGp9bHI3EYhPrYg.2GNxmPMABdMaBrF24XTnhIaEexnqMGcXH32DAl1uGFc&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+chemical+divorce&qid=1772212709&s=digital-text&sprefix=the+chemical+divor%2Cdigital-text%2C3812&sr=1-1#featureBulletsAndDetailBullets_feature_div
>>25113483ahem i require advice
>>25113483>>25114132I don't know. Are you a woman? In my experience, I tend to write female characters wrong since I tend to give them intelligent and honorable characteristics rarely found in real women. Perhaps you fear something like that towards male characters. It's a real issue.
>>25114138incel post
By the time the old man returned home, he’d been mocked by half the town for wearing poopoo pants. He was humiliated and disgusted. He tore off his belt and let the pants, crusty and stained, fall around his feet. He then stepped out of them and pulled off his shoes. “I’ll show them,” the old man said to himself. He crossed the foyer into his kitchen, fumbling with his boxers as he did. He recalled every woman who had wrinkled her nose at his odor and each man that had yelled “get a diaper old man” on his way home. When he flung his underwear, which felt like it was sodden with mud, into the waste bin it fell over. “I’ll teach you a lesson, too,” the old man yelled. He began savagely beating the plastic bin. Garbage spread across the floor as the bin fell apart under his blows. In the end, he was left tired, half naked, and lying on a floor littered with shit and garbage. “I’ll kill the world.”
>>25106099Pretty good. The plot threads feel kind of all over the place. The schizophrenia thing feels a bit over the top and abrupt. She gets too scared too quickly. Needs to build more slowly, maybe.But on the whole it's good stuff.
>>25114253Thanks. It's a short, so everything's got to go fast, but yeah I'll try to pull it all together by the end.Also, side question: would you prefer the pages be arranged down and then left, or right, and then down?
>>25113165Not so much. You could remove the "awakened beast" part related to the train. It feels unnecessary. Your writing is very similar to mine, and some parts feel impersonal even though you're narrating from the POV of the character. Let me illustrate:>"Of the terrible things they had done that night, drunk on the power of piloting what felt like god-machines."You could instead write:>"Of the terrible things they had done that night, when they piloted the god-machines."The difference here is that in the first you're trying to describe the characters feelings, in the second the character is pouring them out. The reader will understand he reveres that machine to the point of gods, even if they don't understand what they are yet. Being drunk on their power is implicit but understood. You could add even more character to the phrase if you want.
>>25114287that's a good point, ty anon. I felt that part was a bit clunky, I'm definitely going to clean things up on the first pass to make it sound less autistic
>>25114300You could rewrite the pondering about Kerri and Gwion too. Instead of voicing "Was it a petty attempt at punishing their love? Was it a way to be close to her again?" Let the reader ask that. Generally just trust the reader more. If this character is thinking about a decades-old flame, it's clear it's an open wound for him. And through his action let the reader infer his feelings ans intentions.
https://youtu.be/thKjvF1dZQY
>>25114309yeah, I felt that that would be better in subtext but I have a very low trust not necessarily in the reader to pickup on subtext, but rather my ability to construct text that properly conveys the intended subtext
>>25114059>B0GQHKJPYPfriend, you don't need anything after that part
>>25114617
>>25114625Just read the sample and I will not be buying even for $0.00.
>>25114634Looked alright to me. I was thinking of giving it a go later.
>>25114634what did you not like, I'm planning to fix some stuff and update the document in a couple weeks
What makes someone read a book? A Game of Thrones by GRRM is a really good book, I enjoyed most if not all of it, but George went out to an empty signing night after the book came out. Nobody read it then. So what? What makes someone pick up a book? Quality seems to play a small part only.
>>25114655read Bakker
>>25105772Yeah there is, it's called charisma
>>25114730Waking life charisma doesn't necessarily translate to written text. Even if it did, you could be the most charming fuckface in the world, if you've got nothing interesting worth experiencing your book won't be good.
>>25114655>A Game of Thrones by GRRM is a really good bookThis except only ironically
>>25114617Why does the long river company pack so much extra info into their links? Is it to track us?
>>25114059>The Chemical Divorce>Forced underground by the firebombing of Dresden during World War II, balding doorkeeper Otto Thorne attempts to summon the devil and ask him to protect his chapel.The cover looks neat, I'll order it "anon" (aka Frank Z)
>>25114795It's for referral tracking. They can see who shared that link, where it was posted, and who followed it. Amazon is a major provider of web services and so allocates a lot of information like this at industrial scales which it almost certainly sells as a broker, provides as a service through advertising analytics, and one can only assume gives freely to government agencies.
i am insecure about my autistic mars vs earth thing...people already have the expanse...im insecure and afraid
>>25114813How can I reverse engineer such links to find out anon's full legal name and home address?
>>25114814Just change the names to Earth vs. [gibberish]. Boom, free original idea for you.
>>25114810thank you. feel free to leave feedback or a review because I read literally every single one and make changes. there are magical realist elements, and it's very difficult for me to know exactly how much needs to be explained
>>25114814It all depends on how you write, no? Will you completely ape the Expanse with the hard sci-fi and muh world gov?
>>25114655>What makes someone read a book?1. Their fetishes are tagged2. Cover looks good3. Summar/blurb is interesting4. They have to for some social obligation5. They follow the series/author
>>25114830>I literally read every single one and make changesprotip: once someone orders your book, it works like as if they'd bought as physical copy in that their download will be the original version of the file you sent even if you update the ebook edition later. i.e., anyone who orders your books now won't ever see your """improvements"""Not sure why you're publishing something that you're still working on.
>>25112029Just make them cartoonish. If real life has taught us anything, it's that villains aren't cartoonish enough.
>>25114840I thought a few beats were too wordy and wanted to fix some unnecessary word wrap, nothing too major
>>25112029My book has more like an antagonistic force generated within the protagonist which is gotten over at the end.
I guess I literally won't know if this character lives or not until I write the ending
>>25114841dude, DAE blormpf??
>>25114845Based Pantser
>>25114834Well thats where the problem lies. I like hard sci fi so it's a given I write and like writing hard sci fi. It's a different focus though, and Earth stuff really isnt my area of interest.
>>25105772>Crazy revelation right here: there's no simple secret ingredient that'll automatically make your writing interestingNah. Time bomb.
>>25114841>>25114843I planning a story in which the antagonists are not outright acting with evil purposes, but follow through because of a plan. I realize it's not exactly rare, but I'm finding it hard to keep the protagonist engaged in the conflict with them.
>>25114824You would have to access and exfil extraordinary amounts of data from their servers to connect the dots between needles in a haystack. Not practical. Targeted phishing against the individual to gain access to their KDP account would be the way to handle it in the real world. There's a very real chance public facing AI might be able to deanonymize them with stastical analysis if they have social media for both themselves and their pen name. Just a word to the wise.
>>25114854>there's a chance of word guessing programs doing anything worthwhile anytime ever based agent
>>25114850what are some good hard sci Fi books you've read latelyI read Learning To Be Me and really liked it, it's a short story though
>>25114852>hard to keep the protagonist engagedthis makes it sound like your story is so boring even the protagonist isn't into it
>>25114857Being too dense or stubborn to understand how they can be useful doesn't have any effect on their usefulness.
>>25114860Oh I am all about Egan, nice. Love that story. But get into his stranger stuff, haven't read the new books. Check out Infinite Assassin by egan as well. his best of book. What have you read by him? he's my top 1 sci fi guyI was reading some stross, glasshouse but i rarely come to 4chan these days so im not sure 4chan type of people would be ok with that, if not check out accelerando first, if you havent for some reason, its a classic but eh...average. No one does it better than greg.
>>25114864Yes, I realize that's an issue. Maybe what I need is a strong hook to shake the characters and get them to act.
>>25114842Not sure how many major changes you can make it an edition before they're like no, you have to publish a new one. My book had a couple of minor grammatical errors they let me fix
>>25114865spreading fake news about their usefulness doesn't make them useful
>>25114876You can have an opinion after you've replicated their research.https://arxiv.org/html/2602.16800v2
>>25114867Hooks are for openings. Was your protagonist never into your story at all? What have you been planning to write so far? Nothing?
>>25114178i need a continuation. please keep going.
>>25114883I want a something of an adventure, a journey until the protagonist learns the secret of the world. My question is how to set him down that path, and how to make the villains care to pursue or stop him. In LotR, Frodo had the Ring.
>>25114881>implying it's possible to replicate their research
>>25114860surface detail
>>25114890You'll never know, because you'll never try, because you're juuuust smart enough to know you're too dumb to do it
>>25113483half of my books are written with a female protagonist, although third person. i think it's a strength.
>>25114887Frodo was going to fucking die by Sauron army or something if he didn't destory the ring, he didn't have a secret to unearth. Sounds more like mystery than adventure. (mystery adventure?What makes your world secret so special and worth discovering?
>>25114895Dumb maybe but not as dumb as anyone swallowing ai hype slop in current year.
>>25114884>more! give me more mooorereaders are such pigs
>>25114786Charismatic people usually have something in their past that taught them how to manipulate others, it's just whether they're aware of their own trauma or not.And they can also use that charisma to just pump out qualityslop if they want to as wellNever trust a charismatic person btw
>>25114932>just pump out qualityslopYou're a fucking retard
>>25114907Dismissing things out of hand isn't any less dumb than believing unqualified rumor. Neither has anything to do with peer reviewed white papers proving the capabilities of AI. But if you really thought it was all "hype", there would be no reason this hate boner you're nursing. Most of the time, and maybe this is true in your case, those hate boners are the result of people feeling threatened by AI. I wouldn't blame you if you did feel that way, I'm sure your low self-esteem is well-earned. Meanwhile, real artists, those with talent who write for the sake of writing and not for fame, or wealth, to satiate their egos, or as vehicles for their mental illness, have no reason to nurse a hate boner or to feel threatened.
>>25114935>feel threatenedprojection
>>25114938Not at all, because I know that LLMs can't do what I do and there's a very high probability that they never will. I doubt that you can honestly say the same.
>>25114944lol you honestly think LLMs could replace any human writer ever. You're projecting hard bucko
>>25114850>>25114814Any advice?>>25114834True, the expanse is not the only one anyways. I just let myself get drawn to comparison and anxiety.
>>25114948Gotta make it unique somehow. That'll be the hard part, I suppose.
>>25114946I suspect people using AI absolutely can replace you, but I probably have a much stricter definition of human that I'm not certain you'd qualify under. I suspect you think you can be replaced too, otherwise there's would be no reason for this behavior.
How to better your prose? What exercises are there for it?
>>25108781banning fanfic is the reason why nobody talks about writing here
Is this a retarded way to develop ideas / write?>Think of an idea I cling to. Could be a singular moment, line of dialogue, or a general vibe of 'I wanna write something like X">Reverse engineer how I could get to that point, logically. As in, what actions need to take place>Then think, how to get to that end point emotionally, what needs to be emphasized or established in the scene non-literally to reach that end goal>Then, imagine each of these tiny moments you've planned to build up to the big one (whether it's the climax of a scene or just the impression you wanna give doesn't matter) -- imagine them sort of like comic panels in your mind, only write what is happening. No extra fluff. >Either narrate what is literally happening, give a literal description, or, narrate something as a sort of assertion from the narrator to add emphasis, a narrator's argument>i.e. X was doing Y vs. X was doing Y, one could only feel Z in such a moment <- argument>rinse repeat>scene
>>25115547Well, try it out and look at the result.
>>25115506>mfw I have a couple smut fanfics I'm proud of but can't ask anons's opinions hereSucks, really.
>>25115554it is what i do i just didnt know if it sounded dumb
Will I ever be as good as the masters?
>>25115750Lol no. You'll probably never even be as good as airport novel writers.
>>25116124Says the guy who's not even better than webnovel writers
>>25116532Objectively false.
Writers who don't read books: A Responsehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbZAakIN8QY
Why would people read YOUR book, anon?
please don't even pretend to speak down to me if you don't read. you would never stand a chance
There was a lone chair up here for some reason on the flight deck. The sky was clear but not too clear and the sun was out but its heat was not punishing, a small blessing of early springtime in Bro’Kinaba. It reminded her of “bliss”, Emma did quite enjoy the tranquility. That single chair signaled to her that it was meant solely for her, this moment right now was for her.How did the editor manage to remove the feeling from this
>Might be a bit convoluted or repetitive, but it's what I did just now.Enjoy.>>What is a father?I don’t know, I am not one.But I do know what my father is despite his flaws and cowardice.There is a kernel in me that is unbreakable, I used to think it was my mother’s temperament but it isn’t.There is an honesty, a kindness, a warmth, a willingness to forgive that is only allowed to exist because my father is a good man.Forget father, he is a good man. If you have no father and you meet good men, you will naturally gravitate toward that behavior and thinking.My father is a good man, he gave me that kernel like a grain of sand that forms a pearl.Now I am fucked up, but that kernel is strong. I may fuck up again and again, but the strength I derive from that tiny grain of sand is like an anchor that could have steered the Titanic clear from faith.My mother’s temperament, tenacity, isn’t bad, but without my father’s influence the willingness to let go and move on would have been missing and I would have certainly been in jail for one crime or another.A young male needs an older male to give him the rails to ride on, then teach him to make his own track and let him roll.Women don’t seem to have this ability.Some might, but even those that do are so unfamiliar with the male condition that they can’t see trouble until it arrives and then it is often too late.Simply put, a mother cannot create a man.She can try, but without a man, that boy she birthed will forever be without that kernel, that grain of sand.
I’ve decided to give up writing. The world doesn’t need anymore wannabe authors when it already has had its greats.
>>25117364," he said. Yet write he did.
>>25117366Fuck you, nigger.
